Leisure and fan activism : exploring new cases and contexts across men’s and women’s professional sport

This special issue has advanced our theoretical and empirical understanding of the social-scientific study of sport and leisure activism and the construction of collective identities across a range of diverse cases and contexts. The papers have brought together contributions from international scholars in under-researched, under-represented, and under-theorised geographical spaces to explore the role of sport and leisure in shaping the perspectives and experiences of fan communities, cultures, and engagement strategies. The key theme across the contributions is that fandom in diverse settings and populations, remains an important vehicle in the shaping of social identity and the specific meanings ascribed to this serious form of leisure. Drawing specific attention to the stadium as a space in which football fandom is constituted and an expression of supporter protest, unrest, resistance, and contestation, the specific gendered, and nationalistic performances of fandom, and the search for authenticity and legitimacy amongst networked fan actors are played out. Fandom and fan activism in and through sport, serves an important social and political function and thus the construction of leisure activist identities have wider implications for social scientists of social movements.