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Abstract
‘Fighting Scholars’ offers the first book-length overview of the ethnographic study of martial arts and combat sports. The book’s main claim is that such activities represent privileged grounds to access different social dimensions, such as emotion, violence, pain, gender, ethnicity and religion. In order to explore these dimensions, the concept of ‘habitus’ is presented prominently as an epistemic remedy for the academic distant gaze of the effaced academic body.
The book’s most innovative features are its empirical focus and theoretical orientation. While ethnographic research is a widespread and popular approach within the social sciences, combat sports and martial arts have yet to be sufficiently interrogated from an ethnographic standpoint. The different contributions of this volume are aligned within the same project that began to crystallize in Loïc Wacquant’s ‘Body and Soul’: the construction of a ‘carnal sociology’ that constitutes an exploration of the social world ‘from’ the body.
‘“Fighting Scholars” is a groundbreaking contribution, combining empirically illuminating explorations of combats sports with methodologically innovative insights into embodiment and social research. With an acute sensitivity towards the social role of violence, gender relations and the cross-cultural transmission of leisure forms, this book underscores the transformative potential of both sports participation and the ethnographic experience.’ —Dominic Malcolm, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport, Loughborough University
‘Fighting Scholars’ brings to the fore the ethnographic study of combat sports and martial arts as a means of exploring embodied human existence. The book’s main claim is that such activities represent privileged grounds to access different social dimensions, such as emotion, violence, pain, gender, ethnicity and religion. In order to explore these dimensions, the concept of ‘habitus’ is presented prominently as an epistemic remedy for the academic distant gaze of the effaced academic body. The different contributions of this volume are aligned within the same project that began to crystallize in Loïc Wacquant’s ‘Body and Soul’: the construction of a ‘carnal sociology’ that constitutes an exploration of the social world ‘from’ the body.
The book is divided into three sections. In the first section, the editors introduce the field, providing a typology of existing literature. The second section contains the contributions of the authors, discussing their respective approaches to embodied ethnography, their use of the concept of ‘habitus’, and ethnographic findings. The third section contains a conclusion by the editors – reflecting on existing conceptions of ‘habitus’ and interdisciplinary possibilities for rethinking the concept – and an epilogue by Loïc Wacquant critically assessing the whole volume.
‘“Fighting Scholars” certainly extends in powerful fashion the martial arts / social science conversation, but it also does much more. Its movement across cultural, disciplinary and theoretical traditions of embodied knowledge invites profound refigurations of concepts like habitus and the cultivation of a real cumulative research program for carnal social science. Bravo.’ —Michael Kennedy, Professor of Sociology and International Studies, Brown University
‘“Fighting Scholars” presents a fresh, rich and inspiring look into the sociology and carnal ethnography of martial arts. Solidly founded on the deep academic knowledge and wide field experiences of thirteen contributors, it is a unique piece in the vast bibliography of the martial arts.’ —Carlos Gutiérrez-García, University of León, Spain, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal ‘Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas’
Raúl Sánchez García is associate professor in the Department of Theory, Organization and Recreation at the Universidad Europea de Madrid.
Dale C. Spencer is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fighting Scholars_9780857283320 | i | ||
| Title | iii | ||
| Copyright | iv | ||
| CONTENTS | vii | ||
| CONTRIBUTORS | ix | ||
| GLOSSARY | xiii | ||
| Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION: CARNAL ETHNOGRAPHY AS PATH TO EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE | 1 | ||
| Bu Over Bun | 3 | ||
| Bun Over Bu | 3 | ||
| Body techniques | 6 | ||
| Gender | 8 | ||
| Ethnicity/race | 10 | ||
| Religion/transformation of the self | 11 | ||
| Violence/pain | 13 | ||
| Overview of the Volume | 14 | ||
| Notes | 16 | ||
| Chapter 2 HABITUS AS TOPIC AND TOOL: REFLECTIONS ON BECOMING A PRIZEFIGHTER | 19 | ||
| A Pathway to the Ethnographic Craft | 20 | ||
| Habitus Comes to the Gym | 23 | ||
| From Guts to Paper | 28 | ||
| Chapter 3 IN SEARCH OF A MARTIAL HABITUS: IDENTIFYING CORE DISPOSITIONS IN WING CHUN AND TAIJIQUAN | 33 | ||
| Introduction: The Problem of the Martial Habitus | 33 | ||
| The Martial Habitus as a Continuum of Interlaced Dispositions | 34 | ||
| Dispositions as Delimited Field Specific and General Continua | 35 | ||
| Methodological Strategy | 37 | ||
| The Combat Efficacy–Efficiency Disposition | 39 | ||
| The Practice–Perfection–Mastery Disposition | 41 | ||
| The Body–Self–Environment Awareness Disposition | 44 | ||
| Concluding Comments | 46 | ||
| Note | 48 | ||
| Chapter 4 EACH MORE AGILE THAN THE OTHER: MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ENCULTURATION IN CAPOEIRA REGIONAL | 49 | ||
| Introduction | 49 | ||
| Capoeira Explained | 49 | ||
| Agile Methods for an Agile Topic? | 53 | ||
| Back to the Class: Work on the Waist | 54 | ||
| Bourdieu, Wacquant and Our Fieldwork | 57 | ||
| Individual Habitus: Researchers and Capoeiristas | 59 | ||
| Conclusions | 61 | ||
| Notes | 62 | ||
| Chapter 5 ‘THERE IS NO TRY IN TAE KWON DO’: REFLEXIVE BODY TECHNIQUES IN ACTION | 63 | ||
| Introduction | 63 | ||
| Habitus and Reflexive Body Techniques | 64 | ||
| The Study: Context and Methodology | 65 | ||
| ‘There Is No Try in Tae Kwon Do’ | 67 | ||
| The transition from thinking to doing | 67 | ||
| The TKD Technician Habitus | 72 | ||
| Conclusion | 74 | ||
| Notes | 77 | ||
| Chapter 6 ‘IT IS ABOUT YOUR BODY RECOGNIZING THE MOVE AND AUTOMATICALLY DOING IT’: MERLEAU - PONTY, HABIT AND BRAZILIAN JIU-JITSU | 79 | ||
| Introduction | 79 | ||
| Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: The Game of Human Chess | 82 | ||
| Forging the Grappler’s Body | 84 | ||
| Oriented to a Future to Come: Forging a Grappler’s Corporeal Schema | 85 | ||
| Sweep without Sweeping | 89 | ||
| Conclusion | 92 | ||
| Notes | 93 | ||
| Chapter 7 ‘DO YOU HIT GIRLS?’: SOME STRIKING MOMENTS IN THE CAREER OF A MALE MARTIAL ARTIST | 95 | ||
| Introduction: ‘So… Do You Hit Girls?’ | 95 | ||
| The Research | 98 | ||
| Refusing to Hit: Masculine Habitus, ‘Holding Back’ and Women’s Frustration | 100 | ||
| Kick or be Kicked: How Women Force Men to Reckon with Them on the Mat | 105 | ||
| Concluding Thoughts: Theorizing Habitus, Subversion and Reflexivity in Martial Arts | 108 | ||
| Notes | 110 | ||
| Chapter 8 THE TEACHER’S BLESSING AND THE WITHELD HAND: TWO VIGNETTES OF SOMATIC LEARNING IN SOUTH INDIA’S INDIGENOUS MARTIAL ART KALARIPPAYATTU | 111 | ||
| Introduction | 111 | ||
| The Role of the Guru in the Transmission of Knowledge in Kalarippayattu | 113 | ||
| When and What the Teacher Teaches Through Touch: Two Bookending Vignettes | 116 | ||
| Vignette 1 − The teacher’s blessing | 116 | ||
| Vignette 2 − The withheld hand | 117 | ||
| Ethnography as The Marriage of Toby’s Idea of Angela and Toby’s Idea of Angela’s Idea of Toby | 118 | ||
| Corporal Teaching in Kerala | 120 | ||
| Conclusion | 122 | ||
| Notes | 123 | ||
| Chapter 9 WHITE MEN DON’T FLOW: EMBODIED AESTHETICS OF THE FIFTY-TWO HAND BLOCKS | 125 | ||
| Introduction | 125 | ||
| What are the 52s? | 125 | ||
| Learning 52s Techniques 2003–2007 | 126 | ||
| Conclusion | 138 | ||
| Notes | 139 | ||
| Chapter 10 JAPANESE RELIGIONS AND KYUDO (JAPANESE ARCHERY): AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE | 141 | ||
| Introduction | 141 | ||
| Yawatashi | 142 | ||
| Interpretation of Yawatashi | 143 | ||
| Habitus, Practice and the Internal Paradox | 144 | ||
| Mu | 146 | ||
| Homology | 148 | ||
| Between Doing and Meaning − Semiotics of the Non-dual | 150 | ||
| Practice/Habitus, Actuality/Virtuality | 152 | ||
| Notes | 153 | ||
| Chapter 11 TAMING THE HABITUS: THE GYM AND THE DOJO AS ‘CIVILIZING WORKSHOPS’ | 155 | ||
| Introduction | 155 | ||
| The Gym and the Dojo as ‘Civilizing Workshops’ | 156 | ||
| Negotiating Violence: A ‘Double-Bind Process’ | 158 | ||
| Sociohistorical development of Spanish combat sports/martial arts | 158 | ||
| Material characteristics of the site of practice | 161 | ||
| Breaking Thresholds of Violence | 161 | ||
| Guard like Ali | 161 | ||
| High falls | 162 | ||
| Asking pardon | 163 | ||
| Enduring pain | 164 | ||
| Appearances of Danger: Protective Gear versus Self-Control | 164 | ||
| Promises of a ‘Carnal Sociology’: Habitus as a Tool of Research | 167 | ||
| Notes | 169 | ||
| Chapter 12 ‘AUTHENTICITY’, MUAY THAI AND HABITUS | 171 | ||
| Introduction | 171 | ||
| Culture and Habitus | 173 | ||
| ‘Authentic’ Thai Culture | 174 | ||
| Muay Thai, The Science of Eight Limbs | 176 | ||
| Ritual, Habitus and Becoming a Muay Thai Fighter | 179 | ||
| Authenticity, Beauty and Muay Thai | 181 | ||
| Nationalism, Bodies and Muay Thai | 182 | ||
| A ‘Beautiful’ Boxer | 183 | ||
| Conclusion | 183 | ||
| Notes | 184 | ||
| Chapter 13 CONCLUSION: PRESENT AND FUTURE LINES OF RESEARCH | 185 | ||
| Habitus Within Martial Arts and Combat Sports | 185 | ||
| Habitus Meets the Cognitive Sciences | 188 | ||
| Notes | 190 | ||
| Epilogue HOMINES IN EXTREMIS: WHAT FIGHTING SCHOLARS TEACH US ABOUT HABITUS | 193 | ||
| 1. Habitus Is Fully Amenable to Empirical Inquiry | 193 | ||
| 2. Primary and Secondary Habitus | 195 | ||
| 3. The Cognitive, Conative and Affective Components of Habitus | 196 | ||
| 4. Carnality Is Not a Problem but a Resource for Sociological Inquiry | 196 | ||
| 5. We Are All Martial Artists | 197 | ||
| Notes | 199 | ||
| References | 201 |