The rhetoric of conflict inside and outside the stadium: The case study of an Italian football cheer group

Abstract

Since ancient times, sports have played the role of transposing, on a symbolic level, the aggressive behaviors that are built into human sociality. Mostly in their team manifestations, sporting events represent a so-called tame war. The main aim of this study is to show how the cultural psychology of sport might contribute to an understanding of the sense-making dynamics active in human intergroup infighting, though conditioned to a sublimated and ritualized acceptability.