http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog Soccer as a second language Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:08:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 en hourly 1 ©The Global Game admin@theglobalgame.com (The Global Game) admin@theglobalgame.com(The Global Game) 1440 football, soccer, world cup, women soccer, world football, world soccer, fifa, football culture Interviews on world soccer culture. Interviews on world soccer culture. The Global Game The Global Game admin@theglobalgame.com No no http://www.theglobalgame.com/images/dembaksm.jpg http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog 144 144 http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2007/12/among-the-flambeaux-anthropology-joyful-fandom-and-the-flares-of-sarajevo/ http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2007/12/among-the-flambeaux-anthropology-joyful-fandom-and-the-flares-of-sarajevo/#comments Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:54:16 +0000 John Turnbull http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/?p=303 Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dec 10 | Özgür Dirim Özkan, in fieldwork among supporters' groups in Sarajevo since Feb 07 and on the Bosnian Football Culture website, has examined football as but a small part of a society that, in the Western frame, implies little but ethnic-riven conflict and a constellation of indecipherable place names. With 28-minute podcast.]]> http://www.theglobalgame.com/blog/2007/12/among-the-flambeaux-anthropology-joyful-fandom-and-the-flares-of-sarajevo/feed/ 28:04 The magnesium torches, or flambeaux, held aloft, then hurled onto the pitch, signal the beginning of another FK Sarajevondash;FK Zeljeznicar derbynbsp;... probably kicking off five ... The magnesium torches, or flambeaux, held aloft, then hurled onto the pitch, signal the beginning of another FK Sarajevondash;FK Zeljeznicar derbynbsp;... probably kicking off five minutes later than anticipated. "It is regarded intrinsically as a great honor," writes Ouml;zkan, "for fans to light flambeaus and to halt the game for a while." (www.themaniacs.org) Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina #124; In a programmatic introduction to a 1997 collection of anthropological essays, Entering the Field: New Perspectives on World Football (Berg), editors Gary Armstrong and Richard Giulianotti establish the anthropologist's role as that of "credible witness" to human events. The anthropologist of football, unlike the sports journalist, must go deeper than the game. She or he must see the 90 minutes, in Harry Pearson's terms, as "the Kernel ofnbsp;... the Game," discerning human motives and emotions to conjure an authentic representation of "reality." The fundamental aim of [anthropology] is to investigate classifications, of which there [is] no shortage around the game. Played to clicheacute;s, reported on in similar fashion, football's followers and critics have always attempted to compare, compartmentalize and classify. Anthropology has to try to decode presumptions and prejudices, and go amidst the "natives." Such research requires pursuit of the "imponderabilities of everyday life," of which football contains a multiplicity. Such fieldwork is, as a consequence, usually an extremely personal and traumatic experience, but an essential one if anthropology is to be differentiated from other subjects. From this experience the anthropologist becomes a knowing presence capable of understanding on the basis of minimal clues ... that "a great deal of what is important to observe is unspoken."nbsp;(3) Ouml;zguuml;r Dirim Ouml;zkan, 31, in fieldwork among supporters' groups in Sarajevo since Feb 07 and on the Bosnian Football Culture website, has examined football as but a small part of a society that, in the Western frame, implies little but ethnic-riven conflict and a constellation of indecipherable place names. Ouml;zkan's preliminary findings in concentrating on supporters of FK Sarajevo and FK Zeljeznicar offer nuance to this picture. His intent to study football, as part of the Ph.D. course at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, in itself signaled to his research subjects that his would be a different approach from that taken by Western journalists or ethnographers. He says on the Decnbsp;4 podcast: Bosnians are sick and tired of foreign researchers who are just focused on war and ethnic categories, who only see ethnic differencesmdash;whatever relates to the concept of "ethnic." And when they hear that somebody from a foreign country is not only interested in war, conflict, etc.mdash;for example like football, or music, or cinema, any other sphere in the cultural lifemdash;they appreciate it ... because they see that this guy is interested in us, not in ethnic warfare. That's why my job here has been very easy since the beginning. Ouml;zkan recognizes that Bosnian football, unlike other spheres of cultural life, offers a place in which nationalist discoursemdash;what Ouml;zkan calls "old languagerdquo;mdash;inflamed by memory of the 1992ndash;95 Balkan conflict can survive. "Football increases ethnic tension. It is the only public sphere where you can observe this ethnic tension between the ethnic groups," Ouml;zkan says. The observation bears superficial similarity to sectarian conflict surrounding Glasgow Rangers and Celtic, for which the phrase "90-minute bigot" has been created to caricature supporters who sing sectarian anthems during matches but for whom religion has little place in daily life. One of Ouml;zkan's videos shows FK Sarajevo supporters holding a bannermdash;ldquo;Stara Ljubav, Novo Proljece" (ldquo;Old Love, New Spring")mdash;wielding flambeaux and singing before a match with S... Balkans,,Podcast,,Stadia,amp;,Supporters,,Teaching,Resources The Global Game no No