Boom and bust of euphoric narratives: Peruvian football and the neoliberal mentality

Abstract

In this article we propose the category of euphoric narratives both to explain the construction of the sculpture 'Monumento a los hombres del mundial' (Monument to the Men of the World Cup) in Lima, Peru, but more importantly, to analyse a dynamic which transcends that situation and accounts for a set of cultural changes that have arisen in strongly restructured societies for the purposes of neoliberal policies. The Peruvian national football team's qualification for the World Cup in Russia in 2018 generated a collective sense of optimism in the national community rarely seen in recent history. The article traces the interrelation between football, a rich site for the deployment of popular narrative strategies in relation to the construction of identities, the neoliberal rationality, which feeds on and manipulates (collective) euphoria for commercial and/or political gain and the specific sociopolitical Peruvian context in the run-up to the World Cup in Russia.