At Nascar in Richmond

I had an interesting cultural experience this Saturday. A long-time fan of Motorsports (particularly Formula 1), I’ve recently become interested in the cultural dynamics of American Southern culture, and what can be more Southern than NASCAR???

I therefore decided to combine a conference visit to D.C. with a drive down to the Chevy Rock and Roll 400 NASCAR race at Richmond International Raceway in Virginia. Even though I arrived early, I had to wait for hours to get in, because of the huge crowd, but found a fascinating display of cultural symbols.

Huge American trucks adorned the parking lot and the Stars and Stripes flew next to the Stars and Bars on randomly erected flagpoles. A number of tents gave out free packets of dip (I went for Skoal straight) and everywhere people were partying with beer from their coolers and bottles of Wild Turkey to the tune of country music and bluegrass banjo strings.

What intrigued me, however, was that not only Southern people (in terms of geography) attended this event. I tried to talk to as many people as possible, and met people from Ohio, Michigan and New York who had flown down for the event. Later on TV I heard that Tom Cruise had even participated, so Hollywood, CA was there too. Even this Danish participant, in his green John Deer cap, confederate flag muscle-shirt and plad lumberjack shirt (all purchased for the occasion to blend in Goffman style) had an enjoyable time and felt some group membership and affinity with the southern symbolism, even though I have none.

This was fun. I believe the sociological field investigator must know not only how to observe the drama of life, but also to participate in it as a dramatis persona. He must dress, act and play the part, as Goffman did. An essential toolkit to the undercover sociologist is that of camouflage.

Being ‘David Ponty from Auburn, Alabama’ instead of ‘a sociological grad student from Denmark’ allowed me to get close to people and observe their culture as a participant, and not as an observer. What was clear to me, was that there was a clear disembeddedness of culture. The British sociologist Anthony Giddens writes in The Consequences of Modernity about how there is a social disembeddedness in modern societies which lift social relations out of their locations and reconstruct them across place, time and space. Relations are promoted with others who are far away, e.g. through radio, television and internet. Location has become phantasmagoric and is no longer descriptive for the logic and mechanics of a social phenomenon.

It seems to me that the same is true today of culture. The fact that people from states that historically, culturally and geographically would be defined as Northern states not only attend NASCAR, but do so with fervour and enthusiasm suggests to me that there is also a strong desire among actors to re-embed themselves in a communal relationship. Likewise, the participating actors from Southern states, historically, culturally and geographically defined, seem to seek an ontological security by celebrating symbols that are affiliated with a lost history and background, but not necessarily with the political implications of this. Because rather than being based on a nature-given authority which is justified through circular and dogmatic means, this cultural affinity is reflexive. I saw fans of both white and African-American background dancing under the battleflag of the Confederate States of America and heard Northern voices combined with Southern drawls when the United States national anthem was sung. It was a fascinating experience to me and made it clear to me why sociology as a discipline is so strong – it allows us to play a part in the social drama and conduct field observations of environments we don’t belong in as private people.

In my next blog post I will talk about another of my field observation studies from 2004, when I studied soccer hooligan culture in Danish soccer and came up close and personal with the hooligan subculture of Brøndby IF, the most notorious soccer team in Denmark, and was allowed to observe their rituals and behaviour.

• David Pontoppidan