Nation Matters. On British Sports, Professional Jerseys and the Inscription of Argentinean “National Feeling”

• In Event: 151 - Regular Session. Nations/Nationalism

Abstract

While we know a lot about everyday or banal forms of nationalism in terms of representations, we still know little about the menial everyday inscriptions in material forms of the nation as a particular form of imagined solidarity in things beyond its conceptualization as a process of sacralization. This paper looks at the peculiar trajectory of the jerseys of the national team for three originally British sports (soccer, field hockey and rugby) in Argentina to inquiry about the competing claims that get articulated in each one. Focusing mostly on what makes the jersey authentic in the eyes of casual fans in the marketplace, and the role brand and sponsorship play in guaranteeing said authenticity, this paper develops a two-fold comparison between the sports; and between soccer club teams and national association teams. Using online sources from e-commerce, advertising and journalistic articles, the article concludes by showing the manifold ways in which each sport manages to present stylized common features of the nation, as well as how they depart and vary and why, with a special emphasis of how the particular history of each sport affords certain claims and material inscriptions but not others.

Author

• Claudio Ezequiel Benzecry, University of Connecticut