The silent majority: social and aural silence in the games of Chile Men’s national football team

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the socio-aural dynamics surrounding the games of Chile Men's national team. I argue that these events echo and make audible larger forms of inequality and marginalization in Chilean society. These events have prioritized middle-class citizens who rarely attend football games. This has brought a mode of fandom that is characterized by silence and observation. Informed by practices of watching football on television and notions of liberal democratic citizenship, these fans attend the stadium to watch good, successful football in tranquillity while exhibiting tolerant, respectable behaviour. In silencing the stadium’s soundscape, however, these socio-sonic dynamics have also silenced the claims of working-class citizens to participate in the public life of the nation. The essay thus foregrounds the metaphorical and aural affordances of silence, relating them to social inequality and segregation.

Acknowledgments

Early versions of this work have benefitted greatly from comments by Joshua Tucker and two anonymous readers, all of whom I thank wholeheartedly.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. All quotations and conversations in Spanish were translated by the author.

2. Lagares, Juan. “Qué Le Pasa al Público Chileno,” Clarin, 16 June 2015.

3. “Gary Medel: ‘Deberían bajar el precio de las entradas para la gente del pueblo,’” Publimetro, 10 October 2015.

4. Achondo, “A Cry for Palestine”.

5. Lassiter, The Silent Majority.

6. Just for clarity, I call ‘fans’ those who attend games of the national team, and ‘hinchas’ or ‘supporters’ those who attend games of the domestic tournament.

7. Ochoa Gautier, “Silence,” 183.

8. Ibid., 189.

9. See note 5 above.

10. “Piñera Parafrasea a Nixon y Su ‘Mayoría Silenciosa,’” La Tercera, 19 June 2011.

11. Paley, Marketing Democracy.

12. Attali, Noise, 121.

13. See note 5 above.

14. See note 12 above.

15. Han, Life in Debt Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile.

16. Moulian, Chile Actual: Anatomía de Un Mito.

17. See note 11 above.

18. Ochoa Gautier, “Silence,” 189.

19. Alabarces, Crónicas Del Aguante; Garriga, Haciendo Amigos a Las Piñas; Garriga, Nosotros Nos Peleamos; Moreira, “Etnografía Sobre El Honor y La Violencia de Una Hinchada de Fútbol En Argentina”; and Moreira, “Club Social y Deportivo”.

20. Herrera, “Masculinity, Violence, and Deindividuation in Argentine Soccer Chants”.

21. Améstica, “El Aparato Seccionador”, 103–4.

22. Skin colour is a marker of class in Chile. While middle-class citizens tend to be whiter, working-class people tend to present browner skin.

23. Elsey, Citizens and Sportsmen, 2.

24. I have changed names to ensure anonymity.

25. Interview with author.

26. Salvador, Jorge. “El fútbol de sus sueños”, Revista Obdulio, 25 August 2020.

27. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, 143.

28. Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz, Las Escuelas de La Identidad. La Cultura y El Deporte En El Chile Desarrollista; and Vilches, “Del Chile de los triunfos morales al ‘Chile, país ganador’”.

29. “Gary Medel sorprendió en Italia tras confesar que si no hubiera sido futbolista ‘sería traficante o ladrón’”, Emol, 11 March 2016.

30. Améstica et al., “La roja y el sueño americano”.

31. Moulian, Chile Actual.

32. Vilches, “Del Chile de los triunfos morales al ‘Chile, país ganador’. La identidad nacional y la selección chilena de futbol durante la Dictadura Militar (1973–1989)”.

33. Paley, Marketing Democracy; Han, Life in Debt Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile.

34. Moulian, Chile Actual, 98.

35. See note 11 above.

36. Ibid., 100.

37. Moulian, Chile Actual: Anatomía de Un Mito; Paley, Marketing Democracy; and Han, Life in Debt Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile.

38. Santa Cruz, “Fútbol y Nacionalismo de Mercado En El Chile Actual”.

39. Ibid., 212.

40. Améstica et al., “La roja y el sueño americano”, 101.

41. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrS1kYoKUkA (accessed 15 September 2020).

42. Vilches, “Del Chile de los triunfos morales al ‘Chile, país ganador”’.

43. “Historia de La Ley N° 20.620,” 88.

44. Interview with author.

45. Interview with author.

46. Mouffe, Agonistics, 7–8.

47. Interview with author.

48. Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 191.

49. Interview with author.

50. Interview with author.

51. Interview with author.

52. Interview with author.