Copyright by Christopher Thomas Gaffney 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Christopher Thomas Gaffney Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: DYNAMIC SITES AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS: THE STADIUMS OF RIO DE JANEIRO AND BUENOS AIRES Committee: Paul C. Adams, Supervisor Karl Butzer Richard Flores Steve Hoelscher Leo Zonn DYNAMIC SITES AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS: THE STADIUMS OF RIO DE JANEIRO AND BUENOS AIRES by Christopher Thomas Gaffney, B.A.; M.Sc. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2006 Dedication A mis antecedentes, mi familia, esposa, amigos, y compañeros del estádio. Y para ti. Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have come to fruition without the mentorship, guidance, assistance, inspiration, friendship and love of many people. In Buenos Aires, I am particularly indebted to Tulio Guterman who took me under his wing and flew me around the city. Julio Frydenberg and Eduardo Archetti provided guidance and a grounding in the history and anthropology of porteño soccer. The Gil family was kind enough to open their home to me in the midst of la crisis and I spent many hours lamenting the fate of Argentina with them. Matias Tomasetti and Leo Alvarez showed me some of the lesser known workings of porteño society, and taught me the essential elements of lunfardo. Later trips were abetted by Manuel Balán who has continued to provide me with insight into his native land. Thanks also to Shevy Jelín who provided a timely critique of Chapter Five and opened her house to a gang of gringos in Buenos Aires. Thank you also to all of the club officials that opened doors when I knocked, and to members of the media (especially Leonardo Gentili, Hugo, and Sr. Evangelista) who brought me in and out of places I couldn’t have reached on my own. Thanks also to Hugo for showing me the youth development system at Argentinos Juniors. In Rio de Janeiro, I am indebted to a slew of geographers: Gilmar Mascarenhas, Fernando Ferreira, Mauricio, Davidson, Antonio, Leo, Guilherme and the students and faculty in the geography department at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). The friendship and assistance of these people expanded my knowledge of Rio while adding a great deal of texture and passion to my research. Thanks also to Jair and Renato for showing me the inside world of futebol. Rodrigo Nunes read an early version of the chapters on Rio and his knowledge of the city helped my research considerably. I am also v grateful for the friendship and hospitality of Gonzalo and Sofia Varela in São Paulo (and Montevideo), and dozens of others who hopefully know who and where they are. In the United States, I am grateful for the encouragement, advice, enthusiasm and estupendo editorial assistance of Paul Adams. Thanks for believing in the project and helping it to take shape. I hope you will be proud of what I’ve accomplished. And of course, I would have been mired in something unpleasant without the support, encouragement and skid-greasing of Dee Dee Barton. Thanks Mama. I would also like to thank George Roberson for his continual state of geographical agitation and world view and David Salisbury for his comradeship. Thanks also to Paul McGinlay and the Trintiy University Men’s Soccer program for listening to my pre-game exhortations and over- intellectualization of kicking a ball around. My parents provided several critical infusions of money and encouragement when things were difficult and if words were dollars, I could repay you all too easily. And a final abrazo to Brenda Baletti, who has kept me honest, motivated, inspired and loved throughout. vi DYNAMIC SITES AND CULTURAL SYMBOLS: THE STADIUMS OF RIO DE JANEIRO AND BUENOS AIRES Publication No._____________ Christopher Thomas Gaffney, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Paul Channing Adams While generally under theorized as geographic objects, stadiums form an integral part of urban landscapes and cultures. As monumental architectural forms, stadiums represent place and senses of individual and collective identity. They provide a stage for the performance of sport and for ritualized combat between sub-cultural groups. Because they are built to control tens of thousands of people, stadiums play an important role in urban political economy, media production, identity performance, processes of socialization and the dissemination of political ideologies. Similar to plazas, squares, and markets, a stadium is a nexus of broad-based socio-cultural interaction. This dissertation argues that by entering into cultures through the stadium, a wide range of social interactions and geographic processes can be critically evaluated and compared. The cultural centrality of stadiums in Latin America has a long history. The ball courts of Maya, Aztec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Hohokam, and Olmec societies functioned as ceremonial sites for the performance of sport and occupied important positions in religious and urban landscapes. In the late-nineteenth century, modern stadiums appeared vii on Latin American urban landscapes in response to British and North American political, economic and cultural influences. The proliferation of institutionalized sport in the twentieth century consolidated stadiums as central components of cultural life throughout the region and the world. Throughout this historical span stadiums have continued to function as a universal and dominant elements of Latin American societies. This dissertation employs a comparative methodology to investigate and interpret the way cultural differences are manifested in two different key settings for stadium construction and use. By examining and comparing the historical trajectories and contemporary realities of stadiums in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, Dynamic Sites and Cultural Symbols answers the questions: How and why did stadiums come to form such an important part of urban cultures in Latin America? What role did stadiums play in facilitating the transformation of race and class relationships in Rio de Janeiro and the formation of national identity in Brazil? What are the historical urban associations that positioned stadiums as sites of masculine solidarity and conflict in Buenos Aires? How do the very different stadium cultures within each city inform larger socio-cultural and geographic conditions? How can local responses to globalizing forces be understood through the stadiums of each city? viii Table of Contents List of Tables ....................................................................................................... xiii List of Illustrations............................................................................................... xiv CHAPTER ONE 1 Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Academic contexts..........................................................................................7 Conceptualizing the city .................................................................................8 Cities and Spectacle .............................................................................10 Spectacle and the Stadium ...................................................................13 Stadiums and flows..............................................................................13 The Landscape of Identity ............................................................................16 Stadiums and monumentality...............................................................20 The production and reproduction of space....................................................25 The spaces of the habitus ..............................................................................31 Landscape .....................................................................................................35 Public Space in Latin America’s mega-cities ...............................................41 Extending the field...............................................................................46 Methodology.................................................................................................48 Two cities, two methodologies, one synthesis.....................................52 Conclusion ....................................................................................................54 CHAPTER TWO 59 Temples of the Earthbound Gods ..........................................................................59 Greeks, Romans, and Meso-Americans........................................................63 Panem et Circences..............................................................................65 Meso-American Ballcourts ..................................................................68 Industrial Britain and stadium diffusion .......................................................70 Terminology..................................................................................................77 The sacred and the profane ...........................................................................81 ix Pilgrimage and ritual............................................................................84 Memory, Heritage and Representation .........................................................93 Sexual Space .................................................................................................96