Football Sub-Culture and Youth Politics in Algeria

Abstract

This paper addresses two connected issues: first, the state's engagement with football in different phases of Algeria's transitions since 1980s (e.g. the end of state's socialist ideology, multipartism and an era of political violence); second, football chanting among young football fans in Algiers – submerged in brutal conflict during the 1990s' – who have found in the internet in general, and social networks (YouTube, Facebook and Dailymotion) in particular, a new medium: (a) to reframe their identity, in opposition to both the institutionalized discourse on youth and political legitimacy, and the imposed realities of geo-politics that constrain their mobility; (b) to express their malaise with the socio-economic conditions; and (c) to construct their future in an ‘imagined elsewhere’.