Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina

231 Pages·2020·4.707 MB·English

by  Eduardo P. Archetti

Masculinities
Global Issues
General Editors: Bruce Kapferer, Professor of Anthropology,
James Cook University and john Gledhill, Professor of
Anthropology, Manchester University.
This series addresses vital social, political and cultural issues
confronting human populations throughout the world. The
ultimate aim is to enhance understanding - and, it is hoped,
thereby dismantle - hegemonic structures which perpetuate
prejudice, violence, racism, religious persecution, sexual
discrimination and domination, poverty and many other social
ills.
ISSN: 1354-3644
Previously published books in the series:
Michael Herzfeld
The Social Production ofIndifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of
Western Bureaucracy
Peter Rigby
African Images: Racism and the End ofAnthropology
Judith Kapferer
Being All Equal: Difference and Australian Cultural Practice
Eduardo P. Archetti
Guinea-pigs: Food, Symbol and Conflict of Knowledge in Ecuador
Denis Duclos
The Werewolf Complex: Americas Fascination with Violence
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Common Denominators: Ethnicity, Nation-Building and Compromise
in Mauritius
Masculinities
Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina
Eduardo P. Archetti
I~ ~~o~;!~n~~:up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1999 by Berg Publishers
Published 2020 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Eduardo P. Archetti 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of
Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN13: 978-1-8597-3261-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-8597-3266-3 (pbk)
Typeset by JS Typesetting, Wellingborough, Northants.
For Kristi Anne

Contents
Acknowledgements 1X
Prologue xi
Introduction: Frameworks and Perspectives 1
PART I Hybridization 21
CHAPTER ONE 23
Situating Hybridity and Hybrids
CHAPTER TWO 46
Male Hybrids in the World of Football
CHAPTER THREE 77
Hybridization and Male Hybrids in the World of Polo
PART II Masculine Moralities 111
CHAPTER FOUR 113
Locating Masculinities and Moralities
CHAPTER FIVE 128
Masculinities and Morality in the Poetics of the Argentinian
Tango
vii
viii Contents
CHAPTER SIX 161
Masculine National Virtues and Moralities in Football
CHAPTER SEVEN 180
The Masculine Imagery of Freedom: the World of Pibes and
Maradona
Epilogue 190
Bibliography 194
Index 208
Acknowledgements
This book is the product of many years offieldwork, heterogeneous
reading, exploration in archives, dialogues and discussions, confer-
ences and seminars. Grants from the National Research Councils
of Norway and Argentina made possible several months offieldwork
in the period 1988 to 1994. I want to thank colleagues at the Depart-
ment of Social Anthropology in Oslo for suggestive reflections and
critical comments: Marit Melhuus, Signe Howell and Thomas
Hylland Eriksen; the late Ladislav Holy, who gave me inspiration
through long winter talks during his stay in Oslo in 1995; Gary
Armstrong, Richard Giulianotti, Pierre Lanfranchi, Christian Brom-
berger, Sergio Leite Lopes, Jeffrey Tobin, Roberto DaMatta, John
MacAloon and Patrick Mignon, members of the global minority
ofsocial scientists concerned with the complicated relations between
modernity, sport and bodily practices; Rosana Guber and Sergio
Visacovski, anthropologists from Buenos Aires who, like myself,
are striving to understand the puzzling cultural clues of la patria;
Beatriz Sarlo, who, at an early stage and perhaps without knowing,
convinced me of the relevance of my concerns, and the same must
be said of other porteno intellectuals and social scientists: Adrian
Gorelik, Juan Carlos Torre, Enrique Oteiza, Carlos Altamirano,
Donna Guy, Hugo Vezzetti, Laura Golberg, ElisabethJelin, Hector
Palomino, Ariel Scher, Dora Barrancos, Miguel Murmis, Rosalia
Cortes, Leopoldo Bartolome, Nestor Lavergne, Pablo Alabarces,
Julio Frydenberg, Marcelo Masssarino, Roberto Di Giono and Oscar
Teran. I am grateful to many Masters and PhD students from the
Department of Anthropology of the University of Oslo, some of
whom are now my colleagues, for their good and open-minded
ideas. I remember especially the comments of Kjcrsti Larsen, Sidsel
Roaldkvam, Marianne Lien, Hans Christian Hognestad, Anne
Lescth, Roger Magazine and Sverre Bjerkeset.
Many friends have been important during this longjourney. For
almost thirty years, the love, knowledge and wide understanding
offootball by Luis Boada, my old friend from Paris 1968, economist
and ecologist, critical supporter of Barcelona and Flamengo, not
ix