Resumo

CASTRO LOZANO, John Alexander. Bodies with endurance: celebration and violence in a barra brava in Bogotá. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2020, vol.43, n.1, pp.193-214.  Epub 30-Abr-2020. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v43n1.73451.

The article seeks to understand and explain the way in soccer fans expose their bodies when they belong to a barra brava (organized groups of supporters of a soccer team) in Bogotá. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork, that is, frequent presence in different activities of the social group and conversations with the members. In Colombia, barras bravas began to be established in the 1990s, organized groups of fans began to engage in festive expressions of support for their soccer teams, using banners, umbrellas, paper, colored smoke bombs, fireworks, and songs adapted to the soccer context. The songs were also characterized by mockery, insults, provocation, and threats aimed at rival fans, and stones, sticks, rods, knives, or firearms were used in physical confrontations. Celebration and violence are known as carnival and combat, respectively, and they constitute the so-called endurance of barras bravas.

Carnival and combat are not contradictory but complementary and they involve presence on the bleachers and in the streets. Fans have to participate in those festive expressions and violent manifestations since it is necessary to encourage the team and fight against rival fans. On the other hand, endurance is a notion and a practice that originated in the organized fan groups in Argentina, which was adopted and adapted by different Latin American barras bravas. Endurance makes it possible to show the joy and bravery of the fans, as opposed to the bitterness and cowardice of the rivals. In other words, endurance is possible only if it is shown in the presence of fans of the same team and of other clubs. However, it is dynamic and changing, since it is related to the different generations of fans that have made up the organized groups.

Descriptors: social conflict, social problems, social sciences, sociology.

Palavras-chave : barras bravas; bodies; carnival; combat; endurance; soccer.

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