Theorizing surveillance and social spacingthroughfootball: The fan‐opticon and beyond

Abstract

This article critically examines the temporal mobilizations of a 25‐year football supporter social movement against the all‐seating (stadia) legislation in England and Wales, to unpack, and advance, (neo‐)Foucauldian panoptic theorizations of surveillance power and counter‐power. Drawing upon prior empirically informed analysis of this movement; ‘Safe Standing’, the article interrogates new policy‐based outcomes, including the early adoption of ‘licensed (Safe) Standing’ technology in 2022, to argue, that whilst publicly framed as a movement victory, it simultaneously serves to prefigure a new regulatory regime in football; one which extends the regulation and surveillance of fans within the wider social and corporate lifeworld. Introducing our new concept; the ‘fan‐opticon’, the article discusses how Safe Standing continues to normalize a momentum of surveillance in sport and highlights the contradictory nature of security‐related projects in the twenty‐first century. We conclude that the governmentality of the state through football, to be characteristic of temporally sensitive hermeneutic struggles of power and resistance, through the discipline, and self‐discipline of social actors. New forms of subjectivity are remoulded in ways which extend the power of surveillance and regulation, despite multiple counter‐conduct, and discursive, resistance practices.

Generations, events, and social movement legacies: Unpacking social change in English football (1980–2023)

“…Advancing this, we suggest here that such fields are types of ‘generational arenas’, or ‘[generational] fields of struggle’ (Ibrahim, 2015) which constitute intersubjective understandings of the social world, events, and social problems. Such generational arenas can include political, symbolic, mediatised, technological, and legislative spaces (Turner and Lee Ludvigsen, 2023a, 2023b), which constitute the wider movement field of contention. By examining both outcomes and legacies of protest that originate from social networks, across multiple temporal periods and arenas, we stretch and problematise the view holding that individuals' experiences are shaped by historical contexts and events (Whittier, 2022).…”

“…The mobilisation of these movements—what we might term generational transmission—allowed supporters to produce alternative discourses and narratives surrounding key issues including the intensified security and commercial regimes of English football, and their impact on important socio‐cultural rituals (Lee Ludvigsen, 2023). Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the continued and elevated commercialisation (King, 1998), globalisation (David & Millward, 2012) and securitisation (Turner and Lee Ludvigsen, 2023a, 2023b) of English football have prolonged the mentioned social trends. Digital transformations like social media have also assisted heterogenous fan networks' transnational connections, as encapsulated by the foundation of Football Supporters Europe (FSE), a European‐wide, representative body for supporter issues, seeking to promote and empower supporter cultures, in 2008, and the ‘against modern football’ movements (Hill et al., 2018).…”

“…Mannheim, 1958[1928]) including Heysel, Hillsborough, and the formation of the Premier League. It draws primarily upon thematic analysis of our prior‐empirical research into supporter activism and football's wider social and political transformations (Turner, 2023; Turner and Lee Ludvigsen, 2023a, 2023b). As argued, generational consciousness is a social structure in becoming (Crossley, 2022), whilst social movement analyses must be temporally sensitive (Gillan, 2020).…”

“…Recent work in relational sociology on social fields and arenas (Jasper, 2021) has mobilised new thinking on the outcomes and legacies of social movements, and the distinction between movement ‘victories’ and ‘successes’ (Useem & Goldstone, 2022; Turner and Lee Ludvigsen, 2023a, 2023b). Situating social movements within a dynamic relational field, where power and counter‐power are manifested through the temporal and evolving actions of state and non‐state actors, brings into analytical focus the ways in which movements emerge, mobilise, and succeed or fail (Goldstone, 2004).…”

“…Indeed, the 40‐year social scientific study of the football crowd tells us something important about temporal contestations over regulation, policing, governance, and cultural rituals, which characterise the mobilisations of groups to respond to historical events and influence social democracy and policy. By adopting a conceptual approach, which is simultaneously informed by our prior‐empirical research into supporter activism and what we term the neoliberal timescape of English football (Turner, 2022, 2023; Lee Ludvigsen, 2023; Turner and Lee Ludvigsen, 2023a, 2023b), this article then establishes and elucidates some pressing, research‐portable questions for future sociological research on events, legacies, memories and transitions of social movement generations, by considering how long‐term social changes may generate new generational tensions or conflicts. We contend that, in English football, the cultural and political character of the new generation of supporter activists remains undecided, but of critical importance for the game's future sustainability.…”