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Paper short abstract

The paper examines how care, gender, and embodied practice intersect in unequal urban sports spaces by comparing ethnographic research in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro to rethink care and highlight solidarities that challenge structural violence.

Paper long abstract

We bring together our ethnographic research of taekwondo practitioners in Buenos Aires and amateur football players in Rio de Janeiro to explore how care, gender, and bodily practice intersect within sports spaces shaped by structural inequalities. Working in two distinct yet comparable urban contexts, we accompany athletes who learn and train skills while also facing discrimination and violence in their everyday lives.

In sporting contexts, care often unfolds nonverbally through gestures (Mol 2010). On the other hand, the common definition of care as observing relationships that maintain, repair and aim to build futures (see Tronto & Fisher, 1990) requires scrutiny when applied to sporting spaces where aspirations for recognition or success intersect with unequal power relations within teams and neighbourhoods. In big cities, training sports practitioners are vulnerable to symbolic and physical violence based on gender, class, sexuality, or race. Many athletes describe regular training as sensing individual physical activity and community that yield resources for coping with daily life. Our fieldwork positions us not only as observers but also as training partners and temporary allies, drawn into collaborative relations that challenge hierarchical research dynamics.

These encounters show how sports communities craft their own forms of resistance and care, continually negotiating agency and belonging. By weaving together our experiences in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, we critically review care in sports research and imagine pathways for anthropology to practice solidarity and co-create justice in violent urban contexts.