Landscapes of tension, tribalism and toxicity: configuring a spatial politics of esport communities

ABSTRACT

Proliferation of esport has created a complex landscape of participants, communities, organisations and investors. With alluring lucrative economic, social and political incentives, the crowded esport commons have become a site of rich resource for varied interests, yet also a locale of idea sharing, community production, and collective action. Notwithstanding advantageous outcomes for some stakeholders, esport has also become a space of turbulent tribal relations, exclusion, marginalisation, and inequalities. Such issues precipitate the need for closer examination of esport spaces, relations within these communities, and the underlying ideological and moral conditions thereof. Drawing on spatial theory, and utilising data from 16 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus groups (n = 65) with key esport stakeholders, this research explored current experiences of identity and esport community membership. Our investigation focussed on esport and explored the ideological grounding, current practices and tensions present within esport communities.

KEYWORDS:

• esport
• community
• tribalism
• space
• toxicity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Colloquial term often used to describe the practices or behaviours of nerds, often consistent with notions of being a geek or extreme gamer (Urban Dictionary, 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emily Jane Hayday

Emily Hayday is aLecturer at Loughborough University London, based in the Institute for Sport Business. Her research specifically focuses on sport mega-events and legacy. During her PhD, she investigated the sport participation legacy and policy implementation processes undertaken within National Governing Bodies, undercovering the perceptions and attitudes of senior managers towards sports mega-events. Some of Emily’s additional research interests relate to the areas of esport and B2B sponsorship practices. A current study is exploring the possibility of esport to be used as a social development tool, by examining its communities and current practices of corporate social responsibility within the esport industry.

Holly Collison

Holly Collison is Lecturer at the Institute for Sport Business at Loughborough University London, UK. She is an anthropologist in the field of Sport for Development and Peace (SDP). Holly has completed extensive fieldwork in West and East Africa and South East Asia examining post-conflict development interventions and the use of sport. Her research explores youth identity, notions of community, international development, peacebuilding, social inclusion, and grassroots perspectives and experiences of SDP. She has recently been invited to participate in expert meetings for the United Nations on the topics of the ‘Sustainable Development Goals and the UN System’ (New York, 2018), and ‘The Use of Sport as an Educational Tool to Tackle Radicalisation and Violent Extremism’ (Vienna, 2018, 2019).

Geoffery Z. Kohe

Geoffery Z. Kohe is a Lecturer in Sport Management and Policy in the School of Sport & Exercise Sciences, University of Kent. His research focus on socio-cultural, historical and organisational aspects of sport, Olympic education legacies, and sport heritage and museology. His current projects have included sociology and policy-based research related to sport and physical activity participation, physical education and young people, and sport organisation and employee relations. Geoffery is co-author (with Dr Holly Collison) of Sport, Education and Corporatisation: Spaces of Connection, Contestation and Creativity (Routledge, 2019), and High Performance Disability Sport Coaching (with Professor Derek Peters), and the author of the centennial history of the New Zealand Olympic movement (NZOC, 2011).