Mapping Europeanness in Football. Negotiations of Distance and Relatedness during a Mega-Event

The paper will take a close look at how football is used as a vehicle for selfing and othering under the influence of the East-West divide. Mega sports events, such as World Cups or European Championships, provide great opportunities for research. This is because states of exception, within the ‘ordinary’ event cycle of football supporters, reach out beyond their usual audience to include so-called event fans who normally would not care for football. It can be argued that it is these ‘irregular’ supporters who account for the myths that are created with regard to football mega events. I focus on the way various actors stage the self and the other with regard to who and what is Eastern and Western. Drawing upon media analysis and ethnographic field research conducted in Poland during the EURO 2012 football championship, the paper will elaborate on the celebration of loyalties and national stereotypes and the negotiation of the respective images and self-positioning on a map of Europeanness. The paper thus aims at making a novel contribution to understanding how popular culture assists in the drawing of boundaries between East and West.