Citizens of the potrero

The gendered meanings of the public sphere in the feminist football of Villa 31

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze the gendered meanings of the public sphere that are put into play when a group of women appropriates a space historically constructed as masculine: the soccer field. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork carried out together with La Nuestra Fútbol Feminista and adopting a historical-dialectical perspective of the public sphere, I examine the social relations, meanings and practices that are built around the Güemes football pitch in the Villa 31. I identify the disruptions generated by the insertion of women into this space, I analyze the narrations that are built around the conquest of the football field, and I explore the reconfigurations of the relationship between the public and the private spheres that this process entails. Finally, I show that the politicization of the oikos and the oikonization of public space can be simultaneous and mutually interdependent processes.