Boxing, Bourdieu and Butler: repetitions of change

ABSTRACT

The authors of this paper engage in academic sparring. Sparring is a process, a training, and a dialogue. This paper brings into dialogue the boxing bodies and autoethnographic experiences of the authors alongside the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler. By applying a feminist reading to Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and habitus, the authors explore how the repetitive nature of boxing training can promote change. The paper considers boxing training as a transcendental identity project where individual labour is invested in order to affect change in symbolic capital. The repetitive nature of training leads to a habitus split, or habitus clivé. This split causes the boxer to renegotiate concepts of self as they engage with their own and other socially qualified and gendered bodies. This split exposes the freedoms and limitations of identity work as the boxers develop new habitus with and through their bodies (hexis). The authors argue that a reading of the performance of boxing bodies demonstrates the complex relationship between change, freedom, and restriction. Boxing is a physical culture supported by pervasive, hegemonic narratives which focus on the demonstration and development of respect and discipline. This paper explores the extent to which the repetitive nature of boxing training can be considered transgressive or resistant.

KEYWORDS:

• Boxing
• ethnography
• Bourdieu
• Butler
• feminism
• habitus
• gender
• repetition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. I am conscious here that more recent studies in gender and sexualities, particularly queer theorists such as Jack Halberstam who builds on Butler’s work, have enriched and expanded the discourse on how normative behaviours come to be and are potentially subverted. Such studies draw attention to how prevailing hetero and homonormative discourses regulate and assert to manage behaviours and bodies. Explorations of gender identity and sexualities have progressed the discussion on what constitutes ‘normative’ bodies and behaviours beyond the disciplinary binaries of male/female, gay/straight, black/white, and so on. The remit of this paper does not allow for a more substantial analysis of these works. However, it is noteworthy that the conversations have explored in detail what I refer to here as ‘normative and disciplinary codes of everyday life’, in relation to the lived experiences of varying gender identities and sexualities. For further reference see Halberstam (1998).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Crews

Sarah Crews is the Course Leader for the BA Performance and Media degree. Sarah’s research interests include: Directing and devising theatre, digital performance, practice as research, performance and the body, gender and sexuality, boxing and the plays and practices of Howard Barker.

P. Solomon Lennox

P. Solomon Lennox is the Head of Subject for Drama at Northumbria University. His research sits within the field of performance studies and explores the relationship between the physical performance practices of combat sports, theories of performance space, and narrative identity.