Categorisations and transformations of rooting for: Comparative analysis concerning the sportiveness of watching

Abstract

Abstract Our proposal is to conduct an ethnographic, conceptual, comparative debate concerning the sportiveness of watching, beginning with sociological and emic categories that describe the performance of supporters’ clubs in a specific sport, professional football. We will focus on the ‘games’ between categories that define the spheres of ‘rooting for’ (a team) in a Brazilian urban context and then contrast these with performances of ‘rooting for’ (a fighter) in another sports landscape, an Amerindian form of ritual combat that takes place during the interethnic rituals of egitsü (Quarup) in Upper Xingu, Brazil. The dialectical relationship between playing and rooting for, mediated by watching, constitutes what we define as a ‘model of relationships’, an analytical and ethnographic construct used to problematise analyses that assume rooting for as a subsidiary and/or epiphenomenal condition of playing.

Keywords

• rooting for
• football
• the sportiveness of watching
• ritual combat
• Xinguan interethnic rituals