Matters arising in postapartheid South African fandom

Abstract

South African fandom context largely revolves around soccer, revealing unique intersections of race, class, religion, and identity in shaping modes of belonging, consumption, and resistance. Drawing on available literature across sports, popular culture, and digital media, we highlight how South African soccer fandom operates as contested spaces where histories of apartheid, contemporary inequalities, and aspirations for social transformation converge. In doing so, it underscores fandom not merely as leisure or subculture but as a critical site of cultural expression, collective memory, and identity negotiation in a society still grappling with the legacies of its past.