Sports identity in chile: A sociocultural and material process marked by the state and neoliberalism.

Abstract

The construction of athlete identity is an interesting topic in the field of sociocultural studies of sport. The objective of this study was to analyze the athlete identity construction of the Chilean athletes to gain comprehension on this topic. Through a qualitative study, 17 semi-structured interviews were developed with high performance and recreative athletes from conventional and adapted modalities. The results show that there are two categories to construct Chilean sports identity: sociocultural conditions and material conditions, which are marked by neoliberal logics and values. We conclude by expressing that gender is a dimension that generate alternative discourses to dispute individualism and competition as present values ​in Chilean athlete identity.