The “iron trio” against fascism: football fans, activism and resistance
This research seeks to contribute to the development of debates on sports activism in Brazil - considering that this activism is constituted both by actions that aim to transform the specific social and political structures of sport and by those that seek to achieve broader political and social transformations through sports. To do so, it addresses a phenomenon that emerged in the mid-2010s: the collectives of anti-fascist football fans. More precisely, it addresses three of them: Bloco Tricolor Antifa, Porcomunas and Coletivo Democracia Corinthiana. In doing so, it aims to answer the following questions: how do these collectives organize, interpret and put their activism into practice? And to what extent and how can it represent a form of resistance to the structures of domination of the football universe and society in general? To answer the questions raised, it adopts a multi-perspective approach and, supported by John B. Thompson's critical social theory, it proposes that a practice can be characterized as resistance when it opposes to one or more forms of domination. Regarding the method, it adopts the following procedures: literature review, application of questionnaires, observation, individual and group interviews and content analysis of posts on digital social networks. Based on these procedures, it (re)constructs the trajectory of struggles fought by associations and collectives of football fans in the context of the city of São Paulo from the 1940s onwards, as well as seeks to understand the profile and modes of action of members of the researched collectives, their political imaginary and their arenas and agendas of struggles.