Sport, the democratic imaginary, fan violence and self management: the perspective of Alain Ehrenberg

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, Alain Ehrenberg has developed a sociology of neo-individualism in order to study the transformations facing French society. A significant part of his early work is devoted to the study of sport. Based on the above theoretical perspective, Ehrenberg approaches three main aspects: first, the imaginary core of the practice based on social and political terms; second, the interpretation of hooligansim in the light of the social use of fan violent behaviour and third, the sportification of the adventure in terms of self-governance.