Constituíção e enraizamento do esporte na cidade: uma prática moderna de lazer na cultura urbana de Belo Horizonte (1894-1920)

Abstract

This study is centered on the discussion on the sociability developed for the relation of the modern phenomena . the city, sport and leisure ., focusing on the analyzes of the constitution and rooting of sport as a form of leisure in the city of Belo Horizonte and its relation in the construction of the urban culture, in the period from 1894 to 1920. The intention was to follow the initiatives that were on the background of the construction of the sportive field in its initial moments. Among the several possibilities of access to that city, there was use of many different images and narratives of social life that enabled, in its materiality, the unveil of that period.s social texture, allowing an ample and multiple apprehension of the reality which was integrated and constituted partly by sport and leisure. Amongst them there were photographs, periodicals, magazines, documents of archives and literature. The inquiries were oriented by urban cultural history. In the constitution of the sportive field it was identified different practices that appropriated the city and were appropriated by the city, that were inscribed in specific social places with specific functions and purposes, organized, in its great majority, by the dominant sectors of the population. Different meanings were attributed for sport in the city, from the point of view of the actors involved in the field. Therefore, the city was involved by different representations of sport, forged by these actors who searched to legitimize it in the urban culture. But what can be evaluated by the values associated with both leisure as sport in the historical social context of the city up to 1920, it is that, as modern phenomena, they were born here and they were constituted such as the city, full of antagonisms and inequalities and not a place par excellence for the accomplishment of citizenship, for they were revealed as class privilege, as a right of few.