Fronteras de cal: Discursos identitarios en la literatura futbolística

Abstract

The present thesis studies the construction of collective identity through soccer literature in Spain. This literature acts as a good example of discursive mechanisms that are used by the different imagined communities which exist in current Spain, in order to consolidate its national identity and to create the idea of the Other. Precisely, this project is focused on the Spanish identity of Real Madrid and the Catalan identity of Barcelona in Javier Marías’ and Manuel Vázquel Montalbán’s discourses. The collision of these two antagonistic forces –both, Catalan and Spanish nationalism- provokes a certain tension around the idea of identity, which can be felt in both novelists’ works. On the other hand, some of the rhetorical elements present in soccer’s discourse will be analyzed as well. Like, for instance, the figures of the hero and the anti-hero, which provide new meanings to the identity of the group. The heroic figure has been used from the very beginning of Spanish nationalism as a symbol that brings coherence to the myth of Imperial Spain. Whereas the anti-heroic myth has been reformulated and taken to the sports’ side by people of letters and soccer clubs; the great richness and variety of discursive strategies that appear on this work, shows the capacity of soccer as a tool that allows the expansion and integration of a great amount of different ideologies and identities.