Cohesiveness as Ideoculture: An Ethnography of a Soccer Team

This study uses ethnography to explore how communicatively negotiated ideoculture influences membership and participation in a sporting community. Current precepts of sport and ethnographic research on sporting cultures lack a communication focus, in spite of the important role communication plays in making possible sport culture and ideoculture. This ethnographic research was based on an amateur university soccer club. Results indicate that an ideoculture around team cohesion was closely related to team notions about success and was discernible in behaviors associated with politeness and facework. Club members were expected to show appropriate displays of team cohesion. Such displays were often associated with how members tacitly allocated tiers of club membership and participation amongst each other.