Soccer, black people and varguismo: the construction of national identity and the racial issue

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the text Foot-ball Mulato published in 1938 by the sociologist Gilberto Freyre. The theme of the publication is the history of black people in Brazilian football. In this way, we seek to understand how the construction of the narrative relates to the period in which it was produced, in order to understand how such stories have the potential to collaborate with the idea of ​​racial democracy. The analysis of the narratives is done in two ways: the first, from the representation of category, which was used to understand how the texts create representations about the black player and how these created images were exposed in the narratives. In addition, we try to understand how the author produces narratives about a Brazilianness that has the function of affirming Brazil as a racially democratic country.