Abstract:
This thesis aims to study a process of attending to Thai football field and experience, meaning and social practice between two groups of women, namely (1) pretty girls who work for a football club. Their task is to use their body and beauty to produce an image and to promote a product of the football club and (2) a group of female fan that follows to a game of their football club, though consuming and constructing fan culture in their own way. Also the gather together inside and outside the football field, to create a new social space, via the internet and social media. Accordingly, the conduct of study is to understand a process of entering into Thai League football field within the different power contexts. The finding shows that, the first group, the pretty girls getting into the football field as a professional pretty who work for the football club as emotional labor. The latter group, the female fan club attend to the football field as a consumer. These two different process of the football field attending thus lead to a different social practice between them. In the football field, these women create their social space though their work, group activities. Nevertheless, these two female groups of the football clubs pretty and the football clubs female fan are able to create their community though this process happens within a structural domination, which make their status as a second class fan in the football field. However, within a context of the establishment of male power in the football field, the football clubs pretty girls use their self-discipline as an emotional labor to develop their profession and to enable them to avoid sexual harassment in their workplace, the Thai League football field. Whereas, a group of female fan that enters to the football field, also, they create a new football fan culture or a way to consume the football games in a different way of male fan culture. Besides, a group is also able to produce their social networks, an online social space, and group together to support each other. These female fans also create a new negotiating space, which is a community of practice, which enable them to fight in the football field, although this field is dominated by a male football fan culture.