Disregarding youth proposals: Intangible heritage, securitization, and soccer fan groups in méxico

Heritage can be understood as a selection of elements and expressions appropriate for a particular culture that have been recognized by a group of people with enough social power to do so. However, certain patrimonial expressions are not taken into account as such. The data presented in this chapter were obtained from ethnographic research conducted within a Mexican soccer fan group called La Banda del Rojo (The Red’s Gang) located in the city of Toluca. Fieldwork was conducted from August 2013 to April 2015. he social dynamics within this group are developed from a conjunction between a hierarchical social organization and collective and emotional actions. In this chapter, this social organization will be understood as a kind of intangible heritage. The analysis finds that official institutions have carried out securitization processes to improve security conditions at sporting events. Some of these official institutions value the emotional and festive atmosphere that characterizes the heritage proposal of this fan group, but exclude and ignore some of its fundamental practices because they distance themselves from the group’s moral ideals concerning liberalism. These securitization processes restrict and hinder the access of official actors and the wider population to the proposal of the group.