Soledad Mocchi-Radichi

Soledad Mocchi-Radichi’s research focuses on popular ludic and cultural practices and the ways in which class and race intersected these to shape the urban spaces of Uruguay and Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Her areas of research include Cultural Studies, Latin American Studies, Popular Culture, and Southern Cone Cultural & Urban Studies and African diaspora. Her work examines the participation of Afro-descendants in carnival and soccer, since their presence (and sometimes invisibilization) within these entertainments played a key role in the construction of the ludic sphere. Mocchi-Radichi studies the role that Afro-descendants played in street celebrations such as carnival, along with the African roots of musical genres such as tango, and the predominance of candombe within the Río de la Plata region. Furthermore, she delves into the presence – but mainly the exclusion – of Afro-descendants in soccer, and how this contributed to the promotion of whitening national projects. She also engages with ethnicity, through the study of the role of immigrants within popular entertainment.