Football fans’ demonstrations and territory: Arrangements in the surroundings grêmio’s stadium

Abstract

Times and spaces of football fans’ demonstrations are not restricted to stadiums. Therefore, we seek to understand how relations are established when the space surrounding Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense’s Stadium is appropriated before matches. We conducted an ethnographic study on seven matches in 2018, with observations, notes, walks, conversations, photos, videos, and field diaries. We observed that the diverse public of fans, small business owners, police officers, street vendors, waste pickers, among other subjects establish a network of micro-territories that form the territorial totality. The territory shifts as a result of combinations of weather, competition type and stage, and opponent. But it is also stable regarding sociability and commercial relations. We concluded that the stadium’s surroundings are a territory of ambiguities, arranged in its multiple interrelations, meanings, and belongings.