The affective community of Trabzonspor :|emotions, belonging, and affective labour

Abstract

In this thesis, I research how Trabzonspor has gained the capacity to create and maintain its own distinctive supporter community in its historical process by virtue of circulation of emotions between subjects and objects. In other words, I analyze the process through which Trabzonspor supporters have been brought into existence as an affective community around the football club. And to this end, I study how the supporters’ collective belonging to Trabzonspor has occurred and sustained and how emotions operate to turn Trabzonspor supporters into a felt community and a collective body. Firstly, I show how Trabzonspor became an object of love, pride and hope, and how the club gained its affective value within the frame of good feelings. I also observe the processes of Trabzonspor mustering up support in virtue of the value. On the other hand, I show that the happy object gains stickiness through the circulation of emotions around it and I investigate which images and objects stick on the surface of the happy object. Secondly, I research the role of bad feelings in bringing Trabzonspor community into existence as a collective body that has boundaries and surfaces. I especially trace the circulation of shame, pain, and hate in the community. Lastly, I focus on the role of affective labour, which is one of the most important components in creating and sustaining the community as a felt and spiritual community, and providing people's attachment to Trabzonspor in the community.