Paper short abstract:

The paper and installation present a map of Buenos Aires scrutinising two trajectories of Taekwondo athletes to explore the social topography of sports and dreams of social mobility.

Paper long abstract:

The paper traces the Asian martial art Taekwondo in urban Argentina as a tool to explore the social topography of sports and dreams of social mobility. Since WT Taekwondo was acknowledged as an Olympic sport, and an Argentinian won Gold in 2012, Taekwondo became more popular as a sport. World ranking tournaments came to Argentina and dreams and aspirations of young athletes spread. Besides of dreams of travelling the world, the organisation of the competitions also create paid job opportunities. Hence, the apprenticeship of Taekwondo and the competitions operate on multiple scales where it affects, influences and signifies forms of circulation and appropriation of urban spaces.

Thinking through symbolic, primarily bodily capital (Wacquant 2004) the paper describes two ethnographic examples that depict possible career paths of athletes who meet at the crossroad competition. Conversely, the texture of the city shapes the geography of Taekwondo in the Capital of Argentina. Engaging with the routes that the athletes travel and the locations they transgress, it allows us to examine the routes of aspirations of social mobility through the geographic traces and locations.

As a mode of presentation, I work with a map and visual elements. The installation shows besides the two sporting trajectories further possibilities to explore intrinsically concepts of gender, class, ethnicity and other actors that shape the landscape of the combat sport.