Sociability in neighborhood football clubs at the end of the 20th century. The case of the Don Bosco club in San Carlos de Bariloche (1986-1997)

Abstract

n this article we study urban sociabilities linked to neighborhood football clubs through the case study of an institution and its environment in the Rio Negro town of San Carlos de Bariloche during the last two decades of the 20th century. The qualitative study of social networks and ties from a microhistorical perspective allows us to identify processes of formation, progress and setbacks in relation to the development of these entities as spaces of identity and social interaction, taking into account the socio-economic and cultural changes in the context. During the 1980s and 1990s, the city experienced rapid growth that brought with it an increase in social and spatial segregation, in the heat of the application of neoliberal policies and the difficulties of the State to provide services to the peripheral neighborhoods. It is a contradictory period that allows us to see the potential of the clubs to generate associative experiences, but also reveal their limitations. We analyze the relationships that Don Bosco club wove with nearby neighborhoods and other entities, and the place it occupied in the integration of its heterogeneous socio-territorial environment. We also address informal sociability that developed outside of institutional life.