Soccer and Mayan Society: Localization of the Global Game

Abstract

Ethnographic field work conducted with Deportivo Santa Isabel, an adult male recreational soccer team in Momostenango, Guatemala. The team provides a story of local adaptations to the forces of globalization. Soccer is an international game widely popular in Guatemala. The approach is to use ethnographic research on a specific team to illustrate processes of social adaptation and localization of the global game in a Mayan setting. The soccer team incorporated religious symbols and acts as part of their procedures and identity. The meaning of the sport also plays a role in the social and economic imagination of the players.