Spectator Violence in Stadiums Why do the Hooligans Fight? An Essay in Honor of Eric Dunning

Abstract

The study revisits the work of the Leicester School, highlighting the prominent figure of Eric Dunning, disciple of Norbert Elias and systematizer of the ideas of the German sociologist in England, leader in the process of constituting a sociology of modern sports in that country. In the poorly drawn lines that the freedom of the essayistic genre entails, we suggest that Dunning's position as Elias' apprentice soon becomes even and turns into a fruitful partnership. More: as a partner, he rises to the status of master himself, able to train new scholars and organize a series of collections together with his disciples. The broad theme provided by the focus of sports studies is restricted here to a specific agenda for analysis, namely the so-called phenomenon of hooliganism, to which Eric Dunning and his team devoted much of the analytical efforts of interpretation, reviewing assumptions of the first authors dedicated to the theme and carrying out a range of institutional collective research. These, in turn, led to the creation of theoretical and empirical references throughout the 1970s to 2000, with international repercussions among researchers focused on understanding not only British hooligans, but European ultras, Latin American barras, and Brazilian torcidas organizadas. If Dunning's theory and empiricism are not immune to criticism – as in the limit no scientific paradigm is –, in this text, the sociological, anthropological and historiographic contributions made by this admirable English intellectual are reiterated.