Beach Handball in Uruguay. Notes on its emergence and transformations as a result of the hybridization of hight-performance sport and tourism

Abstract

The emergence of beach handball in Uruguay takes place within a network of socio-historical relationships in which public policies on sport and tourism characterize its sportification process. The spectacular nature of Montevideo's urban beaches is hybridized and then replaced by the sporting spectacle that takes place on the sand, incorporating its own structure as a "sand stadium."
Based primarily on the testimony of Uruguayan beach handball stakeholders (referees, coaches, and players), this outlines an analysis of the sport's evolution, highlighting its connection with the country's economic and political context. National and international institutions promote the emergence of new team sports on the sand, expressing ways of relating to place and body. These imperatives begin with the imperatives of sun, beach, and sand tourism and are replaced year after year by those of
performance and effectiveness as high-performance sports are introduced. The athletes and actors not only highlight different moments, policies, institutions, and actors involved in the brief history of beach handball in Uruguay, but also the transformation of the senses that guide the changes in its internal morphology, which will be addressed.