Looking at the formation of football cultures around particular cultural, historical and geographical contexts, in this case focussing on Athletic Bilbao. A 3rd yr undergraduate presentation created as part of the Living in a Digital World Media & Communications module at Coventry University.

1. Presented by
Leon Emirali
Jason Kurmoo
Benedict Sycamore

2. Aims
 Travel to Bilbao and document life of a local
 Examine the history of the Basque Country
 Identify how a city such as Bilbao remains
economically stable

3. Objectives
 Use a covert micro-ethnographic approach to
document life in Bilbao
 Validate primary research by using secondary
resources
 Observe how the city’s new service industries, now
generate money for the city

4. Field Research
 Inductive stance
 Interpretive-Constructivism
 Covert Micro-Ethnography
 Visual Ethnography

5. Brief History of Bilbao
 Bilbao capital city of the Biscay provinces
 Economic history of Bilbao
 Spanish Civil war
 Basque Nationalism

6. Brief History of Bilbao
Ikurriña
Union Jack

7. Athletic Club Overview
 Founded in 1898
 Most successful Club outside of Real Madrid and
Barcelona
 Founded by British steel ship yard workers
 Cantera Policy “Home grown”
 Owned by fans ‘socio’s’

8. Habitus and Bilbao
 “the habitus is a system of dispositions, constituted by
durable, learned schemes of perception, thought and
action which individuals learn through socialisation
and their daily encounters with objective social
structures – called ‘fields’ in the work of Bourdieu –
which place requirements and incumbencies upon its
members that are subsequently ‘absorbed’ into the
habitus.” – Sean Morrissey

9. Habitus of Bilbao
 Enam Gartziar: “Our fathers are not originally from
here, they are from Zaragoza and Lyon but have always
supported the beliefs of Bilbao and the football club.”

10. Influence of Football
 “The regulated and codified form of football, which
penalised violent and ‘ungentlemanly’ conduct, came
to be welcomed by the bourgeoisie and subsequently,
the working classes became increasingly
‘embourgeoisified’” - Sean Morrissey

11. Influence of Football
 Vie Cazmen: “The philosophy of the team makes us
feel very special and unique because there are no
football players from other parts of Europe. The club is
not in the market of business and it not the question
of how much you can pay for football players but
feeling of Basque, feeling of good players…… like it’s a
dream for that player to play for the club. We believe
that this philosophy of belonging is the reason and it’s
not that you have to be born in Bilbao; you can be born
in Africa e.t.c.”

12. Influence of Football
 Subcultural Capital – The non-financial and social
assets of a culture that is (in some form) differentiated
from the larger culture to which it operates within, or
belongs. (A neotribe)

13. Influence of Football
 Neotribalism is the ideology that human beings have
evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass
society, and thus will naturally form social networks
constituting new "tribes”.

14. Liminality
 Part 1 – Removed from familiar environments
 Part 2 – Liminal Space, not ruled by the environment
from which they came, not yet invested in new
environment
 Part 3 – Emergence, the application of insights, inner
stirrings, new respect for diversity seen in others

15. A global comparison
 Football support in China
 Chinese unity in football
 Neo-Tribalism and Identity
 Fractured Spain
 Political Football

16. The City, The Space
 City Zoning
Fig. 1: New York City
Fig. 1: New York Grid

17. The City, The Space
 Milton Keynes
 City design
 New City in the U.K.
Fig. 3: Milton Keynes
Central Grid
Fig. 4: Milton Keynes Plan

18. Use of space in Bilbao

19. The City, The Space
 “underlying nearly all leisure forms is a characteristic
which most liberal and radical writers tend to pass over
in silence; self consciousness. If we are aware of the
significance of our leisure activity – whether it can be
said to be good or bad, whether it has high or low
status – can we really be said to be free?” (Rojek 1993:4)

20. Characteristics of a city
 Bourgeois Culture
 Human Nature
 Leisure and Reward

21. Characteristics of a city
 “leisure can not be enjoyed unless it is won by effort, if
it have not been earned by work, the price has not
been paid for it ... but the leisure without the work,
can no more be enjoyed than surfeit” (Smiles 1894:93)

22. Characteristics of a city
 “Maps are full of references and indications, but they
are not peopled. You often need a map to get around a
city, its subways system its streets. But the preliminary
orientation hardly exhausts the reality in which you
find” (Bird, J. Et al 1993:188)

23. Characteristics of a city
 Landscape as human activity
 Culturalism
 Spain’s hegemony over the Basque Country

24. Characteristics of a city
 “in the primitive view, land is not a thing that can be
cut into pieces and sold as parcels. Land if not a piece
of space within a large spatial system. On the contrary,
it is seen term of social relations the people as part of
nature, are intimately linked to the land” (Sack
1980:22)

25. Use of Space in Bilbao
 What space means?
 What does Bilbao look like today?

26. Football as Commodity
 A game for the working classes?
 Highly profitable industry
 Athletics' fierce preservation of identity

27. Football as Commodity
 “sport stars have a similar status to rock and movie
stars and are not key figures in the celebrity
landscape” Ellis Cashmore

28. Virtual Space
 Promoting engagement and interactivity
 Professional Blog
 Facebook, Twitter ect.

29. Summary
We have covered:
 How Bilbao remain economically stable
 How space is used in cities in relation to Bilbao
 The origins of Basque nationalism
 How football constructs habitus in social city scapes
 The way football is changing as a result of
commodification
 How identity has been attempted to be preserved by
Athletic Bilbao

30. Conclusion
 Neo-Liberal policy and attitude has forced Athletic
Bilbao to conform to the consumerism of the modern
world to retain financial stability
 Bilbao is still affected by the hegemony of the ruling
country, Spain and is yet to gain independence.
 Bilbao is consistent with wanting to keep their own
identity and sense of regionalism and nationalism.

31. The Next Step
 Look further across Spain to gain understanding of the
intricate fractions that exist in Spanish society and
culture.
 More extensive primary research to carry out more
accurate field research.
 Conducting a full ethnographic study

32. Thank you for listening
We would now like to open the floor to questions

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