Sports and Nationalism in Latin / o America

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste, Robert McKee Irwin, Juan Poblete

      Pages 1-26

3. Sports and the Construction of Nationalism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27

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   2. Football and Patria, Ten Years Later: Sports Nationalism as a Commodity

      • Pablo Alabarces

      Pages 29-44

   3. The Antinational Game? An Exploration of Women’s Soccer in Latin America

      • Joshua Nadel

      Pages 45-65

   4. (F)Utopias: The Nationalist Uses of Soccer in Costa Rica

      • Sergio Villena Fiengo

      Pages 67-84

   5. Race, Sports, and Regionalism in the Construction of Colombian Nationalism

      • Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste

      Pages 85-105

4. Sports as Intranational Mediation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107

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   2. The Players of the Brazilian Football Team as a Model of Culture: Life Stories Mediated by Television News

      • Vander Casaqui

      Pages 109-124

   3. Nationalism and Public Policies of Sports in Brazil

      • Renata Maria Toledo, Maria Tarcisa Silva Bega

      Pages 125-139

   4. The Nation in the Strike Zone and Reality at Bat: Bodies, Voices, and Spaces of Cuban Baseball in Sport Documentaries

      • Juan Carlos Rodríguez

      Pages 141-160

5. Sports and Alterity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 161-161

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   2. “Can I please have a ramp with that Gold Medal?”: Colombian Paralympics and the Prosthetic Lim(b)inality of Nation

      • Chloe Rutter-Jensen

      Pages 163-179

   3. Women Boxers and Nationalism in Mexico

      • Hortensia Moreno

      Pages 181-200

   4. “You Have the Right to Surf!”: Riding Waves of Modernity, Decolonization, and National Identity in Peru

      • Dexter Zavalza Hough-Snee

      Pages 201-223

6. Sports as Transnational Mediation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 225-225

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   2. Guillermo Vilas, “Tennis’s Sexiest Man”: The Argentine Dictatorship in the US Tennis Press, 1974–1982

      • Robert McKee Irwin

      Pages 227-247

   3. The Meanings of Manu: Style, Race, and Globalization in the Culture of Basketball

      • Yago Colás

      Pages 249-268

   4. Latino Soccer, Nationalism, and Border Zones in the United States

      • Juan Poblete

      Pages 269-288

7. Back Matter

   Pages 289-307

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This collection interrogates sports in Latin America as a key terrain in which nation is defined and populations are interpellated through emotionally charged practices (state policy, media representations, and sports play itself by professionals, national teams and amateurs) of inclusion and exclusion.

• sports
• nationalism
• Latin/o America
• Latin American cultural studies
• culture
• emotion
• globalization
• identity
• media
• Nation
• national identity
• Sport
• television
• Transnational
• utopia

“This offering in the ‘New Directions in Latino American Cultures’ series opens with an extensive introduction that includes information about the first appearances in Latin America of soccer (from England) and baseball (from the US), a history and survey of cultural sport studies and their development in Latin America, and generalizations about sports and nationalism. … The book is well documented throughout. … Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.” (R. V. McGehee, Choice, Vol. 53 (5), January, 2016)

"This book is a welcome contribution to a tremendously important but inexplicably neglected field in Latin American popular cultures. The politics of sport have accompanied the processes of urbanization and modernization, and shaped national, gendered, and class identities in Latin America since late nineteenth century. Nowadays, sports' transnational commodification poses new and complex queries that demand our attention." - Abril Trigo, Ohio State University, USA and author of Crisis y Transfiguración de los Estudios Culturales Latinoamericanos

"I know of no other book that offers such a rich, diverse, and enlightening collection of essays about the relationship between sports and nationalism in any region of the world. This is a path breaking collection of essays that is rare in its breadth, the quality of its scholarship, and the comprehensiveness of its treatment of various sports in Latin/o America. It sets a new standard for future studies on the politics and culture of sportsin the region." - Carlos Aguirre, University of Oregon, USA and author of The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds: The Prison Experience, 1850 1935

Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste is Professor of Modern and Classical Languages at Georgia State University, USA.


Robert McKee Irwin is Chair of the Graduate Group in Cultural Studies and Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Davis, USA.


Juan Poblete is Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.

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