Looking for a Refuge of 'Normalcy' during the Argentine Dictatorship: The Case of Atlanta Football Club

This article examines the history of Club Atletico Atlanta of Buenos Aires during the years of the military dictatorship (1976-1983) within the framework of efforts to reconsider the impact of repression on everyday life. Club Atletico Atlanta is a microcosm of Argentine society, and it contained everything: from victims of repression, to the son of genocidal general Roberto Eduardo Viola. Conformism, indifference, adaptation, support for the military authorities, or opposition to them, as well as resistance strategies, were a mosaic of expressions showing that various attitudes coexisted while facing the impact of state terror on daily life. The advent of dictatorship did not mean the same rupture for everyone, and did not alter in the same way certain dimensions of everyday life and routines for different individuals and groups. The story of a neighbourhood club such as Atlanta and the perceptions and memories of its fans may help us move forward on this path, to ascertain the links between the 'micro' level of social life and the great narratives of politics and the State.