Performative discourses of nationality, race, and masculinity in Buenos Aires
Blenda Femenías | University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD, USA
Since the late twentieth century, Buenos Aires has been widely publicized outside Argentina as a “gay-friendly” destination. This period has also seen increasing immigration to the city from other parts of South America, especially neighboring countries and others with sizeable indigenous populations. An ongoing popular national narrative highlights hyper-masculinity as a preeminently Argentine characteristic. Distinct discourses characterizing Argentina as racially white-majority and anti-foreign and anti-indigenous, overinvested in machismo, and at the same time welcoming to nonheterosexual foreigners seem, on the surface, to be at odds. In this essay I explore intersections among race, gender, sexuality, and foreign origin as cross-cutting planes of discourse, which are all subsumed within and constitutive of the Argentine national imaginary. While these distinct domains of reference can isolate and contain different sectors of Argentine society, I argue that it is the overlapping, simultaneous application of raced-sex terms that necessarily denies masculine superiority to others and promotes it among Argentine men. Ultimately, therefore, a “permissive” atmosphere cannot challenge heteronormativity. I consider the ways that racial and sexual epithets (including maricón and puto “fag,” boliguayo “Bolivian + Paraguayan alien” or “Indian,” and brasileño, literally “Brazilian” but code for “Afro-heritage/black”) are differently used in conversational settings and media reports about sports teams and sporting events, especially soccer, as well as during those events.
2005Barras bravas, pasión guerrera: Territorio, masculinidad y violencia en el fútbol chileno. In Jóvenes sin Tregua: Culturas y Políticas de la Violencia, Francisco Ferrándiz & Carlos Feixa (eds), 145–169. Barcelona: Anthropos.
Andrews, George Reid
1980The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800–1900. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Andrews, George Reid
2016Afro-Latin America, 1800–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Archetti, Eduardo P.
1992Argentinean football: A ritual of violence?International Journal of the History of Sport 9(2): 209–235.
Archetti, Eduardo P.
1999Masculinities: Football, Tango, and Polo in Argentina. Oxford: Berg.
Armus, Diego & Rinke, Stefan
(eds)2014Del Football al Fútbol/Futebol: Historias Argentinas, Brasileras y Uruguayas en el Siglo XX. Madrid: AHILA Iberoamericana Vervuert.
Avila, Eduardo
2009Argentina: Xenophobia in the football stands. Global Voices. [URL] (February12 2014)
Barrionuevo, Alexei
2007aMacho Argentina warms to gay dollars and euros. New York Times. [URL] (January21 2015)
Barrionuevo, Alexei
2007bBuenos Aires journal: In macho Argentina, a new beacon for gay tourists. New York Times. [URL]˃ (January21 2015)
Boellstorff, Tom
2005The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Boliviabella.com
2014Bolivia vs. Argentina in more ways than one. [URL] (December30 2014)
Brown, Stephen
2002“Con discriminación y represión no hay democracia”: The lesbian and gay movement in Argentina. Latin American Perspectives 29(2): 119–138.
Carrier, Joseph
1995De los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality among Mexican Men. New York: Columbia University Press.
Carvajal, Carol Styles & Horwood, Jane
(eds)1996Oxford Spanish Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chávez-Silverman, Susana & Hernández, Librada
2000Reading and Writing the Ambiente: Queer Sexualities in Latino, Latin American, and Spanish Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Connell, R. W.
2005Masculinities 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cottrol, Robert J.
2007Beyond invisibility: Afro-Argentines in their nation’s culture and memory. Latin American Research Review 42(1): 139–156.
Courtis, Corina, Pacecca, María Inés, Lemon, Diana, Belvedere, Carlos, Caggiano, Sergio, Casaravilla, Diego & Halpern, Gerardo
2009Racism and discourse: A portrait of the Argentine situation. In Racism and Discourse in Latin America, Teun A. van Dijk (ed), 13–56. Plymouth: Lexington Books.
Diarioregistrado.com
2014Alex Freyre: La mitad más uno de los putos también es hincha de Boca. Diario Registrado. [URL] (April3 2015)
Duke, Vic & Crolley, Liz
1996Football spectator behaviour in Argentina: A case of separate evolution. Sociological Review 44(2): 272–293.
Dunning, Eric
1999Sport Matters: Sociological Studies of Sport, Violence, and Civilization. London: Routledge.
Espiritugay.com
2012Argentina la nueva meca del turismo gay de latinoamerica. [URL] (January21 2015)
Femenías, Blenda
2008The Andean diaspora in Buenos Aires. (Paper presented at the Annual Symposium of the Program in Latin American Studies, Johns Hopkins University)
Femenías, Blenda
2010 ‘How could this Indian be a diplomat?’: Gender, power, and transregional interactions in Argentina. (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans)
Femenías, Blenda
2011Arts and identities among Andean migrants in Buenos Aires. (Paper presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology 71st Annual Meeting, Seattle)
Femenías, Blenda
2014Slurs, sports, and spectacle: Nationality and the negation of masculinity in Buenos Aires. (Paper presented at the 21st Annual Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference, American University, Washington, DC)
Femenías, Blenda
2015Uncommon threads: Artists and laborers as Andean garment producers. (Paper presented at the Workshop on Learning How: Training Bodies, Producing Knowledge. Freie Universität, Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin)
Foster, David W.
1998Buenos Aires: Perspectives on the City and Cultural Production. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Frydenberg, Julio, Daskal, Rodrigo & Torres, Cesar R.
2013Sports clubs with football in Argentina: Conflicts, debates and continuities. International Journal of the History of Sport 30(14): 1670–1686.
Gordillo, Gastón & Hirsch, Silvia
2003Indigenous struggles and contested identities in Argentina: Histories of invisibilization and reemergence. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 8(3): 4–30.
Govan, Fiona
2012Britain’s ambassador to Chile angers Argentina after Falkland Islands “cowards” tweet. The Telegraph. [URL] (January21 2015)
Grimson, Alejandro
2005Ethnic (in)visibility in neoliberal Argentina. NACLA Report on the Americas 38(4): 25–29.
Grimson, Alejandro & Jelin, Elizabeth
(eds)2006Migraciones Regionales hacia la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Prometeo.
Guy, Donna
1991Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Helg, Aline
1990Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880–1930: Theory, policies, and popular reaction. In The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940, Richard Graham (ed), 37–70. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Hernández, Tanya Katerí
2011Hate speech and the language of racism in Latin America: A lens for considering global hate speech restrictions and legislation models. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 32(3): 805–841.
Herrera, Clarisa
2014Buenos Aires, capital mundial del turismo gay. PanAmericanWorld. [URL] (January21 2015)
Joseph, Galen
2000Taking race seriously: Whiteness in Argentina’s national and transnational imaginary. Identities 7(3): 333–371.
Lanacion.com.ar
2009Las repercusiones tras la dura derrota: Messi: “Es imposible jugar en la altura.” La Nación. [URL] (March18 2015)
Leap, William L.
2010Globalization and gay language. In The Handbook of Language and Globalization, Nikolas Coupland (ed), 555–574. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Linovich, Walter
2009Enojo por las banderas. Infierno Rojo. [URL] (March31 2015)
Long, Gideon
2013Daniel Zamudio: The homophobic murder that changed Chile. BBC News. [URL] (March31 2015)
Marchetti, Pablo
2015Puto El Que Lee: Diccionario de Insultos, Injurias e Improperios. Buenos Aires: Granica.
Miranda, Andrea
2010Una ciudad gay friendly. Mercado. [URL] (January21 2015)
Molteni, Guido
2011Discriminación en el fútbol argentino: La violencia que nadie quiere ver. La Nación. [URL] (June5 2015)
Moreno, Aluminé
2008The politics of visibility and the GLTTTBI movement in Argentina. Feminist Review 891: 138–143.
Morgan, Joe
2014Gay man attacked and left for dead in Buenos Aires. Gay Star News. [URL] (April20 2015)
Mount, Ian
2007Gay World Cup. The Guardian. [URL] (April20 2015)
Moya, José C.
1998Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Museo de la Inmigración
2017Argentina, Dirección Nacional de Migraciones. [URL] (August10 2017)
1996Domination and desire: Male homosexuality and the construction of masculinity in Mexico. In Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas: Contesting the Power of Latin American Gender Imagery, Marit Melhuus & Kristi Anne Stølen (eds), 83–107. London: Verso.
Rein, Raanan
2015Fútbol, Jews, and the Making of Argentina. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Ridge, Patrick Thomas
2014Um bando du louco: Corinthians and masculinity in Boleiros and Linha de passe. Romance Notes 54(3): 419–425.
Rockefeller, Stuart Alexander
2010Starting from Quirpini: The Travels and Places of a Bolivian People. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Romero, Amílcar G.
1985Deporte, Violencia y Política: Crónica Negra. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina.
Ruggeri, Joaquín
2014Buenos Aires, meca del turismo gay. El Destape. [URL] (January21 2015)
Salman, Ton & Zoomers, Annelies
(eds)2001The Andean Exodus: Transnational Migration from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Amsterdam: CEDLA.
Salvatore, Ricardo
2003Wandering Paysanos: State Order and Subaltern Experience in Buenos Aires during the Rosas Era. Durham: Duke University Press.
Salvemosalfutbol.org
2009Discriminación, racismo y xenofobia en el fútbol. [URL] (March31 2015)
Schávelzon, Daniel
2003Buenos Aires Negra: Arqueología Histórica de una Ciudad Silenciada. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores.
Scobie, James
1974Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb, 1870–1910. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sofer, Eugene F.
1982From Pale to Pampa: A Social History of the Jews of Buenos Aires. New York: Holmes & Meier.
Taylor, Diana
1997Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Durham: Duke University Press.
Telegraph.co.uk
2014Fifa fails to punish a dozen of clear racist and homophobic incidents at World Cup 2014, according to Fare report. Telegraph. [URL] (March5 2015)
Terra.com.ar
2009El árbitro Laverni detiene el Vélez-Boca por cantos racistas. Terra. [URL] (March31 2015)
2012Cinco destinos LGBT en la Argentina. [URL] (January14 2017)
Villalpando, Waldo, Feierstein, Daniel, Fernández, Norma, González, Ana, Ravenna, Horacio, Sonderéguer, María & Cassino, Miranda
2005Towards a National Plan Against Discrimination: Discrimination in Argentina. Buenos Aires: INADI.
Wright, Timothy
2000Gay organizations, NGOs and the globalization of gay identity: The case of Bolivia. Journal of Latin American Studies 5(2): 89–111.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Gayles, Prisca & Marianela Muñoz-Muñoz
2023. Unveiling Latin American White multiculturalism: Black women’s politics in Argentina and Costa Rica. Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 18:2 ► pp. 200 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.