Identity at Stake: football leagues as a space-time for cultural reproduction among immigrants

Abstract

During the last decade Latin American immigrants have been organizing football leagues in the city of Seville (Andalusia, Spain). Hundreds of people gather every weekend around these leagues, organized into teams and championships. The leagues prove to be a powerful device for reproduction of a wide and diverse cultural identities imported from the home countries of immigrants. In order to understand the potential of these leagues in the cultural reproduction of immigrants, it is necessary to characterize the space-time coordinates in which they operate. Through ethnographic method we describe these coordinates, simultaneously responding to potential transnational global cultural flows and to deprivation which immigrants suffer when joining the city.