New spaces of belonging: Soccer teams of Bolivian migrants in São Paulo, Brazil
Julia Haß and Stephanie Schütze
Resumo: Pretende-se analisar a formação de espaços de pertencimento no contexto do futebol amador de imigrantes latino-americanas em São Paulo. A criação de times de futebol amador por imigrantes latino- americanos é um fenômeno muito comum em cidades globais. O Brasil tem sido um país central de destino de migrações nas últimas três décadas, particularmente de imigrantes da América do Sul e do Caribe. Para os imigrantes peruanos, bolivianos e paraguaios, a prática de futebol representa uma apropriação do espaço urbano para reuniões esportivas, culturais e sociais. No contexto de torneios e times expressa-se e manifesta-se a origem da mesma nação, região e localidade. Ao mesmo tempo, o futebol amador cumpre uma função integradora para os imigrantes. Desde o final dos anos 1990, há campeonatos de futebol amador de times femininos de migrantes em São Paulo. Esta pesquisa concentra-se nas estratégias transculturais e de gênero de apropriação do espaço no contexto do futebol amador feminino de imigrantes latino-americanos em São Paulo. Palavras chave: Migração Sul-Americana, mulheres, São Paulo, futebol amador, espaços de pertencimento
Introduction
Bom Retiro, São Paulo It is Sunday afternoon around 4 p.m. From the outside, the soccer club looks unassuming in a small street in Bom Retiro, in the center of São Paulo. Walls and a metal gate block the view of the interior of the club. However, as we enter, the scenario changes. In front of us a clubhouse and a snack bar come into sight. Women in soccer outfits bustle between the clubhouse and the snack bar or wait standing at a handful of plastic tables and chairs. A mixture of Spanish and Portuguese is spoken. From the clubhouse comes Spanish disco music. Opposite the snack bar the fútsal court is located, where a match takes place. Two women teams with five players each compete against each other. It is a group-phase game of the migrant-fútsal-tournament in Bom Retiro. Now Ely, the organizer of the tournament welcomes us and tells us today's program: Her team Rumberas has already played, but four more games are still coming up. Later in the evening, there is a party at the clubhouse. Together with players from Ely's teams, we watch the games. Beer and soft drinks are served. The space around the fútsal court fills. When the final game of the day is kicked off at around 8 p.m., a large audience of players, children, young men and young women from Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru and Brazil in chic evening clothes have gathered. They are waiting for the last part of the tournament and the weekend to begin – the party.
In this article, we examine the significance of soccer as space of belonging in the context of migration. It is based on ethnographic observations among female amateur soccer teams of Bolivian migrants in the neighborhood of Bom Retiro, in the center of São Paulo. The upcoming of migrant amateur soccer teams
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and tournaments is a common phenomenon in many cities around the world: not only in Brazil, but also in other metropolises in Latin America as well as in major cities in the United States and in European migrants found soccer teams. This can be interpreted both as a means to maintain or reshape migrants’ ‘sense of belonging’ to their community of origin as well as a means of ‘integration’ into the host society. On the one hand, soccer represents an appropriation of space for social gathering, whereby the shared origin from a specific nation, region and sometimes even locality is expressed. On the other hand, playing soccer as a leisure activity can be seen as a mode of integration into the host society since amateur soccer is a widespread and popular sport in Brazil.
Without disregarding these two interpretations, we argue that in migrant amateur soccer the appropriation of space takes place on the basis of transcultural strategies that interweave heterogeneous procedural cultural practices. Further, we assume that constructions of gender are visible in these transcultural spaces in a special way (Schütze and Zapata Galindo 2007). In this article, particular attention is paid to migrant women’s amateur soccer teams who claim space in the male-dominated sport. In Brazil, soccer courts have been dominated by men for decades and have been central places of male socialization for a long time (Damo 2005). Whereas both in Brazil and Bolivia soccer has become a popular sport for women in the last decades, ‘sport spaces’ are still characterized by asymmetric power structures and mechanisms of exclusion (Van Ingen 2003). Gender, social class and cultural origin are criteria to exclude individuals from sport activities and the places where they are practiced. However, sports facilities can become ‘contested spaces’, when a discriminated group of people questions existing power relationships, which then have to be renegotiated (Enke 2007).
By asking for spaces of belonging created in the context of Bolivian female amateur soccer teams in São Paulo, the article analyzes new internal migration patterns in South America. Although in the last decades Brazil has increasingly become a recipient country of migrations from neighboring South American countries, these recent migration trends have so far been studied very little. Following the definition of Jorge Durand, ‘migration pattern’ refers to the type, model, and path that delimitates fundamental features of migration processes (Durand 2011). In this case, the recent migration of Bolivians to São Paulo shares common characteristics: migrants are from low income backgrounds, they migrate at a young age and both men and women mostly to work in São Paulo’s textile industry, especially in sewing studios. During two research stays in São Paulo in December 2015 and April 2016, we mapped different spaces of social encounter of Bolivian migrants in São Paulo and conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the districts of Bom Retiro and Brás, where many Bolivian migrants live and work. There the sewing studios, where the majority of Bolivians work, concentrate today; also, many of the migrant amateur soccer tournaments take place in these neighborhoods.
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The article is structured as follows: First, the research on soccer, migration and gender, as well as the central theoretical approaches to spaces of belonging in the context of migrant soccer are discussed. After a presentation of the current migration dynamics to Brazil, and especially the recent migration of Bolivians, the following sections deal with migrant amateur soccer in São Paulo and the league in Bom Retiro. Finally, we analyze the appropriation of spaces of belonging in the context of the league in Bom Retiro based on our ethnographic observations.
Soccer, migration gender and spaces of belonging
This study builds on research that understands soccer as a space of interaction where social, cultural and gender differences are negotiated. Although soccer already became a widespread and important social phenomenon in Europe and Latin America since the middle of the 20th century, it has not been an important focus of research for a long time. Some of the first publications on the social importance of soccer where published in Brazil: In the 1960s, the journalist Marco Rodrigues Filho (1964) published a book about the processes of exclusion and inclusion of Afro-Brazilians in Brazilian soccer. His critical social analysis of soccer influenced the work of Brazilian social scientists during the following decades. Nevertheless, it was not until the publication of Roberto Da Matta (1982) on soccer as a socially contested space, that the sport became an important subject of study. In the United Kingdom, Desmond Morris (1981) dealt almost simultaneously with soccer as a social phenomenon from an anthropological perspective. His understanding of soccer clubs as complex social spaces became an inspiration to social scientists in the 1990s, such as to the French anthropologist Christian Bromberger (1995) or the sociologists Richard Giulianotti and Gary Armstrong (1997). The book of anthropologist Eduardo Archetti (1999) on the relationship between soccer, national identity and masculinity in Argentina constitutes another key work for the social and cultural research on soccer.
Since the late 1990s, anthropological, historical and sociological research on gender dynamics in soccer has increasingly been published in Europe, focusing on female amateur and professional soccer (e. g. Faust 2014; Pfister et al. 1998) as well as on homosexuality and masculinity (e. g. Heissenberger 2012; Kreisky and Spitaler 2006). In Brazil, a wide range of research on soccer and gender has been published over the last few years: Silvana Vilodre Goellner (2005), who analyzes Brazilian soccer from a gender-critical perspective, explains the mechanisms by which the dominance of men in Brazilian soccer has been produced and strengthened. Carmen Rial (2013) explains the wider societal implications of the exclusion of women from Brazilian soccer in the 20th century. More recent contributions to the Brazilian anthropology of sport, such as Alana Mara Alves Gonçalves (2002), Arlei Damo (2005) and Rafael Fermino Beverari (2009), illustrate the central importance of Brazilian amateur soccer as a space of male conviviality and socialization. Gender
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differences in soccer also play a major role in the ethnography of Mariana Da Silva Pisani (2014), who considers women's amateur soccer as a space of female empowerment.
In the past two decades, there has also been an increased interest in research on soccer in the context of Latin American migration in the Americas and Europe. To give just a few examples: Fulvio Rivero Sierra (2008) highlights how Bolivian migrants in Argentina live a large part of the cultural identities in the practice of football. Ingrid Kummels (2011) analyses Mexican migrants’ amateur soccer teams in the United States and the ‘Latin Americanization’ of US sports. In Guillermo Alonso Meneses and Luis Escala Rabadán’s edited volume (2012) the authors elaborate on the impact of Latin American migrant amateur soccer clubs in the United States and Europe. They show that soccer is not only a sport, but is also a factor of social and cultural cohesion for migrants. Juliane Müller (2013) and Francisco José Cuberos Gallardo (2014) investigate migrant amateur soccer in Spain in the context of contemporary migration dynamics from the Andean countries. David Trouille (2013) explores Latino migrant male amateur soccer and their control over public space in Chicago neighborhood parks. Mario Murillo and Juliane Müller (2014) bring together European and Latin American anthropological studies about the social significance of soccer, focusing in particular on the importance of amateur soccer in the context of migration processes, illustrated by processes of cultural appropriation of soccer in Bolivia on the one hand, and Bolivian migration to Spain, Argentina and the US on the other hand. In Brazil, the topic of migration and amateur soccer has been studied only in two works so far: one by Ubiratan Silva Alves (2011) on the Bolivian amateur soccer leagues in São Paulo and another one by Camila Daniel (2014) on the Peruvian amateur soccer leagues in Rio de Janeiro.
The aforementioned edited volumes of Müller and Murillo (2014) and of Alonso Meneses and Escala Rabadán (2012) are particularly relevant for this study. The authors describe how amateur soccer teams contribute to the creation of social networks among migrants, to the maintenance of social and sporting activities from the countries of origin, as well as to the emergence of new cultural and social activities. They show how teamwork facilitates the organization of migrant groups, which almost unconsciously constitute associations that surpass the sporting and recreational activity as a single objective. Soccer is a pretext to deepen the organizational processes built by migrants to meet the challenges posed by the destination society. This can also be observed in the case of the emergence of Mexican hometown associations in the United States: many of these were founded initially as soccer clubs and then developed further cultural, social and political activities (Pescador 2012). In the context of hometown associations migrants connect their communities of origin in Mexico with their places of residence in the United States transnationally (Bada 2014; Schütze 2016). The transnational and transcultural dimension of migrant amateur soccer is an
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important aspect of this study. Migrants often strategically organize their lives between various local, regional and national contexts. In this context, participation in soccer teams is crucial for many migrants.
On the background of the few works which establish a link between soccer, migration, and gender (Agergaard and Tiesler 2014; Allgäuer, Alzueta Zudaire and Müller 2014; Müller 2013), this article deals with migrant soccer as an appropriation of spaces of belonging. Here, the process by which belonging is understood as the appropriation of space by everyday activities – in this case, by sport (De Certeau 1984; Fenster 2004). The spaces analyzed in this study have a social as well as an urban dimension (Lefebvre 1991; Massey 1994). The soccer teams of Latin American migrants are ‘social spaces’ where community is enacted in terms of belonging to the same region. The sport events expand to broader social spaces through the inclusion of family members and friends, as well as through relationships to other socio- cultural institutions (e.g. religious institutions, cultural and social organizations). We assume that within these spaces of belonging, transcultural and gender appropriation processes play a special role – beyond normative binary concepts of culture and gender (Schütze and Zapata Galindo 2007).
Yet, the establishment of amateur soccer teams is also connected to the appropriation of urban space: migrant soccer players negotiate about sport infrastructure (funding, soccer fields) with sport representatives, civil servants and local entrepreneurs; in this process recognition and power, but also discrimination and exclusion play an important role. The urban soccer activities are crucial for the migrants’ self-consciousness and their chances for ‘integration’ into the host society. At the same time, they are often closely related to urban conflicts over space with local residents groups and municipal authorities (Müller and Murillo 2015) which can lead to different results. Christopher Strunk (2014) and Omar Borrás Tissoni (2014) describe how migrants in the United States and Spain appropriate squares and streets in the context of amateur soccer leagues and how this enables the emergence of new transcultural practices and social relations within the migrant communities. Joan Roura Expósito (2014) depicts how local residents perceive the appropriation of urban space by migrant leagues in Spain as a threat in some cases and how this causes conflicts.
New migrations to Brazil’s metropolises
Through sport events urban spaces are converted to ‘contested spaces’: at local as well as at metropolitan level. In this sense, Brazil’s mega-metropolises – São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro – have faced great challenges in the last years. Since 2013, there are recurring protest movements directed against the high costs of the preparations for the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games as well as the forced relocation of residents from the city center to the suburbs in the process of construction works and the lack of social services (public transport, health, education, etc.) in the country. On the sidelines of these major sporting
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events, residents of lower class neighborhoods struggle for social infrastructure; among other things, to carry out sports activities. Migrants are particularly affected by the social exclusion in urban areas.
In recent decades, Brazil’s metropolises have increasingly become destination for migrants from neighboring South American countries, but also from the Caribbean (especially from Haiti) as well as from China, South Korea, Portugal and Italy – the latter historically represented traditional migration destinies for Brazilians; from 2000 to 2014 Brazilian immigration authorities registered 834,000 people of foreign origin (OB Migra 2015: 49). In particular, after the founding of the free trade agreement MERCOSUR in 1991 the migration from Brazil’s neighboring countries increased. The rise in economic inequalities in South America is a key push and pull factor for this South-South migration to Brazil (Baeninger 2012, 16). As the most important industrial agglomeration in South America and Brazil’s economic center, São Paulo is a main center for migrants from South America, particularly from Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay.
The real number of these migrants is difficult to identify, because of the high numbers of undocumented migrants, which is partly due to the absence of strict border controls with neighboring countries (Cavalcanti et al. 2015: 51-52). Although South American migrants who were staying in Brazil without residency papers had been allowed to acquire permanent residence permits under ad hoc amnesties by the Brazilian government in the last years, the number of undocumented migrants is still very high (OB Migra 2015: 51). Bolivian migrants overall represent the most significant migrant group in Brazil in recent years. The official numbers show that the migration from Bolivia is increasing: while in 2000 officially 20.394 Bolivians registered in Brazil, in 2010 the number had grown to 38.816; the numbers also show that slightly more men than women migrated in these years. Yet, different sources indicate very widely varying numbers: While official numbers count only 38.816 Bolivians registered in the work market in 2010 (OB Migra 2015: 26), 40.000 Bolivians enter the country every year following the observations of civil society organizations and the Bolivian consulate estimates a total number of about 350,000 Bolivians in Brazil (Bolivianos no Brasil 2012; Pasa Palavra 2010).
The central arrival points for South American migrants are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Paraná in the Southeast and South of Brazil, in addition to the Brazilian border regions (OB Migra 2015: 52). Particularly the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro stand out as the crucial destination sites for migration: This is not only due to the economic strength of these states, but also to social networks between newly arrived migrants and established migrant communities. While Rio de Janeiro is the main site of arrival for migrants due to its importance as an international transport hub according to the Observatorio the Migrações Internacionais; in the long run the city ‘loses’ many migrants to the neighboring states and in particular to São Paulo (OB Migra 2015: 54). According to anthropologist Camila Daniel (2014), Rio de Janeiro and São
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Paulo differ a lot with respect to migration dynamics and –communities. Due to the significant international immigration in São Paulo in the last decades, migrant supporting institutions and NGOs have emerged from social movements (e.g. Casa do Migrante).
Bolivian migrants in São Paulo
Despite of its growing importance, there is little prior research on the topic of migration from Bolivia to Brazil. Some of the few existing works are by Sidney Antonio da Silva (2005) and Camila Lins Rossi (2005), who deal with the everyday life and labor of Bolivian migrants in São Paulo, as well as by Beatriz Coutinho (2015, 2016), who studies the work situation of South American migrants in São Paulo’s textile industry. The edited volume by Rosana Baeninger (2012) analyzes different aspects of Bolivian migration to Brazil such as migration routes, work, health, education and media coverage on Bolivians in Brazil: Sylvain Souchoud’s article deals with South American workers’ role in São Paulo’s textile industry (2012); Iara Rolnik Xavier investigates the socio-territorial integration of Bolivian migrants in São Paulo (2012); and Gabriela Camargo de Oliveira and Rosana Baeninger describe the second generation of Bolivian migrants living in Brazil’s metropolis (2012).
The following can be summarized about Bolivian migration to Brazil from these works: In the 1950s, the Bolivian Revolution caused the first wave of emigration of Bolivians to Brazil, especially of members of the middle and upper classes. In the 1960s, the implementation of cultural and academic exchange programs between the two countries had the result that many Bolivians came to Brazil for university studies and often stayed there after graduation to live and work (Rolnik 2012: 166). From the 1980s, especially in the 1990s and the 2000s, the Bolivian migration to Brazil intensified. Young Bolivian men and women, often with an average level of education and from a lower-class background, migrated to the Brazilian cities and especially to São Paulo, in order to seek employment (Rolnik 2012: 167). Although these migrants come from all over Bolivia, the majority of them was originally from La Paz and Cochabamba. They usually migrate as adolescents or young adults and alone – without family – to Brazil. The prospect of better earnings and living conditions than in their home country normally is the motivation for migrating to Brazil, but also the imagination about the affluent, modern Brazilian cities is a central incentive for Bolivian migrants (Coutinho 2016: 102).
In São Paulo, many of the Bolivian migrants are employed in the textile and clothing industry, which has been characterized by migrant work for decades (Coutinho 2015). Bolivian family members and acquaintances who already live in São Paulo contribute significantly to attracting theses new migrations to Brazil and to recruit new arriving migrants especially for the work in sewing studios. The first sewing studios that employed Bolivian and later Paraguayan as well as Peruvian migrants belonged to Korean
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entrepreneurs who migrated to Brazil in previous decades (Souchoud 2012: 86). From the 1990s on some successful Bolivian migrants accomplished to build their own sewing studios in the center of São Paulo, in districts such as Bom Retiro and Brás, and employed other South American migrants (Coutinho 2012: 112). In the first years of migration, Bolivians migrants often become victims of exploitation, partly through their own employers (Coutinho 2016: 118). When migrants newly arrive in São Paulo and find a job in a sewing studio, they often can sleep at their workplace. There migrants work 12 to 14 hours daily from Monday to Friday and Saturday half-days (Coutinho 2016: 83). Despite their very low initial wage, the majority regularly sends money to their families in Bolivia.
Though in some cases migrants return to their country of origin after several years, many Bolivians stay in Brazil. Meanwhile, a second generation of migrants has been born and raised; that is, children and young people of Bolivian parents who were born in São Paulo (Camargo de Oliveira and Baeninger 2012: 180). In some schools in São Paulo’s city center Bolivian children already represent the largest minority group. Bom Retiro and Brás have become main resident centers of Bolivian migrants1; they are neighborhoods where different migrant groups have resided the 20th century. Here the sewing studios, where the majority of Bolivians work, concentrate today. In the past two decades, Bolivian business, restaurants, cultural institutions and organizations have developed in both districts. In Rua Coimbra in Brás, Bolivian food is sold and offered in restaurants; people looking for work can find job announcements on a notice board in the street (mostly for work in the textile industry); and remittances to Bolivia can be send in exchange offices. Also, the Feira Kantuta, a Bolivian market, takes place on Sundays in Brás, where cultural events, religious ceremonies, and soccer matches of Bolivian children’s and men’s teams take place.
Migrant amateur soccer in São Paulo
In Brazil’s metropolises, amateur soccer is an important gathering space for migrants. In São Paulo especially Bolivian, Peruvian and Paraguayan migrants participate in the organization of soccer tournaments. Generally, amateur soccer is an extremely popular and widespread sports and leisure practice in Brazil; yet, amateur soccer is not integrated in the national soccer association and is organized on a private level. The offer of amateur soccer leagues and matches depends on the initiatives of
1 The data about Bolivian migrants in São Paulo also is diverse: the Consulate of Bolivia estimates the number of undocumented migrants between 50,000 and 60,000; the Pastoral do Imigrante affirms that 70,000 undocumented Bolivian migrants live São Paulo, half of them in the Brás; the Centro de Estudos Migratórios (CEM) estimates that there are between 60,000 and 80,000 Bolivian migrants, 25% are in an undocumented situation; the Brazilian Ministry of Labor and Employment, in turn, estimates that the number varies between 10,000 and 30,000 undocumented migrants; while the Attorney General’s Office estimates the total number of 200,000 Bolivian migrants in São Paulo (Pasa Palavra 2010).
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individuals or businessmen. Migrant amateur soccer leagues and tournaments are financially supported by local ethnic companies. For example, the annual Copa Peru Rio in Rio de Janeiro is promoted by the Peruvian handicraft shops Inti e Você and Kiswar as well as by the phone company La Peruanita; the South American migrant league in Bom Retiro, São Paulo, is supported by a Paraguayan businessman.
In Brazilian cities, amateur soccer is predominantly carried out on small soccer courts. Fútsal is one of the most popular soccer forms in São Paulo. Here, the teams compete against each other with five players each; four field players and a goalkeeper. Due to the low number of players and a relatively small field size, the game is much more dynamic and technical oriented than the traditional ‘11-to-11’ soccer play. The distances are shorter and shots on goal are possible from almost every position of the field. Amateur soccer takes place during leisure time and differs from street soccer in the player’s intensity and engagement. The players are part of structured teams, usually have fixed playing positions and meet on a regular basis, often several times a week, for training sessions and matches against other teams. Although the practice of soccer itself only takes a few hours, socializing during and after soccer is important for the players and their families.
In São Paulo, a significant organizational structure of migrant amateur soccer leagues and tournaments from Spanish-speaking South American countries exists separately from the Brazilian amateur soccer structures. Migrant amateur soccer leagues have existed for at least 20 years in São Paulo. There have always been more migrant men’s soccer leagues, but the soccer leagues for migrant women have also always existed. Every weekend, and sometimes even parallel in different neighborhoods, female migrant tournaments take place. Over the years the organizers changed, but the tournaments for men and women from Spanish-speaking South American countries continued. Soccer-playing is not only a popular leisure activity in Brazil, especially for Bolivians the soccer leagues also represent a sociocultural continuity. Today, amateur soccer is the most important sport in Bolivia and is also practiced by women in urban and rural contexts (Müller and Murillo 2014: 21, 23).
The majority of the migrant tournaments take place in the neighborhoods like Brás and Bom Retiro where many migrants live and work. Not all tournaments in São Paulo are accessible for all South American migrants in the same way. The Bolivians are the largest group within the soccer-playing migrants in the city. There are tournaments organized by Bolivian women, where a maximum of one non-Bolivian woman per team can participate. These teams identify very directly with their home country or region calling themselves e. g. La Paz, Q cambas or Nueva Generación Boliviana. However, in other tournaments the composition of the teams is made up freely and there are ‘mixed’ women’s teams of different nationalities
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– Bolivians, Paraguayans and Peruvians – which participate in the tournament. One of these is the fútsal tournament in the neighborhood of Bom Retiro in the center of São Paulo.
The league in Bom Retiro
The migrant women futsál tournament in Bom Retiro is held since 2012. The private sports field includes a clubhouse, a snack bar, a regular soccer field as well as a fútsal court equipped with artificial turf on which the women’s tournament takes place. The tournament is financed through the private sponsorship of the Paraguayan businessman who pays expenses such as the field hire and the uniforms; he also organizes the dance and music events that take place in the club house every weekend. In Bom Retiro Bolivian women make up the majority of the players of the tournament, but also women from Paraguay and Peru take part. Last year the tournament was opened for Brazilian teams, what has been criticized by many migrant players. Their argument is that the Brazilians have time to practice during weekdays and so become strong competitors, while migrant women have to work until late at night. Their working hours prevent many teams from training together outside of the tournaments. In the sewing studios, they work from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Friday and Saturday until noon. So, the Sunday weekend tournament in many cases is the only day the teams meet to play.
The Bom Retiro league normally starts in Brazilian autumn (around March or April) and ends in December. The teams pay an entry fee to play in the tournament. When a team wins the tournament, they win a prize; however, the prize money is generally low. In 2015, 36 teams with players from Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil and Peru participated. The games were accompanied by a large group of spectators. Husbands, children and friends watched the soccer tournament and cheered for the teams. It is remarkable that many husbands accompany the women to the matches and support them by taking care of the children in Bom Retiro. According to our ethnographic observation among Brazilian women’s amateur soccer in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, there only few husbands, boy-friends or other family members watch women playing.2 Although in recent decades, female soccer has become more popular in Brazilian society, amateur soccer is still considered a men’s sport and a male social space where female players are discriminated.
Ely has been the organizer of the tournament in Bom Retiro since its foundation in 2012. She comes from La Paz, Bolivia. When Ely migrated from Bolivia to São Paulo in the late 1990s, she began to participate in amateur soccer competitions for migrant women. Even before Ely’s migration to Brazil, soccer played an important role in her life. In La Paz, Ely participated in numerous amateur and semi-professional competitions. Soccer accompanied her life: She says that if it wouldn’t have been for soccer, she wouldn’t have known how to build up her life in São Paulo. When Ely came to São Paulo, she began working in a
2 Julia Haß conducted broad fieldwork on women`s amateur soccer in Brazil in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
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sewing studio in the city center. After a few years, she was able to rise professionally: She became the owner of her own small sewing studio in Bom Retiro and employed other migrant women from Bolivia and Paraguay as seamstresses. For Ely, another economic and social success was the acquisition of an own car, which she uses for her business and for private purposes, especially to drive her soccer team. Because of her economic success, Ely was able to travel to Bolivia to visit her family in recent years.
Ely’s team Rumberas consists of Bolivians, a Paraguayan and a Brazilian. The women work together in Ely’s sewing studio and have become friends. As is common in many sewing studios in São Paulo, some of the migrant workers live in their work place to save money. Most of the players of Ely’s team have to support their families in Bolivia or Paraguay: parents, siblings or their own children who stayed there with family members. Also, a couple of women have founded a family in São Paulo. Then they bring their children to the games; then either the fathers or the team-mates take care of the children. By working and living together as well as being part of the same soccer team the women spend an important part of their time together. For the migrant women, the team is like a family, whose members support each other in their new life situation.
The example of Rumberas shows how female players develop gendered strategies to appropriate space within the male dominated sport. This we observed, by their rituals of celebrating goals, greeting rituals of the players, dramatization of defeats. When Rumberas won the final match of the Bom Retiro’s tournament in December 2015, they celebrated lively: hugging each other, dancing and jumping on the field; and spreading showers of sparkling wine to everyone on the court. Then, they went together to the party in the clubhouse where they were awarded with the winner’s cup. By celebrating intensely and showering with sparkling wine, the migrant women appropriate rituals and symbols from men’s soccer. Champagne showers are a common ritual after important matches in professional men’s soccer, as can be observed in TV transmissions. It is a manifestation of pride, self-confidence and equal rights for female amateur soccer players. Besides, it is an important moment for the teams in Bom Retiro, as many of the migrant women have a stressful everyday-life with little leisure time.
Conclusions
For the recent labor migration of Bolivians to Brazil’s metropolises, amateur soccer represents a ‘practical and safe’ possibility for getting together. As this migration pattern is characterized by young men and women that work all-week-long in sewing studios and mostly also live in their working place, their possibilities of social encounters are very limited. For migrant’ women the fútsal tournament in Bom Retiro is a space where they can spend their weekend leisure time in a protected surrounding. After working the whole week, the Sunday’s soccer event is the only time they spend outdoors in the city. As the soccer
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events include sport, drinking and dancing, the women don’t have to move after their weekly physical exercise to another place. Getting form one place to another in São Paulo at night is not very safe and also expensive: few migrant women have a car and paying a taxi fee is impossible, because of their low income. So, the soccer league is a safe space of social encounter for the South American migrants that experience every-day exclusion and discrimination in their host society.
The female migrant amateur soccer league in Bom Retiro shows how migrants appropriate urban spaces characterizing them through their transcultural and gendered practices. The involvement of other actors, such as the Paraguayan businessmen who finances the tournament and manages the clubhouse, is central because it expands the ‘sport space’ to a broader space of social interaction. As we can see by the example of Latin American migrant hometown associations in the United States, soccer clubs can expand into further cultural, social and political organizations by collective mobilizing and organizing. Differently from these soccer clubs unified on the belonging to a same home community, the league in Bom Retiro builds on transcultural backgrounds: although it has been founded by Bolivians and there are teams that organize around the sense of belonging to a same place of origin, the tournament generally encourages migrants from different national backgrounds to come and play together. This distinguishes Bom Retiro from other migrant amateur soccer tournaments in São Paulo, where other nationalities are excluded through different mechanisms such as the limitation for players of non-Bolivian origin. Thus, the league in Bom Retiro is a ‘space of belonging’ in a broader sense: It is a ‘space of belonging’ where migrants can spend their leisure time, speak Spanish as well as exchange ideas and experiences of their everyday-live in Brazil.
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Football as Space of Belonging: South-American Migrants’ women’s Amateur Football in São Paulo
Abstract: In our research, we look at constructions of spaces of belonging in the context of Latin-American migrants’ women’s amateur football in São Paulo. In global cities, the foundation of Latin-American amateur football leagues and teams is very common. Brazil has been an important destiny for migrations from South American countries in the last three decades. Amateur football represents an appropriation of urban space for sports, cultural and social meetings for migrants from Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. During amateur football competitions, the origin of a same Nation, region and locality are expressed. At the same time, migrant´s amateur football fulfills an integration function. Since the end of 1990s, there are South- American migrants’ women’s amateur football championships in São Paulo. The research focuses the transcultural and gender specific strategies adopted by the female Bolivian, Paraguayan and Peruvian players and the appropriation of space in the context of migrants` women’s amateur football in São Paulo. Keywords: South-American Migration, São Paulo, Women, Amateur Football, Spaces of Belonging
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