Football Fans in the “Südkurve”: An Escape from the Pressure to Singularize?

Abstract

With remarkable regularity, escalation processes in soccer stadiums lead to violence between police, private security guards, and soccer fans. This article examines the question of how this happens and what it means. In a consideration of Reckwitz’s thesis of the society of singularities, data from participant observation, interviews, and video analysis is examined in order to address the question of whether going to soccer games can be understood as a temporary break from the compulsion to individualize or singularize. In addition, the article develops the thesis that the escalation of processes of violence does not constitute the collapse of social order, but rather a predictable process in which all participants consistently cooperate (Collins). Through ordered togetherness and opposition, a common ritual (Durkheim and Turner) takes place, an always precarious walk up to the limits of what is socially acceptable, which also leads to the renewal of the social. Going to soccer stadiums, so my thesis, can be understood as testing the boundaries of the socially acceptable.