From Schizophrenic Desiring-Machines to Neoliberal Spectators: Deleuzian Notes on Turkish Football Fandom

Abstract

Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of desire and schizophrenia, this paper examines the transformation of Turkish football fandom from a schizo socius into a disciplined and regulated one. Ultras once functioned as desiring-machines that resisted commodification and political intervention but, in the last decade, have increasingly been contained through surveillance, repression and economic exclusion under authoritarian neoliberal governance, resulting in the withdrawal of fans from overt political expression. By situating Turkish football fandom within a Deleuzian framework, the study contributes to a postmodern understanding of the football socius and highlights the tension between grassroots resistance and neoliberal regulation.