“So far so bad”. The narrative construction of violence in violent soccer supporters

This presentation describes the results of a qualitative research on 15 Italian soccer "ultras" (hooligans, mainly the bosses of various team supporter groups). The data were collected using the Hollway and Jefferson's Free Association Narrative Interview and they were analyzed according to an interpretative content analysis method (thematic field analysis) through the software MAXQDA, a Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software. Mainly, content analysis shows themes related to the social mechanisms driving to construction of identities and scapegoating, the different type of interpretation of violent situations, and the modalities to use narratives in order to rationalize transgressions and crimes. Although data analysis is still in progress, our interest is aimed to depict Lonnie Athens’ theory of Violentization and the narrative construction of criminal careers from a Symbolic interactionist point of view. Implications for the use of narrative thematic analysis and constructionist approaches are discussed.