Seminar Series: Hans K Hognestad

Thursday, 19th December 16:00 GMT / 11:00 EST

Please join us this Thursday for the next session of our seminar series, with Professor Hans Kristian Hognestad, University of South-Eastern Norway. Zoom Link here: https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/j/7215725191

Abstract

In an ongoing research project, a team of middle eastern studies scholars and sport sociologists have studied the significance of religion and football in the MENA region, quite loosely defined as the Arab speaking world. In his book «The games people play – theology, religion and sport», Robert Ellis (2014), a British academic and Baptist minister, argues that sport has taken over certain religious functions in contemporary society. From late 19^th century Britain, a dramatic decline in church attendances was followed by an equally dramatic increase in people attending sports events, football first among them in popularity. This development has been seen as symptomatic for a perceived ritual and symbolic poverty of modern societies, which, from this perspective, lack arenas where individuals may interact and experience a sense of identity and purpose in life. However, one way of explaining the tremendous attraction of football, the world’s largest sport, may be found in the ways football meets such emotional and social needs in the era of what Peter Berger (1974) once called “the homeless mind”.

Communities in the Middle East region have remained less secular. Nevertheless, local and global football is tremendously popular in contemporary Middle Eastern societies, both in terms of active players and as a spectator sport. The overall research field in this project is consequently the relations between religion and football in the Middle East as two different cultural forces and movements. One assumption is that for religious movements to retain their strong cultural and political position they need to increase their efforts towards adapting football to their norms and values, in order to reach out to the hearts and minds of young Middle Easterners. Besides an overall theoretical approach, the relations between football and religion in the Middle East are being examined through empirical studies of three separate analytical fields:

1. Ideological discourse on football
2. Local organization of football, physical education and physical activity
3. Spectator culture, including media/social media

Questions we have been dealing with in field, archival and media studies since the start in 2021, reflect this three-fold analytical approach:

Ideological or theological discourses on football may range from questions of deeper meanings of sports to more practical questions concerning suitable sports outfits. What are the main issues in religious discourses on football? Which steps are advised from scholars or religious leaders to adjust football to religious moral codes?

Organization implies, among other things, football’s role in the upbringing and socialization of children and youth. Furthermore, the ways in which football is organized is also a question of being positioned to control and enforce religious moral norms, including dress codes and the contested field of women’s football. How is football organized in the areas studied and are there any religious dimensions and framing in the ways in which football activities are organized? Is football integrated into sports curricula at schools/madrassas, and if not, is football part of children’s everyday play?

Spectator culture, symbols and meanings of football games, are occasions for the symbolic construction of loyalties and rivalries. Moreover, football matches are moments where spectators sometimes lose themselves to uncontrolled emotional outbursts, at odds with strict religious moral norms and codes of conduct. What are the symbolic and political messages of spectators, through chants or otherwise? How is the emotional engagement of football spectators in the area of study? How does various religious groups relate to football?

To study these topics, we are applying a comparative case study approach, rooted in the interdisciplinary tradition of area studies, yet with a strong disciplinary leaning towards social anthropology.

In my talk I’d like to take you through some of the findings so far from field studies in Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where we did fieldwork during the FIFA World Cup in 2022, and also take you through some of the fresh contributions to a workshop we hosted on this topic in Istanbul in late November this year.