ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. The History, Culture and Sociology of Sports
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1617447
This article is part of the Research TopicMapping the Tapestry of Sport and Development in Time and Space: Contextualized Practices, Narratives, and ValuesView all articles
"Sport can unite people, but not with them, they don't love this country" Ethnic Prejudice and Identity Among Basketball Fans in North Macedonia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hungarian University of Sports Science, Budapest, Hungary
- 2Central European University, Wien, Austria
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This study explores how ethnic identity and intergroup prejudice are shaped, expressed and challenged within basketball fandom in North Macedonia, a multi-ethnic and divided society. While sports fan culture is widely recognized as a platform where group belonging and identity are developed, there is limited qualitative research in the Balkans that examines how these identities intersect with ethnic divisions in everyday fan practices. In particular, this study looks at whether sports can serve as a tool for inclusion and reducing ethnic-based prejudice among fans in post-conflict and multi-ethnic societies. To address this gap, we conducted six focus group discussions with 30 members of ethnic-Macedonian and ethnic-Albanian basketball fan groups. Using thematic analysis, we analyzed a) how fan identities are shaped by group and ethnic belonging and expressed through group symbols, loyalty, and rituals; b) how intergroup prejudice and exclusion are expressed through perceptions of rivalry and national representation, and c) whether extended intergroup contact can reduce prejudice among fans. Our findings reveal that fan identities are intertwined with broader socio-political narratives, and that sporting spaces often reinforce, rather than bridge, symbolic boundaries. In addition, Extended Contact Hypothesis (ECH) remains largely ineffective due to emotional detachment and conditional acceptance of the other. These insights offer further understanding of the role of sports and the limitations of contact-based interventions in divided societies, such as North Macedonia.
Keywords: Intergroup prejudice, social identity theory, North Macedonia, Contact Hypothesis, Post-conflict society
Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Agich, Váradi and Dóczi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Arin Agich, arin.agic@gmail.com
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