Sports and Nationalism in Latin / o America

Sports and nationalism are two forms of imagining and actively constructing the connections that justify and explain belonging to a community. However, as practices involving diverse actors in historically and culturally specific contexts, they are also often occasions for the questioning of hegemonic national narratives and even for the emergence of alternative imaginings of supra or sub-national belonging. This collection interrogates sports in Latin America precisely as a key terrain in which nation is defined and populations are interpellated through emotionally charged practices of inclusion and exclusion. The book explores the complexities of these practices across a range of sports (soccer, baseball, cycling, basketball, tennis, boxing, and more) and national spaces (Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, USA, among others). Finally, it looks at how factors such as gender, (dis)ability, migration, and globalization complicate notions of nation engendered through sports.

Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste is Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at Georgia State University, USA.

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

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