ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the utility of the concept of reflexivity for the examination of football fans’ collective action and discusses the relation between reflexivity and social change. Contrary to mainstream sociological interpretations, the direct link between reflexivity and emancipation of social actors will be problematised. The necessity to complement the previous theoretical accounts, focused prevalently on personal reflexivity, with a stronger focus on institutional reflexivity. Reflexivity is understood as potential for a social change rather than the social change. It is therefore argued that in addition to a mere transformation of football culture as a consequence of fan activism, there are several distinct social mechanisms that undermine the emancipatory potential of fan initiatives, which can be understood by analysing the reflexive subject (fans) on the one hand and the response of the object of reflexivity (football authorities, or football culture more broadly) on the other hand. These processes – auto-referentiality, strategic appropriation, alteration, loosening, and anti-reflexivity – are defined in-depth in this section.
