Fan protest and activism: football from below in South-Eastern Europe

Abstract

This conceptual introduction seeks to frame and provide a context for the following special issue on “Football from below in South-Eastern Europe”. The special issue focus on fan activism and protest aims to understand, theorize and interpret the efforts of football fans both visible as (sub-)political actors in public space and/or as collectives engaged in experiments with new forms of club ownership and direct/participatory democracy. This introduction first details various features of the South-Eastern European context, before exploring how the texts relate to each other in terms of fan, activist and academic positionalities. Following this, one dimension to the concept of protest ‘from below’ - namely that of a strict ‘people/politics' (narod/politika) opposition - is explained and critiqued. Finally, thematic gaps within the special issue are identified and possible areas for future research are discussed.