This proposal builds upon three years of previous work by our CLACSO Working Group, which focused on public policies related to sport in participating countries. A primary outcome of the project was the identification of unequal access to sport and physical activity for historically disadvantaged social groups. A secondary outcome was the recognition of a set of factors that undermine the training and competition conditions of high-performance athletes. Similarly, we addressed the situation of professional sports such as football and basketball, where market forces often take precedence over the notion of sport as a right. During these years, amidst the increasing commodification of the sporting field, we had the opportunity to learn about social movements fighting for the presence and visibility of minority groups in this arena, as well as grassroots organizations that carry out daily activities to mitigate the negative consequences of the current phase of capitalism.  

In the face of the panorama of global capitalism and the advance of conservative policies in Latin America and the world, but also considering the alternative experiences of popular projects - called "post-neoliberal" - in countries of the region, this working group intends to discuss different aspects of the articulation between SPORT, CULTURE AND SOCIETY.

In Latin America, beginning in the second half of the 20th century and with the adoption of the Washington Consensus (Gentili, 1997), the neoliberal capitalist project declared its interest in the market as a promoter of society and as a valid agent in public decision-making. In this context, sport is no exception. The increasing commodification of this practice also reflects the role sport plays in global culture, as seen in the organization of major sporting events. However, when sports programs and events are organized according to economic logic, the consequence is a persistent disparity in access for both participants and spectators.

Thus, the universal interest in sport is not limited to the political sphere; it also manifests economically through the presence of international organizations such as the IDB, the IMF, the World Bank, and the OECD. These organizations invest in promoting sport by conducting studies and providing their opinions and guidelines to the states with which they interact. Along with establishing international funding channels for implementing similar programs throughout Latin America, the approaches of these organizations shape problems and construct a specific target social group: the vulnerable. To them, a pre-designed, globally implemented model is offered as a solution, where sport serves as a catch-all for addressing various social issues.

However, the presence and funding of these international organizations in the current context of capitalism in Latin American countries suggests an area of ​​discussion that we cannot ignore: the reflection on the tension between the commodification of different aspects of the lives of citizens in Latin America and the progression of the expansion and acquisition of rights in more democratic societies.

Despite the diverse realities of the countries comprising this network, within which the sociocultural dynamics specific to each context become relevant, we have established a set of lines of inquiry that challenge us as a Working Group. Thus, without losing sight of local particularities, we hope that the questions guiding this research will lead to the identification of patterns surrounding the problems that characterize the region.

First, it is essential to continue studying state public policies that promote the right to access and sustainably participate in physical activity and/or sport. We therefore seek to understand the measures (or lack thereof) that governments at their various levels (national, provincial, local) formulate and effectively implement for the inclusive growth and development of sport and physical activity. In light of current government decision-making, it is also crucial to understand the strategies that grassroots organizations employ in their communities to negotiate with the privatization process.

Secondly, envisioning democratic societies implies generating resources and information to create opportunities for minority groups and/or those historically relegated to silence and ostracism. Therefore, within the current global context of women's rights movements, one topic for discussion among the Working Group members concerns gender relations in various sports. Around this theme, we intend to examine the construction of hegemonic and alternative masculinities and femininities in this field, the violence perpetrated against women and gender non-conforming individuals, the organizational and advocacy strategies of athletes, and the construction of gendered representations in mainstream media. We began exploring this issue in Cuadernos del Mundial (World Cup Notebooks), a compilation of short texts by authors from different countries, reflecting on the Women's World Cup held in France between June and July 2019, which our Working Group coordinated.

Why sport? Because it serves as a space to observe how inequalities are conceived and addressed; how projects are developed to expand rights for vulnerable and historically excluded sectors; what measures are in place for the inclusion of women and athletes with disabilities at both amateur and professional levels; what meanings different social actors assign to sports practices; how physical education has been conceived throughout history in schools and professional training spaces, and how these practices are conceived today in such institutions; and what role workers play in these processes.

This process is catalyzed by statements, propaganda, and programs from international bodies and international sports organizations that shape the training of sports workers, particularly sports technicians (as well as coaches, graduates, and other figures linked to teaching), from a perspective limited to internal logic (what happens on the field), a technical approach (referring to technique, tactics, and rules), and whose sole objective is the record (Vaz, 2005). This pursuit of records organizes a pyramidal logic of technical training and athletes' career paths, from sports initiation to specialization and finally to elite sport. It also organizes the training of workers around how to build more effective and efficient bodies, in a constant, ultimately frustrated struggle for better performance in defining an individuality, demanding the constitution of bodies that produce techniques as tools for themselves—that is, self-exploited bodies. Thus, bodies must be "toughened," sacrificed, and organized according to dominant models to enter the labor market, depending on the demands of each sport. It is the sports technicians and coaches who, under the new hegemony of the "coach," sculpt these bodies, seeking to eliminate flaws and repress dissenting performances. These juxtaposed alliances between state and market should lead Latin American universities, together with social organizations, to critically examine and transform the training of their professionals and researchers, as well as create conditions to redefine their integration into the workforce. Otherwise, sport functions (has functioned and will continue to function) as a mere reproducer of the power relations that the neoliberal capitalist system seeks to perpetuate.

Sport in Latin America has become an object of study within the social sciences since various researchers undertook the project of studying this social practice (Guedes 1977, Da Matta 1982, Archetti 1985). The area of ​​discussion began to consolidate with the functioning of the CLACSO Sport and Society group, led by Pablo Alabarces, which over the years has trained social scientists who are developing and expanding this field of study through undergraduate and graduate research, the organization of seminars, and the publication of academic articles and books.

Sport has been presented by Simoni Guedes (1977) as a zero institution. This means that diverse interests and disputes are at play in every practice, multiplying the meanings through which sport is understood in society. Heinemann (2001) points out that sport has no inherent values. The values ​​surrounding this social institution change throughout history. Governments, dictatorships, corporations, organizations, and local communities have constructed ways of understanding and promoting this practice in society, in a field that is always in conflict and where impositions, resistance, and negotiations of meaning occur.    

Archetti, for his part, has suggested that “sport, understood as a central and not marginal activity, is a fruitful entry point for capturing important cultural, historical, and social processes. Sports, therefore, represent a complex space for the visualization of identities, as well as a space for dominant and challenging social and moral codes” (Archetti n.d.: 3). Along the same lines, Pablo Alabarces (2000) argues that: “Sport is not a ‘reflection’ of some postulated essence of society, but an integral part of it, moreover, a part that can be used as a means to reflect on society” (2000: 11).

In this regard, Roberto DaMatta (1982) argues that sport is as much a part of society as society is a part of sport. Along these lines, drawing on ritual theory, he views sport as a social drama through which society perceives and interprets itself, proposing the study of the different ways in which this practice is appropriated.

Eduardo Santa Cruz (1999) pointed out that when modern Western-rooted sports first appeared in Latin America, only Europeans had the right to play. Later, aristocratic and popular sectors gradually adopted the various practices we now know as sports. For this reason, further study of the dynamics of appropriation, inclusion-exclusion, access, development, and promotion of sport in Latin America remains essential.

For Butler (2002), gender is a dynamic, performative concept and a sociohistorical construct, linked to the cultural production of each society at a given time, and which exposes inter- and intra-gender relations of power and domination. In the field of sports, gender studies provide the epistemological and theoretical tools to understand the inequalities in access to and participation in sports for sectors that have been historically marginalized. Statistics in Latin America indicate that women and girls face greater difficulties in participating in physical activities and/or sports than their male counterparts. This situation is exacerbated when focusing on women and girls from vulnerable socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, this project has a particular interest in the study of gender, and also in sexual dissidence within the sports sphere. On the one hand, the objective is to understand the social foundations of discourses that preserve the hegemony of the male gender (constructed around a single model: middle-class, white, and heterosexual men) over all other genders and sexual identities. On the other hand, the aim is to understand the actions of these groups in their struggle to achieve equality in sports. In this way, we can observe the implications of gender roles in the "sportification" and "spectacularization" of a technologically and globally communication-driven society, as well as the narratives (visual and textual) surrounding gender and embodiment (Vélez, 2011).