Between Old and New Traditions: Transnational Solidarities and the Love for Liverpool FC

Arguably, in the last 15 years globalisation fuelled by social media have reshaped how socialisations are fostered and maintained. Moreover, the same processes have had a profound impact on one of the most fundamental emotion of humankind: love. Departing from those assumptions, based on an 18-month (n)ethnography of football supporters of one particular English club in Brazil and Switzerland, I sought to unveil the discourses supporters crafted in relation to their historiographies as cosmopolitan flâneurs. The critical discourse analysis showed that they used both individual and collective stories to craft their biographies as true Liverpool FC supporters. From those findings I argue that individualisation in cosmopolitan times entails a ‘Dasein für ausgewählte Andere’, being this other the re-traditionalised structures of modernity. I conclude by pointing out that precarious freedom does not relate to the necessity of choosing, but to their necessity of constantly legitimising their choices.

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