Grandmasters, distinct elite: Taste submitted to discussion from the social conditioning factors of the predilection for chess

Abstract

This study analyzes the relations between the social conditioning factors and the taste for the cultural practice of chess manifested in the discourses of the grandmasters who compose its elite in the Brazilian contemporary context. The theoretical and methodological framework of Pierre Bourdieu was used. For the research method, retrospective semi-structured interviews were carried out personally with each Brazilian chess grandmaster. Thematic Analysis was assigned for the qualitative treatment of the data. The result originated the axis ‘Grandmasters, distinct elite: the naturalness of the cultivation of taste by legitimate heirs’, which mainly analyzes the favoured family origin of these agents and how this affected the success of their high-performance trajectories in this sport. It is concluded that the mechanism of the family cultural heritage acted in the production of a dilettantish taste and lifestyle in relation to chess, characterizing a distanced, liberated and detached attitude towards the practice. This condition is disseminated by its elite and does not include all people who, in Brazil, have different family origins and deal with it from an unequal distribution of opportunities in relation to the practice of this sport.