Involuntary loneliness is a widespread social phenomenon which not only impacts the mental well being, it may also be displayed in a physical manner. The aim of this study was to interpret and develop an understanding of whether, and if so how, football supporters in Sweden experience that an active supportership can reduce the feeling of involuntary loneliness, as well as how a supportership could contribute to fellowship and collective identity. We gathered the experiences of football supporters through qualitative interviews with a total of eight supporters. We got in contact with supporters through representatives of the supporter associations of two teams in the Swedish first division, “Allsvenskan”. To meet the requirements for participation in the study the interviewees had to be above the age of 18 as well as be considered an “active supporter”. We found that experienced benefits of supportership included the sense of community among like minded which resulted in an “us against them” mindset. However, that could also result in exclusion for those not part of the community and therefore be counterproductive. We also found that different experiences of freedom were experienced, where some were positive feelings of freedom, undemanding and escape from everyday life and some could be considered negative as power relations between supporters, the right to interpretive priority as well as feelings of demands. Finally, we found a correlation between alcohol consumption and attending football matches. This presents a potential legitimization of alcohol consumption around football events.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-130732 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Fridholm, David, Eriksson, Agnes |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för socialt arbete (SA) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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