Fighting Identity: An Ethnography of Kickboxing in East London – Amit Singh

Fighting Identity: An Ethnography of Kickboxing in East London – Amit Singh

Author: Amit Singh

Publisher: Routledge

Print Length: 173 pages

Genre: Non-Fiction / Cultural Studies, Non-Fiction / Race Studies

Area: East London

Topic: Community, Economy, Egalitarianism, Equality & Inequality, Ethnography, Gender, Identity, Race, Racism & Anti-Racism, Solidarity

This book is an immersive ethnographic account of how fighters at a Polish-owned Muay Thai/kickboxing gym in East London seek to reject prior identity markers in favour of constructing one another as the same, as fighters, a category supposedly free from the negative assumptions and limitations associated with prior ascriptions such as race, class, gender and sexuality.

It explores questions of subjectivity and identity by examining how and why fighters sought to disavow identity, which involved casting aside pre-established ways of thinking, feeling and acting about constructed differences to forge deep bonds of carnal convivial friendships. Yet, this book argues that becoming a fighter is highly socially contingent and remains subject to rupture due to the durability of taken-for-granted thinking about race, gender and sexuality, which, if drawn upon, could pull people out of the category of fighter and back into longer-standing durable categories. This book deploys Butler’s theory of performativity and Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of habitus to explore the context-specific ways people transgress identity whilst remaining attentive to the constrained nature of agency. The book is intended for undergraduate and master’s students on courses looking at race, racism, gender, social anthropology, sociology and sociology of sport.

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction

Muay Thai, Kickboxing and the Need for Solidarity
Fighting Identity 
Habitus, Performativity and Constrained Agency
The Field Site: Origins Combat Gym 
“Two Different Gyms”: From Polish Gym to Black Gym?
Immersive Ethnographic Fiction 

2 Becoming a Fighter and Escaping Identity 

Introduction: The Economics of Fighting 
Seeking “Solidarity in the Community” 
Training to Fight: Equality and Egalitarianism on the Gym Floor 
Constructing a “We” Out of “Blood, Sweat and Tears” 
Vacating Race: “Nobody Notices Race” 
No Gender in the Gym?
Conclusion 

3 Gender in the Gym: Fighting for Respect in a “Cis-Male Space” 

Introduction 
An Emergent Gender Divide 
Acts of Interpellation: “I Don’t Spar With Women”
Nicole: “People See Past Race, but Not Gender” 
Embodying Masculinity: Fight Like a Boy? 
Conclusion 
Coda: Reflexivity and Maleness 

4 Carnal Conviviality, Culture and Complex Identities 

Carnal Conviviality 
Doxa, Heterodoxy and Disrupting Racial Thinking
Challenging Stereotypes or Overcoming Racism? 
Sharing Culture: “Everyone Can Take a Bit From Each Other’s Culture” 
“Black Culture” and Respectability 
Katarina: Taking on Blackness and Inauthentic Identifications 
Conclusion

5 No Race, No Racism?

Introduction 
Rejecting Racism and Embracing Anti-Racism 
Anti-Racism and #BlackLivesMatter 
Racism, Banter and Racist Banter 
Emergent Common-Sense Racism: “Black People Can’t Swim” 
Racism or Cultural Difference? 
Racism and Anti-Racism From Poland to London 
Conclusion: What Is [Anti]racism? 

6 Black Masculinity: Being a Fighter or Being a “Black Fighter”? 

Introduction
Black Masculinity in Sport 
Obi’s Story: “Inside the Gym I’m Me” 
“Big Black Guys” Fighting in Eastern Europe 
Sexualising Black Men
Blackness and (Hetero)Sexuality: “A Gay Road Man?”
Seeking Respect Beyond the Gym Floor 
Conclusion 

7 Conclusion: Making Fighters, Un-making Identity? 

Making a Fighter 
On Racial Subjectivity 
Disavowing Identity to Construct Complex (But Hopeful)
Solidarities
Coda: Ethnographic Reflections 
Coda II: Still Fighting

Index 

Amit Singh has a PhD in Psychosocial Studies from Birkbeck, University of London. He has written on questions of race and subjectivity and is involved in public education projects such as the Connected Sociologies Curriculum Project. He also runs a 26-week supplementary sociology enrichment curriculum – “Race, Class & Society” – across two sixth forms in South and East London, as well as an annual summer school.

Source: https://www.routledge.com/Fighting-Identity-An-Ethnography-of-Kickboxing-in-East-London/Singh/p/book/9781032279213?srsltid=AfmBOoqPzeg3PoclnvNiGEWDirXRaIkygjLYydvbyRqbiKnDdLMiMY0c

More from Amit Singh in this library, click here.