In between fans and anti bullfighting activists: pointing out a discussion about bullfighting without essentialism

Abstract

This article reflects on the controversy incited by the decision taken by the government of Bogotá in 2012 that prohibited bullfighting in the city. It arguments that the discussion that locked anti-taurine movements and the aficionados of the fiesta brava established itself on the binary episteme civilization/barbarism that articulated different experiences of material and symbolical domination ingrained into modernity. The controversy in analyzed by focusing in the interventions made by representatives of the arguing parts found in opinion forums and social media. The article calls towards the necessity of assuming the discussion from a non-essentialist perspective of culture that enables to dilucidate the biopolitics behind the conflictive definition of human being and animal and that transcends the dogmatisms allowing its instrumentalization.