Title: the Boxer's Point of View: an Ethnography of Cultural Production
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Title: The boxer’s point of view: an ethnography of cultural production and athletic development among amateur and professional boxers in England Name: Alex Stewart This is a digitised version of a dissertation submitted to the University of Bedfordshire. It is available to view only. This item is subject to copyright. The boxer’s point of view: An ethnography of cultural production and athletic development among amateur and professional boxers in England ALEX STEWART A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Luton August 2008 For Mum with all my Love Elizabeth Psaltis (1943-2003) i Abstract Since the late nineteenth century boxing in England has been socially organised into two ideologically distinctive versions - amateur and professional boxing – that to this day are practiced in spatially segregated social universes. Nonetheless, both amateur and professional boxing-practitioners understandings and lived experiences in and through boxing are necessarily grounded in the wider social and cultural contexts through which they interpret meaning and construct worldviews and identity. Thus despite the institutional, ideological and spatial boundaries demarcating either code, on a rather more subtle yet incredibly powerful cultural level, amateur and professional boxing are both symbolically and practically deeply intertwined. Over a five year period, I conducted ‘insider’ ethnographic research among distinct cohorts of amateur and professional boxers based in Luton and London to investigate the lived experiences and socially constructed worldviews, values and identities developed by practitioners immersed in either code. The overriding aim of this research was to critically evaluate the limits and possibilities of boxing-practitioners association with and development through ‘boxing’ henceforth. The findings of this ethnography reveal that it was common for the amateur and professional boxing-practitioners studied to cultivate empowering identities through intersubjective and socially validating instances of purposefulness, expressivity, creativity, fellowship and aspiration. These lived dimensions were grounded in sensuous, symbolic and emotional attachments respective to the social organization defining the social practice of either code of boxing. Equally, the research reveals that under the veneer of collective passion for and consequent fellowship experienced through boxing, an undercurrent yet ever-present sense of dubiety, tension and intra-personal conflict was in evidence among both the amateur and professional boxing-practitioners studied. It is suggested, therefore, that as a consequence of an array of both micro and macro post-industrial societal reconfigurations defining the structural principles of amateurism and professionalism in the practice of ‘boxing’, contemporary boxers are increasingly predisposed to developing athletic identities predisposed towards patterns of meaning production “…dominated by market-mediated consumer choice and the power of individualism” (Jarvie 2006 p. 327). Thus through complex, historically dynamic and seemingly paradoxical social processes of cultural (re)production and transformation - dialectically fusing individualistic aspirations geared towards self-interested gain, acts of group and subcultural fellowship and social resistance to measures of institutionalised control - it is argued that the role of boxing as an agent for humanistic personal and social development in the contemporary late-modern era of structural reconfiguration is progressively rendered impotent. i ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Lesley Lawrence who in the first place had sufficient faith in me to allow this disparate marriage between the science of bruising and the science of academia to take place and was always available to offer advice thereafter. Most of all my gratitude goes out to the many boxing ‘faces’ who have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to the formulation of this project. The unadulterated camaraderie shared between us having grunted, sweated and bled in trying to master the Noble Art is, to me, a precious commodity. ii iii Table of contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... ii Table of contents ................................................................................................ iii Authors Declaration ........................................................................................................ vi Chapter 1 - Introduction .................................................... 1 1.1 Boxing and the Sociological Imagination ........................................................... 3 Boxing and Society thus far ................................................................................ 5 Boxing from the ‘insider’ point of view ............................................................. 8 Amateur and professional boxing in England ................................................... 9 1.2 Framework of the thesis ........................................................................................ 11 Research aims ..................................................................................................... 11 A synthesised research agenda ......................................................................... 11 Outline of chapters ............................................................................................. 13 Introducing ‘the boxer’ ..................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2 – Methodology .................................................. 19 2.1 Contextualising the research ............................................................................... 19 Research paradigm ............................................................................................ 19 2.2 Theoretical underpinnings .................................................................................... 20 2.3 The ethnographic approach ................................................................................. 24 The crisis of ethnography .................................................................................. 26 A reflexive epistemology: A ‘native’ studying boxing? .................................. 27 Defining criteria of legitimation ....................................................................... 29 Defining criteria of representation ................................................................... 31 Chapter 3 - Social development and boxing ...................... 35 3.1 Ancient origins ......................................................................................................... 36 3.2 The Birth of Bare-Knuckles ................................................................................... 37 Urban life and the Golden Age of Pugilism ..................................................... 37 Representing Pugilism: ‘Folk tradition’, ‘quest for excitement’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ ............................................................................................. 38 The power of privilege ....................................................................................... 40 Pugilism and the birth of sports-journalism ................................................... 43 Fighting traditions in decline or continuity? ................................................... 46 3.3 The Origins of Gloved Boxing .............................................................................. 48 Combat, masculinity and style .......................................................................... 48 3.4 Amateurism and Boxing ........................................................................................ 50 Public school origins - from ‘Rough’ to ‘Civilised’......................................... 51 Ideological and practical elitism ....................................................................... 52 Amateurism, boxing and the working-classes ................................................. 53 Strands of tradition (1)… Social control and resistance ................................ 54 Strands of tradition (2)… boxing and community .......................................... 55 iii iv Strands of tradition (3)… prestige for all ........................................................ 57 Strands of tradition (4)… amateurism and boxing ‘to win’ .......................... 57 Amateurism and boxing in the 20th Century and beyond .............................. 58 Socialising the inner-city ‘rough’ ..................................................................... 59 Symbolic power and economic necessity.......................................................... 61 3.5 Professionalism and Boxing ................................................................................ 63 Professional boxing in England: foundations and developmental perspectives ......................................................................................................... 64 From pragmatism to aesthetics......................................................................... 65 Uncovering the key to success - ethnicity and professional boxing ............... 67 ‘Black’ participation and boxing ...................................................................... 67 Professional boxing