RT Journal Article
T1 Polo: Social Distinction and Sports in Spain, 1900–1950
A1 Hernández Barral, José Miguel
AB Sports played a main role as a catalyst of the social change between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Historiography has mainly emphasized its connection with the unstoppable arrival of the masses. However, exclusivity, luxury, and social distinction were very much embodied in some sports and reinvigorated by them. Moreover, how did elites cope with the irruption of sports as a form of sociability and social mobility? Polo provides one of the answers to this question. The definition, and exclusion, of the elites through a sport is the main topic of this article, and how social inequality boundaries sometimes depend on a subtle mixture of cultural, economic, and symbolic power. The analysis is posed in an extremely complex historical period, when Spain had many similarities with European and American societies experiencing tremendous transformations. This chronicle article traces the development of polo in the country, its connection with the monarch and some central characters. The controversy that emerged within the elites because of the new – and for some negative – implications of these activities is then analysed, followed by a discussion of the connections between the elites and polo in the tumultuous 1930s and 1940s.
PB Taylor and Francis
SN 0952-3367
YR 2019
FD 2019
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/114999
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/114999
LA eng
NO Hernández Barral, J. M. (2019). Polo: Social Distinction and Sports in Spain, 1900–1950*. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 36(2–3), 149–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2019.1634551
NO Ministerio Ciencia e Innovación (España)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 23 abr 2025