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Abstract
I was enthralled by the energy at the stadium. I was captivated by the visual choreography and visceral energy of fans chanting, jumping and shouting together. For me, the anonymous individuals at the stadium were the spectacle. In graduate school, I learned systematic approaches to research, but the tools of analysis never interested me as much as the thing itself – the social life that occurs in and around a stadium. My goal was to get to the heart of football fandom in Rome, plain and simple. Ultimately, I tried to conceptualize the culture, and wrap my findings into an academic narrative that expresses how important fandom is to the people in the stands. Football fandom is about passion that transcends rationality, and makes life more meaningful for those who partake. The question of how to articulate that phenomenon is an open one. This essay grapples with that question.
Notes
1. See, for example, Medhurst and Benson (Citation1991), for a view of the influence of media in Rhetorical Studies.
2. The Cultural Studies movement promoted this understanding of communication. In particular, Stuart Hall’s (Citation[1973] 1980) Encoding/Decoding altered the way that popular media texts would be studied.
3. See, for example, Askew and Wilk (Citation2002).
4. All that remains is the website: http://www.indiana.edu/~cmcl/.
5. Said (Citation1978) Orientalism is a widely acclaimed critique of academic racism.
6. I hesitate to use the term ‘Research Subject’ since it implies a position subordinate to the researcher. I would prefer terms such as co-conspirator, guide, participant, teacher, friend, host, allie, fan, or other terms that retain the agency of those being written about. At the same time, I must not overlook the fact that I am the one doing the writing about them, and that there is a power imbalance in that relationship, no matter how hard I might try to mitigate or hide it.
7. Miner’s (Citation1956) ‘Body Ritual’ critiques this power dynamic in a playful way.
8. Clifford’s ‘Writing Culture’ remains controversial in asserting the aesthetic and narrative elements of Anthropology.
9. These were usually middle class white students at a big public university who tended to talk more about schoolwork than theology, more about sports than Proust.
10. ‘Meaning of “culture”’. Cambridge English Dictionary. Accessed January 26, 2016.
11. Mariottini’s Ultràviolenza, recounts the death of Vincenzo Spagnolo, a casual fan who fatally stabbed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
12. Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead (Citation1928) were some of the first Anthropologists to grapple with this question. Mead emphasized the power of cultural expectations in her work, Coming of Age in Samoa.
13. Themes of reflexivity are spurred in part by Said. For a more recent example, see Devisch and Nyamnjoh (Citation2011).
14. I was, ‘un americano a Roma’ (an American in Rome), which is the title of a famous comedy starring Alberto Sordi, a young Roman man obsessed with American culture. I was basically the mirror image of Sordi’s character, an American obsessed with Italian culture.
15. It was always fun to be asked for directions by Italian visitor to Rome. Romans somehow had a sense to not ask me for directions.
16. Tim Parks (Citation2002), A Season with Verona tells his own tales of riding the bus.
17. I contacted Valerio on the advice of Ashley Green at the Progetto Ultrà, [Ultrà Project], an ultrà research and advocacy organization based in Bologna. Valerio died much too young from a heart attack in 2006. http://www.repubblica.it/2006/07/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/morte-valerio-marchi/morte-valerio-marchi/morte-valerio-marchi.html.
18. In a somewhat sad postscript, Cassano publicly took responsibility for ruining his own career because of his attitude. http://www.espnfc.us/story/1450693/inter-milans-antonio-cassano-admits-career-regrets.
19. Podaliri and Balestri’s (Citation1998) essay on the ultras is the place to start for a definition.
20. The website, ASRoma Ultras website, which is maintained by a lawyer, and advocate of the ultras, is a marvelous repository of A.S. Roma fan history. http://www.asromaultras.org/2000.html.
21. For an example, see http://www.corederoma.it/online/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/comunicato_sud09102015.jpg.
22. In comparison to the neighbourhood I spent part of my upbringing in Chicago, I would feel much safer in the Italian stadium, and my neighbourhood was hardly the worst.