Review by Choice Review
Anthropologist Magazine (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City) uses a micro-ethnography of a small group of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) Pumas soccer fans to shed light on youth culture, masculinity, Mexico City's urban dynamics, and the continuation of clientelism in civil society when the Mexican state's pyramidic structure (itself dependent on clientelism) has been gradually eroding since 1980. The author builds his study on interviews with the porra's members and leaders and suggests these fans and their alternate vision for society are reminiscent of late-18th-century European Romantics. He thickly describes the group's activities on game days and argues that the group's unruly, shocking, misogynist, and violent actions (desmadre) are akin to what the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger called an "invented tradition." Though the porra privileges the incorruptness of youth and its members resist commodification, Magazine outlines the power struggles between the team, the club leaders, and its followers. While the book is at times evocative, the sense that the author has chosen a minute, esoteric, and ephemeral group of buddies to inform his research is never eclipsed. Summing Up: Optional. Undergraduate and general collections. E. A. Sanabria University of New Mexico
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
