The “Art of Faking Out”

Being both emotional and bordering on the irrational, identification with a soccer team of Turkish background shows that the experience of stigmatization is part of an “us vs. them” mentality cementing social relationships. Our qualitative approach highlights the narrative of this identification, based on experiences at the margins of the social arena. The aim is to demonstrate that interviewees use the “art of faking out” as a strategy of identification. This tactical dimension of stigma serves as a foundation for a reverse construction of identity. However,it illustrates not so much a need for belonging as a desire for distinction in a space of mutual acquaintances that is being ethnicized and pauperized.