NEGOTIATING EXPECTATIONS AND REALITIES OF A FOOTBALL FAN “COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY OF UNCABUNCA IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

In this thesis, I investigate the Liverpool fan “community” situated in the pub space of Uncabunca. While existing literature has romanticized, and aptly criticized its fan “communities”, I seek to empirically ground such theorizations through the case study Uncabunca. This shall be explored through a mixture of methods that I have employed in my research: a largely covert form of ethnographic work, complemented with a written and photographic field diary, as well as semi-structured interviews, conducted both face-to-face and online.

Throughout the thesis, I will use three concepts to articulate the term “community” – Community, community, and “community”. I unveil the complexities that underlie the fan community existing in Uncabunca, and contend that it is internally differentiated in nature, as well as both spatially and temporally contingent. The research particularly explores the varying expectations and perceptions fans have of a Community, and the different degrees of connectivities fans have with each other. Interconnectivity between members exists not only within, but also beyond the space of the pub (virtual realm). Yet, within the bounded and transitory space of the pub exists a range of behavioral and presentational codes, which facilitates ‘performative encounters’. This has implications on the degrees of belonging fans feel towards the pub’s fan “community”, and their imagined ‘positions’ in it. Emphasis is therefore placed on the use of the body, and how it can be “manipulated” by both fans and researcher, in negotiating through their various encounters and their conceptions of a Community.

Consequently, this thesis calls for a more critical analysis of fan “communities” in empirical work, specifically considering how both researcher and fans perceptions of a Community are intertwined with the realities of its complexities.