Sporting Violence in Argentina during the Interwar Years: The Cases of Boxing and Fencing

Abstract

This article explores the representations of, and meanings ascribed to, boxing and fencing in Argentina during the interwar years.  The focus is on the participation of Argentine fencers and boxers in the Olympic Games from the first official Argentine delegation in 1924 until 1936, year of the last Olympic festival before World War II interrupted it through 1948.  This article begins by reviewing the trajectory of boxing and fencing in Argentina through the early 1920s.  What emerges is a story that illuminates the variegated ways in which sporting violence was legitimized and converged with aesthetics, gender, national identity, pedagogic, and class issues.