Violence and masculinity amongst left-wing ultras in post-Yugoslav space

Abstract

In this article, I discuss confrontations involving violence and discourses of masculinity in a left-wing ultras group – White Angels Zagreb – on the basis of observations made as a group member involved in a number of overlapping antifascist activist engagements in Serbia and Croatia. Building my argument up from an ethnographic vignette, I discuss the historical context underlying the production of masculinities and heteropatriarchy in the post-Yugoslav context. I then examine material concerning violence and masculinities gained through participant observation. I argue that whilst not initiating violence against other groups, talk about violent incidents with other groups plays a similar role to that documented in right wing groups in cementing collective identifications, and that group concepts of masculinity are embedded within dominant discursive hegemonies established in post-Yugoslav space, whilst simultaneously rejecting enforced ‘hard’ masculinity, an important observation which differentiates them from many right-wing ultras in the region.