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Newson (2017) Football, Fan Violence, and Identity Fusion
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Football, Fan Violence, and Identity Fusion
Football violence has been a global problem for decades. A new way to approach the
phenomenon comes from the theory of identity fusion, an extreme form of social
bonding implicated in personally costly pro-group behaviours. Using British and
Brazilian fan cultures to illustrate, this article discusses the ways in which identity
fusion can help understandings of football violence. While hooliganism in the UK and
the phenomenon of torcidas organizadas in Brazil operate under culturally distinct
loci, the fundamental cognition underlying the extreme behaviours exhibited by both
may be remarkably similar. Through this discussion, the football landscape is shown
to offer researchers unique opportunities for understanding culture and the human
psyche more broadly.
Keywords
Football violence; hooliganism; English football; Brazilian football; identity fusion;
inter-group conflict; crowd management
Newson (2017) Football, Fan Violence, and Identity Fusion
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Football fandom is a well-established social phenomenon and many of its associated
behaviours may be considered extreme, or indicative of high levels of group bonding
and loyalty. For example, fans travel long distances, invest large amounts of money
and time monitoring and participating in their teams’ events and often display visual
symbols of allegiance to their team, even lifelong and painful tattoos are not
uncommon. Furthermore, the extent of inter-group conflict between rival fan groups
is so commonplace that British football culture was once affectionately titled ‘the
English disease’, while death rates from football-related violence continue to rise in
Brazil (Murad, 2013; Raspaud and da Cunha Bastos, 2013). Fans are so heavily
invested in football that match results have even been associated with circulatory
disease death rates in men at both local and national levels (Kirkup and Merrick,
2003). This emotional, financial, and physical group commitment is particularly
curious when football support is compared to other regional leisure or entertainment
groups, such as the ballet or orchestras (Winegard and Deaner, 2010).
Football may lack an exegetic dimension and is not a self-conscious ritual but
these points do not diminish the power of the ritual arena to forge social interaction
and solidarity (Martyn and Taylor, 1997). Indeed, football matches constitute secular
rituals by transcending the normal to create a liminal space within which males hug,
kiss, and can enact a range of moods and emotions that are otherwise seen as
emotional or irrational (Harvey and Piotrowska, 2013; Turner, 1969). The
communitas generated by football crowd rituals allows for the formation of non-
contractual relations that are not constrained by locality (Anderson, 1983). These
‘neo-tribes’ provide fans with shared, community derived experiences, which are
potentially sought through a search for communitas (Maffesoli, 1996). Being enclosed
together – be it a football ground, pub, or outdoor viewing space - in the knowledge
Newson (2017) Football, Fan Violence, and Identity Fusion
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of their team’s and co-fans’ shared history, participants are simultaneously bound in
an appreciation for their side and against whatever confronts them (Maffesoli, 1996).
Here I use Brazilian and British football cultures to illustrate the utility of a
cognitive approach to understanding fan violence. Despite historically middle-upper
class roots in both Brazil and the UK, football has been coupled with the working
classes for most of its lifetime. Nevertheless, football is a national sport for both
nations, and the two are famed for a love of football. Each culture has a distinct
cultural history and I have been fortunate enough to conduct fieldwork and run online
studies in both. Football-related violence has been prominent in both cultures, albeit
at different points in their histories. The two were therefore selected as very different
societies with which to demonstrate a) the magnitude of football-related violence and
b) how such differences can shape violence via a key cognitive factor developed in
recent psychological research; identity fusion.
Territory: Football Firms and Torcidas Organizadas
Die-hard, violent supporter groups appear globally but are particularly fervent in
certain contexts: most of Europe, particularly Italy, the UK and across Eastern Europe
(Armstrong, 1998; Spaaij, 2006; Testa and Armstrong, 2010); some Australian cities
(Knijnik, 2014); parts of Asia (e.g. Indonesia and Malaysia); parts of Africa,
particularly the Arab world, e.g. Egypt (Tuastad, 2014); and Latin America (Brown,
2007; dos Reis et al., 2015). Brazilian and British football crowds are largely male;
the masculinity of football matches, and related violence particularly, has been noted
as key to how groups of fans construct themselves and interact (King, 1997a; 1997b).
While one is traditionally machismo, the other is traditionally noted as being
somewhat emotionally repressive – the former being ramped up by, the latter
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unleashed by, excessive match-day drinking. Organised fights between rival firms
may have once been popular in the UK, but modern fan violence is largely
spontaneous in the majority of contexts (Doidge and Lieser, 2017; King, 2002; Stott
et al., 2007).
In the two present contexts, groups of alcohol-fuelled men with collectively
combative outlooks are the steadfast at football matches, so it is perhaps little surprise
that football fans have gained an international reputation as ‘hooligans’. The use of
cocaine, certainly in the UK, further emboldens these ‘(hyper-)masculine’ identities
among violent members of football gangs (Ayres and Treadwell, 2012). The bulk of
the literature seems to avoid the complex, heterogeneous term ‘hooligan’, instead
using terms like ‘football-related violence’ or ‘football-related disorder’. Its
etymological roots date to a century prior to this, in Britain, meaning ‘gangs of rowdy
youths’ deriving from a notorious fighting London-Irish family name, ‘Houlihan’
(Pearson, 1983 in Dunning, 2000). It may refer to violence, arson, taunting songs, the
intention to fight, or a desire to be publically associated with groups with a reputation
for violence. Though it is true that football fans clearly fall on a spectrum, from mild
spectators to die-hard supporters, football violence is a global and persistent problem,
spanning at least three continents and five decades.
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In Brazil deaths from football-related violence have been steadily increasing1. The
costs to government spending on security are also significant. The UK, which is noted
for decreasing the culture of football hooliganism after decades of violence and
international bans, still spends over £7.5m on policing football matches each year
(Bridge, 2008). This is a figure representing just a fraction of the nation’s highest
performing league. For the sake of comparison, in Italy, a nation known for ‘ultras’,
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about €40m were spent annually on law enforcement officers for football matches in
the 1990s (De Biasi, 1997).
Football-related group violence is particularly prominent in Brazil, a country
with one of the highest homicide rates in the world (Steeves et al., 2015). For
instance, in Brazil, more people died as a result of fire-arm homicides than the
combined total of the 12 biggest armed conflicts in the entire world during the same
period, and two of every five Brazilian male aged 15-24 die as the result of a
homicide. As such, football-related violence is an acute threat to football fans in
Brazil. Not only does conflict within football take place against a backdrop of violent
inter-group clashes and gang violence, but deaths relating to football-conflicts
specifically have escalated in recent years: from 14 deaths 1999-2003 (a four year
period) to 14 deaths in just a year 2007-2008 (Murad, 2013; Raspaud and da Cunha
Bastos, 2013). As a result, Brazilian law dictates that in some cities opposing fans
cannot be seated together or even attend matches. Physical barriers alleviate some of
the football-violence tragedies, but they do not tackle the underlying mechanisms that
prompt such wide-scale conflict.
In the early 1990s the UK’s football hooliganism problem was internationally
recognised and reached crisis point, leading to widespread crowd management
interventions by both stadia and police. The legacy of Britain’s football violence
endures, forming a congruent part of pop-culture although the threat of physical
violence, far less actual death, has greatly diminished. Brazilian ‘hooligan’ (or torcida
organizada) culture took off in the 1980s, just as British football violence was
reaching its pinnacle, and remains a prominent feature of the football landscape
(Lopes, 2013). Torcidas organizadas translates as ‘organised fans’ and refers to fans
that are members of organised fan or supporter groups. These groups have a bad
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reputation for anti-social behaviour and violence. Violence among these groups is
often also internal, leading to a greater risk of fighting within stadia – though
Brazilian football matches are generally safe to attend. Torcidas organizadas may
also be related to territorial gangs. As cynical as one may be about corruption within
football in the UK, it is recognised as a much more salient feature of Brazilian
football with torcidas organizadas being subsidised by clubs (e.g. tickets exchanged
for intimidation of opponent fan groups or political opponents).
Perspectives on Fan Violence
Traditionally, sociological work suggests that violence within hooligan cultures is
actually more asserted by outsiders and is a construct propagated by the media and
politicians, rather than being a social scientific or social psychological concept
(Dunning et al., 1986). Though external factors may have an impact, the behaviours
associated with ‘hooligan’ cultures, as they are commonly known, are largely
accepted to stem from a British, working class variant in the 1960s. According to
Dunning, what actually distinguishes this subset of ‘hard-core fans’ is not just
involvement in an organised, violent group, but greater dedication to their team and
fellow fans, including more match attendance and a potentiality for low-level
violence.
In contrast to Dunning’s presentation of football hooliganism being a
universal phenomenon, Spaaij asserts that hooliganism, as a ‘new’ form of collective
violence (unlike general violence), is specifically European, Latin American and
somewhat Australian in nature (Spaaij, 2006). He proposes the following definition
of, which appears to hold true exclusively in the cultural contexts listed above:
‘[hooliganism is] the competitive violence of socially organized fan groups in
football, principally directed against opposing fan groups’ (p 18).
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There is sociological and anthropological evidence to suggest that at least
some football-related disorder is ritualised, and pertains more to the performance of
status and aggression, than actual conflict or violence. For instance, though football
deaths do occur, there tend to be minimal injuries in confrontations due to organised,
rule-led conflict (Marsh and Harré, 1978). Potter & Wetherell suggest that submissive
behaviours allow hostilities to end whilst maintaining both personal and group honour
through ritualised chases {Potter, 1987 #206. From an evolutionary perspective, this
kind of intra-sex conflict strategy is perhaps reminiscent of ritualised displays in other
species, e.g. rutting in stags. Potter & Wetherell argue that fans know that the
behaviour is unlikely to be truly dangerous, rather it reproduces media exaggerations
and maintains hooligan cultures as an exciting, yet safe, domain, which the authors
describe as a functional rhetoric. This may explain the behaviour of some ‘risk
supporters’, but does not explain its origins or why individuals actually find the
behaviour exciting or engaging in the first place.
Developing Potter & Wetherell’s argument about the media’s role in the
proliferation of football-related violence, there’s also the view from both Redhead and
Armstrong that hooligan culture, rather than posing a societal threat, is really a
reflection of mass media hysteria and a moral panic {Armstrong, 1998 #351;Redhead,
2008 #505}. However, football - once the English disease - is now more like ‘a cold
sore’, flaring up every so often and the moral panic account was established before
many modern supporters were even born (Ingle, 2013).
Marxist and class accounts for British hooligan culture are now widely
rejected (Dunning, 2000; Taylor, 1971; Taylor, 1987). Instead, two related
explanations tend to be favoured: first, the idea that football-related violence has a
negative impact on club finances, leading both clubs and fans to reduce such
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behaviours (Jewell et al., 2014). With the economic transformation of European
football toward the end of the last century, clubs have gained increased political
control of the game and, arguably, their fans (though there are clear exceptions, e.g.
Borussia Dortmund, Germany) (King, 2002; King, 2003). Second, the well-
documented correlation between improved stadia management and decreased reported
disorder {Cleland, 2015 #418). Stadia management techniques include seated stadia,
the use of turnstiles, more CCTV, and guards (but not necessarily police) lining the
pitch. However, the core elements of football hooliganism, and specifically inter-
group violence, still exist on the global stage. The next section considers current
manifestations of extreme fan cultures in the UK and Brazil, paying special attention
to violent outcomes.
Prosocial Cognition?
It seems unlikely that the fans engaged in these violent behaviours are engaging in a
safe ‘functional rhetoric’, to return to Potter & Wetherell. Although the observations
derived from sociological and anthropological research may be informative, few
address the psychological underpinnings of extreme fan violence or of inter-group
conflict. There are, in fact, many global examples of football fans engaging in
prosocial activities. In the UK, for instance, many volunteers who have worked on the
UK Premier League club Everton’s community branch since austerity measures were
introduced to the community in 2010 (Parnell et al., 2015). Furthermore, British fans
have been found to attack Islamaphobic comments when a Muslim player joins one’s
team (Middlesbrough) compared to defending Islamaphobic comments when one’s
fan base has been making Islamaphobic chants (Newcastle) (Millward, 2008). In
Brazil, youth fan groups (torcidas joven) holding demonstrations and protests in
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Brazil (de Hollanda and da Camara Teixeira, 2017). To what extent could the
cognition underlying fan violence be considered to have roots in prosociality?
Holistic theories of football-related violence certainly ought to address the
cognition underlying inter-group violence which, being group based, will necessarily
have a social element. Work on micro-sociological and social psychological group
processes has started to address this issue: be it considerable work on the Elaborated
Social Identity Model (ESIM) of Crowd Behaviour (Stott et al., 2007; Stott et al.,
2001); micro-analysis of social interaction and confrontation (Collins, 2009); or an
emphasis placed on interactions and external factors involving fans, fan groups, and
police (King, 2003), though King’s recent work on social cohesion in the military
may also be relevant to fusion approaches to football violence (King, 2015). An
example of best practice integrating interaction-based approaches with micro-
sociological techniques comes from research by Doidge and colleagues (Doidge,
2013; Doidge and Lieser, 2017).
The ESIM is particularly relevant here because it, like identity fusion, is
rooted in social identity theory. The ESIM has already been used to good effect to
understand the presence and absence of football violence. Specifically, the model
proposes that the ‘norms’ of hooligan behaviour are an outcome of participants’
shared social identity (Stott et al., 2008). As such, the model focuses on police force
in constructing ‘hooligan’ social identities, perceived legitimacy around violence, and
‘self-regulation’ among fan groups. The ESIM has strengths in explaining how
situational focuses contribute to hooliganism, e.g. group membership results in shared
norms around violence, but there are weaknesses when it comes to explaining
individual differences. For instance, why are some members of extreme fan groups
more violent than others?
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Fusion theory complements the extant literature by helping to address this gap
in the literature. A new body of research suggests that for some fans, football
generates a sense of belonging that connects self with others, and group with stadium
or territory (Newson et al., Under review; Newson et al., Accepted). This visceral
‘oneness’ with the group leads to extraordinary pro-group behaviours, the most
renowned of which is football violence, but which can also manifest in non-violent
altruism (e.g. charitable work), which is discussed toward the end of this article. To
investigate, this article employs a critical literature review on fusion theory and uses
contrasting British and Brazilian examples to connect the theory to the issue of fan
violence.
Identity(Fusion(
Fusion theory describes a particularly intense form of group bonding whereby the
boundary between personal and group identities becomes porous, i.e. the personal and
social selves become fused (Swann and Buhrmester, 2015). For persons who report
being strongly fused to a group, group activities are intensely personal, leading to
increased feelings of agency, invulnerability, and kinship, in group contexts (Swann
et al., 2012). This is in contrast to the hydraulic nature of identification where either
the personal or the social self is activated (Gómez et al., 2011; Tajfel and Turner,
1979). As a result, highly fused individuals are particularly likely to put their lives at
risk to save ingroup members when threatened (Swann et al., 2014a; Swann et al.,
2014b; Swann et al., 2010a) and provide financial and socio-emotional support to
needy ingroup members (Buhrmester et al., 2015; Swann et al., 2010b). Research in
the Middle East has found that highly fused individuals are more likely to engage in
combat on behalf of or in the name of the group (Sheikh et al., 2016; Whitehouse et
al., 2014). Fusion theory would suggest that fans who are happy to wear a team shirt,
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sing team chants and watch games are experiencing a different psychological
phenomenon in relation to those fans who in addition to such behaviours, engage with
feelings of deep personal investment, self-sacrificial behaviour and extreme pro-group
endorsement. This latter group of fans will ‘go down with the ship’ and be more
resilient to negative team outcomes (Newson et al., 2016). Influenced by Durkheim,
King considers 1990s British ‘lad’ fandom as a form of group love; team worship is
thus ‘a symbol of the values and friendship which exist between the lads’ (King,
1997a) (p. 333). Understanding this deep and often enduring connection between fans
is precisely what fusion theory may be able to contribute toward. Indeed, the basis for
fusion has already been likened to mechanical solidarity.
As to why some fans (or indeed some individuals outside of football) become
more fused to their groups than others, the question remains open. Whitehouse and
colleague’s dysphoric pathway to fusion indicates that sharing particularly traumatic
events as a group can help fuse group and personal identities (Jong et al., 2015;
Newson et al., 2016; Whitehouse et al., 2017). However, questions remain as to which
individuals experience such events as more or less personally defining.
Fusion research stems from social psychology and typically employs well-
validated survey measures (i.e. verbal, pictorial and digital scales to measure fusion)
(Gómez et al., 2011; Jimenez et al., 2016; Swann et al., 2009). Experiments have been
conducted online, in laboratories, and in the field to assess the causes and
consequences of fusion. For instance, in (Whitehouse et al., 2017) both football fans
and martial arts practitioners completed a number of online measures which
demonstrated associations between suffering (team defeat and painful initiations
respectively) and higher fusion levels, and between fusion and self-sacrificial
behaviour (e.g. in the hypothetical trolley dilemma scenario, in which participants
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choose whether they would rather sacrifice themselves to save imperilled group
members or let the other group members die). In addition, qualitative interviews are
also used in conjunction with the quantitative methodologies, which are then analysed
for relevant features. In the field, pictorial measures or reduced verbal scales have
been used. For instance pictorial scales have been used with Libyan revolutionaries
(Whitehouse and Lanman, 2014) where translation and literacy could have been
problematic; and reduced verbal scales have been used in the field during live World
Cup matches in Brazil where many participants have had to be quickly accessed
(Newson et al., Accepted).
Sports fandom, particularly football, is an especially relevant context to
investigate the relationship between fusion and extreme pro-group behaviours, such as
physical violence because: (a) it appears globally; (b) there is substantial variation in
behaviour among fans, e.g. between so called ‘scarfers’ and ‘hooligans’; (c) it extends
previous research on the relationship between identification and outgroup hostility in
sports fans (Donahue and Wann, 2009; Wann et al., 1999) and; (d) it extends previous
fusion research on military, paramilitary, and radical groups (Buhrmester and Swann,
2015).
If violence among extreme fans is driven by fusion, we would expect it to be
discriminatory and triggered by the presence of a group threat, i.e. fusion-driven
violence will be targeted at specific outgroups (e.g. rival fans) (Fredman et al., 2017).
Indeed, recent research has shown that for fused Brazilian torcidas organizadas,
violence is directed specifically toward rival fans rather than general fans or the police
(Newson et al., Under review). These fans reported significantly more physical
violence toward rival fans than they did to the other categories, while for non-torcida
organizada members and those who scored low for fusion there were no statistical
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differences in the amount of violence they reported between any of the groups.
Outgroups are made continually salient for football fans and particularly members of
extreme fan organisations. This is because if the group is threatened, due to the
merging of personal and social selves, the individual perceives this as an attack on
both group and self, and is likely to engage in a hostile stance.
The cognition underlying this propensity for extreme social bonding has been
found in at least eleven countries across six continents and is therefore likely be found
in any football fan culture (Swann et al., 2014a). Precisely how that extreme group
alignment is expressed behaviourally will be shaped and mediated by any number of
socio-cultural factors, including social mobility and structural inequalities, political
systems, national approaches to gender identities and sexuality, attitudes toward
conservatism and liberalism, and cultural tightness and looseness. Nonetheless, this
devotion to one’s group and the extreme behavioural outcomes that tend to be
associated with it can be seen in any number of other tight-knit groups across time
and space. Football therefore provides a relatively safe, international platform from
which to investigate extreme group bonding and hostile behaviours that could impact
our understanding of intergroup conflict more broadly. Fusion explains individual
differences and may thus be useful for comparing cultures, though not necessarily
explaining societal differences. This article does not propose to replace, but rather to
complement, existing explanations of structural inequalities, political systems, and
national approaches to gender identities, sexuality, and class that currently explain
extreme fandom.
Implications
If football-related violence is driven by an extreme pro-group mentality could it be
harnessed for more socially desirable outcomes? Within football culture, some fans
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already recognise this potential. For instance, according to a substantial number of
British football fans can be described as ‘hoolifans’ – a term used to describe fans
who support members of their team’s extreme fan groups and risk supporters (i.e.
those at risk of engaging in violent behaviours) (Rookwood and Pearson, 2012). In
addition, some fans that were generally critical of football-related disorder or
‘hooliganism’ were found to laud such behaviours under certain cultural
circumstances. These included derby days or after a perceived miscarriage of justice,
i.e. when the group’s needs out-rank their individual needs. Perhaps risk supporters, if
they are more highly fused, also experience group needs more urgently, resulting in
more extreme behaviours.
The personally costly behaviours associated with fusion are not necessarily
negative. One non-violent way of displaying group commitment in football is
regularly attending away matches– sometimes travelling long distances, even half
way around the world, to support one’s club at great personal cost. For example,
around 30,000 Corinthians fans from Brazil travelled halfway across the world to
support their league-level club in the FIFA Club World Cup – fans quit their jobs,
sold their cars, and even their fridges to attend the match (Goddard and Sloane, 2014;
Montague, 2012). Although fusion theory may predict that the most costly behaviours
(e.g. away match attendance) are demonstrated by fused fans, that is not to say that
away match attendees will necessarily be more violent (although it may be expected
when outgroup threat is increased). As football matches tend to be largely attended
by home supporters (particularly when there is a greater distance to cover), these
matches can be particularly intense for the away supporters, as well as financially
costly and taking up considerable time (even within a relatively small country like the
UK dedicated fans will often get up before sunrise to get on coaches to attend away
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matches on the other side of the country). As well as being an expression of loyalty,
away match attendance incurs measurable benefits for the team, as team’s chances
have been found to improve via increased crowd noise and influencing referee
decisions (Nevill et al., 2002).
In what other ways could the extreme behaviours associated with fusion be
harnessed for social good, to benefit other fans, or even bigger, extended
communities? Recent research has shown that while it is challenging to de-fuse
individuals, pro-group sentiments can be extended to wider groups. For instance, the
notion of ‘protection’ granted by risk supporters could be stretched to encompass the
wider community through exercises that encourage participants to recognise the
transformative experiences they have shared with broader fan groups (Newson et al.,
2016; Whitehouse et al., 2017). In this way fusion has the potential to generate pro-
group behaviours that are more socially acceptable, e.g. charity work. In the UK, we
might find highly fused fans setting up food banks for other needy fans during
economic recessions. In Brazil, highly fused Chapecoense fans may have travelled to
the site where their team’s plane crashed (and the squad wiped out) in 2016, laying
wreaths or writing letters to affected fans or players’ families. The highly
choreographed displays that torcidas organizadas are renowned for could also be
investigated and potentially harnessed to extend the ingroup altruism we observed in
the present sample to generalised prosociality, or even prosociality towards outgroup
members (Reddish et al., 2016).
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Cognitive understandings of the mechanisms underlying fan violence could
also help reduce violence by re-framing police tactics. Though fan violence may not
be primarily directed toward the police, the ways in which police manage football
crowds can have a deep impact on the ways in which fans behave. First and
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unsurprisingly, brutal police tactics may serve to increase hostility toward the police
by increasing perceived threat levels toward the ingroup, thus making them more
likely to be a target for violence. Second, extreme police tactics such as kettling, the
use of tear gas or deployment of military personal to intervene in fan activities may
create enduring, ‘self-transform’ experiences that only further fuse the individual to
the group (Newson et al., 2016; Whitehouse et al., 2017). Instead, the power of self-
transformative experiences to forge group identities to reduce inter-group fighting
could be investigated by asking participants to reflect on experiences shared by the
broader group, i.e. football fans or the nation, and encouraging fusion with extended
groups, potentially even encompassing their traditional rivals.
There is substantial variation in police practice according to region in both
Brazil and the UK. However, overall, police presence at live matches in the UK has
decreased in recent decades (with the exception of derby matches). In their place are
more club-selected stewards, who appear to have a more positive impact on fans and
the reduction of fan violence; potentially by reducing the appearance of threat levels
meaning that highly fused fans are not on as high an ‘alert’ for hostility. In Brazil,
police brutality tends to be greater issue. Whether the brutality causes the violence, or
the brutality is in response to the violence is an on-going debate. In recent years,
schemes have been piloted where mothers act as stewards at football matches, e.g.
Sport Club do Recife trained up ‘Seguranca Mae’ (Security Mums). This reflects
female engagement in football in Brazil and a cultural regard for mother figures
(related in part to the Cult of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism). Placing mothers on the
pitch perhaps primes fans for fusion to their families during the match, which may
help reduce the extremity of fusion-to-football associated behaviours during games.
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Such a system may not work so well in the UK, where mothers do not have quite the
same symbolic as they do in Brazil.
Conclusions
The concept of ‘us’ and ‘them’ cannot be avoided in competitive sport, but the
territorial element of football, coupled with drinking cultures, makes football-related
violence a recurrent international issue. Though this has subsided, or perhaps become
better concealed in the UK, threats from football-related violence are acute in Brazil.
The reasons for such differences are complex: first there is the issue of cultural norms
around violence and culturally acceptable outlets for such violence. Second,
masculinity appears to be key to the emergence of violent identities, as noted in much
literature on football violence, but also with far-reaching studies incorporating
neurobiology, group dynamics and fusion to analyse terrorist behavior (Möller-
Leimkühler, 2017). Variation in such factors and, thirdly, the environment (e.g. stadia
construction, use of CCTV etc.) likely help shape fusion outcomes considerably.
These areas can help us understand why the expression of extreme fandom has
cultural similarities (e.g. largely male) and differences (e.g. increasing violence in
Brazil and decreasing violence in the UK).
With extreme social bonding plausibly intensifying under such conditions, we
as researchers have a unique opportunity to (a) study intergroup conflict
internationally and (b) conduct cross-cultural work within the same parameters, i.e.
within the context of football fandom. This finely balanced comparative work could
only realistically be matched on such a scale by research on followers of international
religions. Cross-culturally analysing who fans are informs us not only of their
immediate football cultures, but provides both a comparative structure from which to
understand the broader cultures within which they are situated, and offers us insights
Newson (2017) Football, Fan Violence, and Identity Fusion
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into the workings of the human psyche. Although caution should be applied when
generalising psychological studies to new populations, identity fusion and closely
related theories offer an opportunity for us to better understand the deeply pro-social
cognition underlying the behaviour of some highly fused football fans and enact
positive social change.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Professor Harvey Whitehouse, Dr Michael Buhrmester and Sophie
Bateman for your help in the formation of ideas and insightful comments on earlier
drafts.
Funding
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council
[ES/J500112/1; RES-060-25-467 0085] and an Advanced Grant from the European
Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and
Innovation Programme (grant agreement No. 694986).
Notes(
1. 14!deaths!1999-2003,!14!deaths!2004-06,!14!deaths!2007-08,!21!deaths!
2009-10,!and!34!deaths!2011-12.!
!
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