Kicking off: Violence, honour, identity and masculinity in Argentinian football chants

Abstract

For over a century, violence has plagued Argentinian football. Popular understandings of the problem, however, are sorely lacking, with violence too often written off as an external force invading the game. This article provides an alternative view, arguing instead that violent behaviours are endemic to the sociocultural composition of the game itself, and that incidents of belligerence and antagonism cannot be separated from its wider context. To approach this, I analyse a corpus of chants produced by supporters of River Plate, one of the largest clubs in Argentina, and indeed Latin America. The aim is to provide a more nuanced vision of violence, taking into consideration how it is conceived, regulated and discussed by a plurality of supporters. Focussing on the native concept of aguante and the specific sociocultural formation of masculinity in Argentinian football, I suggest that a range of aggressive, harmful behaviours are naturalised and legitimised by prevailing cultural tendencies in Argentinian football.