Body Identities: between the tale and the aguante

Abstract

In this work we analyze the uses and representations of the bodies of football’s hinchada members, working on the articulation that those supporters make between body ideals, male models and body contest’s practices. This articulation results in the construction of a particular sense of community, based in and through body experience. The body itself, fighting against rivals and fellows, is the tool that allows the identification with a group of peers; the action, the practice, is the element that defines the group’s membership. This is the way in which we analyze the identifications and the construction of collectivities that are focused in practices and actions and not primordially in narrative dimensions. The discourses of identity that create and re-create ‘others’ and ‘us’ have different dimensions: narrative, gesture, body, written ones (among others). Through the expressive manners of football spectators we propose to analyze how some social groups and some identity configurations are built, giving a priority role to the body and the experience that is anchored on it.