Fields of Struggle

Football as a Territory of Political Formation and Insurgent Memory

Abstract

This study analyzes the experiences of the João Saldanha Society Football League and the Curitiba Antifascist League as practices of cultural resistance and popular pedagogy. Based on empirical data collected between 2022 and 2025 through participant observation, documentary analysis of the leagues, and press insertions, the research examines how these organizations re-signify football as a territory of symbolic dispute, political formation, and the construction of insurgent memory. Grounded in the cultural studies of Stuart Hall and Cornelius Castoriadis and the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire, this work demonstrates that these leagues constitute political-pedagogical projects that confront the commodification of sport through self-managed practices, assemblies, and territorial solidarity. The results reveal that popular football, when politically organized, operates as a counter-hegemonic language capable of articulating peripheral culture, critical education, and resistance to structural oppression, thus forming a laboratory of democratic experimentation and a concrete utopia.