Narratives of Performance: An Interdisciplinary Qualitative Ethnography Investigating the Storied Lives of Amateur and Professional Boxers Submitted by Paul Solomon Lennox, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama, August 2012. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgment I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature…………………………………………………………………... 1 Abstract This thesis identifies the shared pool of narrative resources, which constitute the public discourses and cultural meanings of the sport of boxing, in order to examine how individual boxers engage with them when performing their narrative identities. It is argued that the shared pool of narrative resources for boxing contain myths and legends that are taken for granted and yet heavily invested in by boxers and academics alike. This project explores how individual boxers engage with these resources in order to make sense of their own experiences and to formulate their narrative identity. The thesis asks how a thorough investigation of the shared narrative resources, and their use by boxers, provides new insights into what the sport of boxing means to boxers, and how shared resources are engaged with in order to perform idiosyncratic ontological narratives. This project makes a unique contribution, as it is the first project of its kind to fully consider the relationship between the individual accounts provided by boxers and the narrative resources available to them. It pays particular focus to the narrative resources as they relate to amateur and professional boxers alike. Through a performance ethnography, and qualitative inquiry approach, research data was collected and co- constructed over a period of three years. This data informed the reading of boxing texts in order to ascertain what the shared pool of narrative resources were for boxers, and how individuals used and engaged with them. This project found that the narrative resources of boxing were powerful, persuasive, and provided vocabularies of motives for individual boxers. The shared pool of resources, whilst constitutive of the cultural 2 meanings of boxing, were engaged with by individual boxers to tell stories about the desire for transformation, communion, respect and generativity. Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………. ..6 Methodology……………………………………………………………………. .8 Research Sites…………………………………………………………………..12 The Importance of Boxing Stories……………………………………………...18 Boxing Narratives Contextualized……………………………………………..21 Boxing Texts, Ethnographies and Meta narratives……………………………...24 Masculinity, Femininity and Industrialization…………………………………...25 Boxing Ethnographies……………….………………………………………….31 Non-ethnographic Studies……………………………………………………...42 Narrative: Making Meaning of Experience and the Performance of Identity…..44 Overview……………………………………………………………………….5 0 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………... 56 Chapter 1: Auto- ethnography………………………………………………………….58 J.R’s Voyage to Foreign Lands………………………………………………….60 3 Sheffield: First Impressions……………………………………………………..63 Second Day…………………………………………………………………….67 The Brendan Effect……………………………………………………………..69 Feeling Out the New Guy……………………………………………………...79 March 2010……………………………………………………………………..81 August 2010…………………………………………………………………….87 August 22, 2011: Wincobank, Sheffield………………………………………...88 August 29, 2011………………………………………………………………...91 Exeter: Soaked and Drained……………………………………………………92 Testing………………………………………………………………………….. 93 First Fights……………………………………………………………………....95 Damage………………………………………………………………………… 95 Nerves………………………………………………………………………….9 7 The Mental Battle………………………………………………………………98 Cancelled……………………………………………………………………....1 01 Meat…………………………………………………………………………...10 1 Unification and Discord: July 28, 2010……………………………………….102 4 August 20, 2010………………………………………………………………103 August 24, 2010……………………………………………………………….103 September 20, 2010…………………………………………………………...104 Switching Camps, November 17, 2010……………………………………….104 My Gym……………………………………………………………………….108 Nerves - Again: September 13, 2011…………………………………....…….111 September to November 2011……………………………………………….113 Fight Night…………………………………………………………………….120 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….1 27 Chapter 2: The Narrative Resources of Boxing: Reviewing the Field………………..129 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...1 29 Story Types……………………………………………………………………130 Cultural Meaning, Public Story………………………………………………...133 Transformation……………………………………………………………….. 135 Legacy and Heroes……………………………………………………………136 Compensatory Drive and the Familial and Genealogical Resources…………140 Crime and Salvation…………………………………………………………...145 5 Discovery……………………………………………………………………...1 50 The Commoditization of Boxing Bodies……………………………………...151 Slavery, Prostitution and Husbandry………………………………………….154 Animals………………………………………………………………………...1 56 Age…………………………………………………………………………….15 8 Money…………………………………………………………………………16 5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….1 68 Chapter 3 Ontological Narratives and the Engagement with Pre-identified Narrative Resources and Themes………………………………………………………..170 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...1 70 Tales of Becoming: Identifying as a boxer and the Transition from Nobody to Somebody………………………………………………………………………1 71 The Familial- Genealogical……………………………………………………..177 Compensatory Drive………………………………………………………….185 Crime and Salvation…………………………………………………………...190 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….2 02 Chapter 4: A Generative Tale………………………………………………………...204 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...2 04 6 Methodology…………………………………………………………………..2 05 Experiential and Performative Ethnography: Transgressive Data…………….208 Context, Background and Overview………………………………………….209 Global Impressions……………………………………………………………214 Components of the Global Impression……………………………………….215 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….2 36 Thesis Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..240 Introduction…………………………………………………………………...2 40 What was Achieved?......................................................................................................242 Limitations and Plans for Development………………………………………255 Dissemination…………………………………………………………………2 60 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….... 264 7 Introduction Boxers are rugged, near-illiterate young men who, raised in broken homes and deprivation, manage single-handedly to elevate themselves from the gutter to fame and fortune, parlaying their anger at the world and sadomasochistic craving for violence into million-dollar purses, save for those who, ruthlessly exploited by callous managers and promoters alike, end up on the dole with broken bones and hearts. (Wacquant 1992: 222) The combatants, often denizens of black, colored, or Hispanic ghettos, find in this rough trade one of the few avenues out of poverty and obscurity and devote their whole energies to perfecting their power to knock out or otherwise seriously incapacitate their opponent and thus achieve victory and celebrity. (Scott 2008: xxiv) We defenders of boxing like to point to the ghetto kids who could have wound up lost to the slammer but who found salvation through boxing. (Schulberg 2008: 104) This thesis presents the findings of a three-year long (2009-2012) ethnographic investigation into the sport of boxing. It examines the experiences of amateur and professional boxers at two sites in the United Kingdom. With a specific focus on the relational nature of storytelling, this 8 thesis identifies boxing’s shared pool of narrative resources. Once identified, this thesis demonstrates how the narrative resources are presented in the ‘texts’ of boxing (Woodward 2008), thus creating the public narratives and cultural meanings of the sport (Satterlund 2006). Finally, this thesis demonstrates how a multiple but ultimately limited repertoire of story lines (Somers 1994; Gubrium and Holstein 1998), forms a shared pool of narrative resources (Somers 1994; Smith and Sparkes 2008), which boxers engage with and perform in order to make sense of their experiences and form their narrative identities. This thesis argues that, to engage with boxing, is to engage with a ‘matrix of cumulative narrative resources’ specific to the sport (Smith and Sparkes 2008: 16). These resources include the myths and misconceptions alluded to in the opening epigraphs, and affect the type of stories individual boxers can tell. It will be shown how the shared pool of narrative resources affects how researchers and boxers alike approach and understand boxing as they engage with, add to, resist and have imposed upon them the narrative technologies of the sport. This thesis makes a unique contribution, as it is the first project of its kind to fully consider the relationship between the individual accounts provided by boxers and the narrative resources available to them. It will explore how the shared pool of narrative resources, which constitute the cultural meanings of the sport, are simultaneously capable of illuminating and obscuring how academics analyse the sport and the impact boxing has on its participants. Additionally, this project will argue that with a closer examination of the shared pool of narrative resources available to boxers comes a greater understanding of why individuals box, what they hope to 9 achieve through the