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When examining popular culture and the politics of ethnicity, nationalism, religion and class, it becomes clear that sport is an element of culture which is heavily implicated in their (re)creation and maintenance. In this paper, the sport of football is examined for its role in building these elements of identity. More specifically, this paper examines the politics of the football stadium, and considers the political implications of football fan behaviour. Rather than viewing the football stadium as a 'liminal' space where an ontological dichotomy exists between the liminality of the stadium and the 'real' world outside, I argue that the stadium instead acts as a continuity mechanism between life in the stadium and outside of it, and as such represents not a space of unreality but rather a space of a slightly different alter-reality. In other words, I reject the notion that football fandom in the stadium is merely the performance of the carnivalesque and as such is limited in space, time and consequence. Certainly the stadium is loud, hyper-masculinized, and any number of other things that are not present in the 'real' world, but my argument is that the 'real' worlds of football fans are impacted considerably by their experiences and identity performances through ninety minutes on any given Saturday. Therefore, this paper seeks to ascertain the extent to which the football world and the 'real' world intersect, while also examining the extent to which football fandom is implicated in the (re)creation and performances of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport is an important arena within which identity politics are negotiated, and as such, sports can also represent and important space within which international politics takes place. Sport is often viewed as the space within which 'real' politics occurs, where political identities are negotiated 'on the ground'. Further, many sports, are viewed as the domain of the working classes - a modern-day opiate of the masses - as well as an arena within which national and subnational identities can be negotiated and contested. However, both the sports playing fields and the spectator stands are gendered spaces where masculine attributes and identities are prized. From this perspective, therefore, a more critical analysis of the claims that sports lobbyists make about the social value of sport is required, given the clear manner in which sport reinforces problematic gender stereotypes, particularly in terms of the national narratives which are (re)created through sport. What this paper will examine is the ways in which highly gendered and masculinized codes of identity are manifested through sport, and what impact this has upon who is both 'included' in identity negotiations and 'allowed' to make claims to citizenship, nationality and ethnicity through sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nations and ethnic groups are constructed through a myriad of social processes that both support and continually reimagine the nation. The focus of this presentation is the relationship between sport and nationalism, and the role that sport plays in creat ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]