The overall aim of this work is to uncover, describe and analyse the phenomenon of soccer hooliganism both as it appears and in the was that it presents itself to consciousness. But why "think through" football hooliganism at all? Surely quite enough has already been said and written about this highly Publicise, form of public disorder? Already there have been Psychological, sociological, soci. o-psychological., historical and media study accounts - to say nothing of numerous articles and newsreports in the popular media. Upon the basis of their distinctive ways of setting up and relating to this phenomenon, these accounts have produced various types of policy-orientated reactions and explanations in terms of psychological immaturity, the Alienation of traditional working class fans from "their club" in an age of consumer capitalism, ritualised aggression, the expression of a traditional male working class form of territorial localism and finally as the outcome of and subsequent reaction to the "labelling" of fans and "moral panic" of the media. In all honesty, what more is there to say? Why has not the author tackled an area of crime that has yet to be so fully documented? This study is not primarily concerned with adding to the ever escalating and add academic enterprise of reviewing reviews of reviews from pre-conceived standpoints upon standpoints about such standpoints etc., which themselves rarely address the possibility conditions of that which they theorise about. A brief glance down the booklist of this research will confirm that there is currently no shortage of studies which concern themselves with the rehashing of all that which has been previously written about both phenomenology and soccer violence. What, in the face of all-this, WOULD truly be an achievement is the APPLIED phenomenological explication of the phenomenon itself. Undoubtedly the purported explanations mentioned above have, { taken as a whole, responded, to the problematic presence of something our culture understands as hooliganism in such a way as to explain this "something" in terms of the presence of something else. Only for as long as we understand research purely in terms of this causal-explanatory manner and policy-reactive mode, can this area be said to be unquestionably well researched. It is on this implicit basis that there appears little justification for yet another study of football hooliganism. But are the possibilities of academic research exhausted by the setting up and responding to the established presence of phenomena "out there" in the real world in line with the dictates of established disciplines? The title of this studs summarises a foundational Project in that both the thinking and the object "thought through" are brought together. It is a major'contention of phenomenology -- the method of our foundational research - that all the activities of consciousness and experience are intimately connected to an experienced object or "phenomenon", so that all experience is experience OF some thematic object meant and meant in a distinctive manner. Thus prior to the questions "Why is there football hooliganism"?, and "What should be done about it? ", is a more fundamental or "foundational" problematic: one which precedes explanation and addresses the possibility-conditions for the cultural presence of both the phenomenon and our accepted ways of responding to our awareness of it.

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This thesis presents an interpretative analysis of contemporary football culture in Manchester, as it encounters and reacts to significant structural transformations between the years 2003 and 2009. Of prime concern therefore is how locally constituted elements of cultural identification react to processes of globalisation and 'hyper-commodification' (Giulianotti, 2002). While the research field retains a relatively broad local focus on football fandom in Manchester, its core findings rest predominantly on the politicised culture observed within independently organised formations of Manchester United supporters before, during and after the club's 2005 takeover by Malcolm Glazer. Manchester City's 2003 move from their traditional home at Maine Road, and the club's subsequent takeovers, first by Thaksin Shinawatra and more recently by the Abu Dhabi United Group, provide fascinating parallel context due mainly to the lack of oppositional organisation and discourse amongst the club's support. This is highlighted particularly emphatically when the Manchester United supporters' 'breakaway' club FC United of Manchester is considered, although the more compliant characteristics in football fandom generally are acknowledged throughout. A critical research paradigm ensures that due consideration is taken of what Raymond Williams called the "structuring formations", within which these experiences and understandings occur (Gibson, 2000: 264). This account draws upon the researcher's immersed perspective to examine how traditional notions of authenticity are articulated and understood within English football culture. Findings in the immediate context of Manchester reveal high levels of cultural capital attached to values of loyalty and local identity, which impact significantly on attempts to mobilise supporter opposition. The possibilities and limitations within football supporter culture for exerting meaningful resistance are therefore assessed, along with the potential for such struggles to foster wider politicised outlooks. The ambivalence of cultural engagement means that continuity and change are never far apart, with culture found to facilitate, often simultaneously, both a yearning for what might be along with a fear for what might be lost.

This thesis examines racisms and anti-racist strategies in English football, with particular focus on the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. The analysis begins by considering the roots of racisms in British society and British sport. The thesis then moves on to examine in more detail the development both of racisms in English football and of campaigns to limit their effects among fans, clubs and professional bodies. A central theme of this analysis concerns the heterogeneity of racisms, and the range of sites and local contexts in which they operate, in sport and elsewhere. The main body of the thesis is devoted to an investigation of racism in English football during the 1980s, 1990s and early 21st century. Special attention is focused on three themes. First, the development of national campaigns designed to confront racism in football. These include major political initiatives, such as the Labour government's Football Task Force, but also non-governmental campaigns such as AGARI and Kick It Out. Second, the responses of professional clubs to such nationally-driven campaigns and agendas. This issue is explored by drawing on original survey data. Third, the aims and activities of two contrasting local anti-racism football projects in the North and Midlands of England. A lengthy critical analysis of these projects is provided, utilising data generated by observational and interview techniques. The thesis concludes by assessing the efficacy of local, national and political anti-racist campaigns. The discussion considers their conceptualisation of racism and its effects, as well as their support, or otherwise, within English football at both the local and national levels. The thesis also seeks to consider the extent to which such initiatives can effect real change at the local level whilst addressing some of the wider sources of racisms in English football and beyond.

This thesis concerns itself with how sport culture in Japan - especially, baseball - has been transformed under the influence of globalisation. Globalisation, defined as the `borderless' world, is a key term in describing the state of affairs in the contemporary world. In sporting world, globalisation embodied itself in the forms of international (or transcontinental) labour migration, international sporting contests. Globalisation has tended to be analysed from a Western point of view because of Western domination in political and economic affairs as well as cultural ones for the past few centuries. This thesis tries to undertake the research of globalisation also from a non-Western point of view. There are many forms of global processes at work and globalisation has been conceptualised from various angles. After reviewing different approaches to the concept of globalisation, attention is shifted to the formation and the growth of sport culture in Japan in connection with globalisation. Modern sport culture was quite foreign in Japan before 1868, but with the Western influences dominant after 1868, Japan grew to be one of today's sporting powers. The growth of sport culture in Japan had marked characteristics according to social changes, which was reflected mainly in the form of Japaneseness and Westerness. This thesis classifies these social changes into four historical periods - the pre-modern (before 1868), the modern (1868-1945), the modern (1945-1990), and the post-modern (after 1990) - and explores sport culture in Japan in this historical framework. Subsequently, this thesis directs its attention specifically to Japanese baseball and traces the way in which the Japanese game grew in the face of American influences, specifically labour migration from America. Baseball, as the `national' sport in Japan, has been taken as an epitome of Japaneseness (observable in specific individual styles of play and attitudes to the game) since its inception. The tensions of between Japaneseness and American influences are fully discussed as an aspect of global processes. This thesis also assesses the significance of the immigration of Japanese players to American baseball especially from the 1990s on, more complex nature of labour migration in baseball Japanese baseball and the accompanying fall in the popularity of Japanese baseball. Finally, looking to the future, this thesis discusses possible trends to come. This thesis embodies original data collected from past American (and some other foreign) players, baseball journalists, and from documentary sources. Original translations from Japanese into English have been made to make it possible to use Japanese publications.

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Football 4 Peace (F4P) is a sports-based coexistence initiative that operates between divided communities in Israel. The project has nurtured a number of high-profile partnerships with various local, national and international agencies and organisations. The F4P programme utilises an innovative methodology that foregrounds a 'values-based' approach to coaching. Like many sports interventions, the project is highly mediatized and has been the subject of a number of documentary film projects. The originality of the approach to this study is primarily through an appropriation of Ernst Bloch's long neglected 'sociology of hope' into the specific socio-cultural milieu of Sport, Development and Peace interventions. Bloch's work provides an interpretive framework for a critique of Football 4 Peace and its utopian potential. The primary methods of research are a range of visual research methodologies. These practice-informed methodologies are supported by a range of text-based analytical approaches to the critique of the documentary artefacts of F4P. The originality of this approach is extended by the synthesis of Bloch's interpretative framework with visual research practices to provide a practice-informed exploration of the utopian interventionism of Football 4 Peace. The thesis reviews sports interventions through the lens of the utopian Marxism of Ernst Bloch, focusing on the sports cultures of Israel and Football 4 Peace in particular. It also tracks the reach of mediatization into sports initiatives such F4P and interrogates the codes, conventions and culture of sports documentary interventions. These themes build towards a critical analysis of Football 4 Peace and a research film that provide an interpretation of the utopianism of F4P that draws on Bloch's philosophy. The researcher's field experiences are also assessed in a critical reflection on visual research practice. The thesis concludes with an assessment of the anticipatory elements of the F4P project, discusses how the media representations of the project can be situated as utopian and reflects on the continuing relevance of Bloch's utopianism for visual research.

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