Boxing It Out: A Conversation About Body and Soul

Transcription

1 Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 2, Summer 2005 ( C 2005) DOI: /s Boxing It Out: A Conversation About Body and Soul Patrick M. Krueger 1 and Jarron M. SaintOnge 2 Loïc Wacquant provides a colorful and sociologically rich account of his experiences as a boxer at the Woodlawn Boys Club, situated in an economically and racially segregated neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. His (auto)ethnographic analysis of the urban ghetto relies on years of rich fieldnotes and interviews, and tells a compelling story about becoming a boxer and a participant in the urban underclass. Although both of us enjoyed this book, differences in opinion gradually emerged through our subsequent conversations. This review fleshes out our thoughts about Body and Soul. HABITUS PMK: I applaud Wacquant s efforts to detail the habitus that was common among the boxers by occupying the role of a full participant in his setting. He became, in every sense of the word, a boxer at the Woodlawn Boys Club. Wacquant intimately detailed the meaning and value of boxing by practicing with the men at the club, attending their amateur and professional bouts, and eventually competing in the Chicago Golden Gloves competition. He convincingly described how the habitus found among the men in his setting emerged against the backdrop of their experiences with drugs, crime, and unemployment in the neighborhood, while allowing them to creatively produce the gym culture that required sacrifice of time; the avoidance of both unhealthy foods and sex; dedication to stringent training regimens; and optimism that boxing could provide a more lucrative or prestigious future. Nevertheless, I am unconvinced that Wacquant adequately described boxing in terms that reflect the practice in men s lives while 1 Correspondence should be directed to Patrick M. Krueger, Robert Wood Johnson, Health and Society Scholar, University of Pennsylvania, Colonial Penn Center, 3641 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA, 19104; pkrueger@wharton.upenn.edu. 2 Department of Sociology, Campus Box 327, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO /05/ /0 C 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

2 186 Krueger and SaintOnge making full use of the more analytical language of sociology. Although I enjoyed seeing some of Pierre Bourdieu s (a longtime collaborator of Wacquant s) concepts and many new ideas come to life through Wacquant s field work, sometimes the book felt like a patchwork of excerpts from fieldnotes that offered little analysis. JMS: Although criticisms of a lack of sociological rigor may persist, they should be tempered in light of Wacquant s focus. Specifically, he aims to elucidate how the pugilistic habitus functions within the Boys Club to inform theoretical discussions about habitus more generally. I think that Wacquant expects his readers to actively engage his text with knowledge of his prior work in mind. Perhaps Wacquant aims to re-create the process of acquiring bodily knowledge for his readers when he describes the sensuous intoxication that arises within the smell of sweat, leather equipment, and canvas within the gym. This thick description might ostensibly focus on trivial details or bits of sensationalism, but may also serve to situate the reader inside the boxer s head and body, within his corporeal setting, to demonstrate how one becomes a boxer. Thus, Wacquant pushes readers to interpret the rich descriptions of his visceral experiences so they can develop their own understanding of boxing, just as embodied knowledge is learned through practice rather than discussion or reading. This technique is homologous to Wacquant s process of learning about the pugilistic habitus through embodied social practice. PMK: Part of my concern with the book remains in the abstract: how can a white Frenchman become an accepted member of a boxing club in an urban ghetto in the U.S.? Wherever Wacquant s fieldnotes detail his role in the field, I am convinced that he had a strong rapport with several important people, including DeeDee, the manager and head coach of the Woodlawn Boys Club. But on several occasions, he reminds me that his role is persistently tenuous. For example, other boxers urge Wacquant to protect his head in the ring because of his academic background, and he openly acknowledges that he comes from a markedly different class and national background than nearly all of the other boxers. This seems particularly important, given the often subtle ways that habitus reflects class distinctions and informs how individuals understand the social world (Bourdieu 1984). JMS: Beyond asking whether Wacquant can truly fit into his setting, I find it important to question why Wacquant inadequately addresses how he overcame these differences. Wacquant leaves the reader with little insight into how he overcomes class and cultural distinctions, and simply suggests that his French (i.e., foreign) nationality, his paying his dues in the ring, and the egalitarian ethos associated with the sport, foster his acceptance. In his defense, Wacquant focuses on the social spaces associated with boxing rather than how he transgressed cultural distinctions to become a member of that setting. Nevertheless, he never occupies this niche as fully as the other boxers. Despite his intoxication with boxing,

3 Boxing it Out: A Conversation About Body and Soul 187 Wacquant retains his social position as a Frenchman and an academic and is less subject to the problems associated with crime, poverty, and familial instability in the neighborhood than the men in the club. Further, his background shaped the club by encouraging a boxing exchange between the U.S. and France, and prompting Dee Dee to wear a Basque beret and imbibe French alcohol. Wacquant s own practices are influenced by the habitus he developed outside of the club. His academic background emphasizes the importance of reading, although Dee Dee derides the author when he admits to reading books about boxing to supplement his practice in the gym. BODILY CAPITAL PMK: Wacquant eloquently describes bodily capital as the skills that accrue after months of shadow boxing, sparring, footwork, and roadwork, which transform an abstract set of principles about how to box (keep your elbows in, hands up) into reflex-like actions. Bodily capital resides in the highly socialized but largely ineffable coordination of eye and muscle movements according to the specific rules that frame the boxing ring, wherein the body acts within the split seconds that define effective jabs, hooks, or blocks in the heat of a bout. It is as if socially regulated experience accrues in the body over time, and can be expressed almost reflexively in the appropriate situation. JMS: In a manner reminiscent of Foucault s (1977) discussion of the panopticon, Wacquant describes Dee Dee s continual presence in an office that overlooks the entire gym and his administration of reprimands when boxers are lethargic in their sit-ups, jump roping, or shadowboxing. Concomitantly, the boxers undertake self-surveillance the boxers consistently maintain their activity and translate the possibility of Dee Dee s recriminations into bodily capital. Bodily capital is important because it indicates the conversion of a narrow set of knowledge into practices that are relevant only in specific fields, in this case, the boxing gym and ring. Unfortunately, bodily capital will likely receive only modest attention due to Wacquant s specific focus. He only alludes to the possible conversions of bodily capital into various forms of social and cultural capital (e.g., access to influential groups within the boxing community), and he fails to situate bodily capital within a broader sociological framework. PMK: Nevertheless, I think that bodily capital could have broad appeal in sociology, even outside of the sociology of sport. For example, bodily capital might elucidate how the skills acquired in manual labor might not be relevant for other jobs, thereby maintaining a system that inhibits career mobility. Or, bodily capital may offer insight into how men and women come to experience gender differently in ways that might shape their health behaviors. I think the concept will be quite valuable for understanding various social processes.

4 188 Krueger and SaintOnge URBAN GHETTO PMK: Perhaps because of Wacquant s (2002) critical remarks on several urban ethnographies in the American Journal of Sociology, I was expecting more extensive analysis of the relationship between the Woodlawn Boys Club and the broader stratification system in which the urban ghetto exists. For example, why was boxing attractive among working-class blacks and Hispanics but not among the working poor or unemployed? Why did some men move toward boxing, while others joined gangs, dealt drugs, or became targets of the criminal justice system? I think that Wacquant could have more systematically situated boxing within the larger social system that defines economic and employment opportunities, law enforcement practices, access to and norms for participation in social welfare programs, marriage possibilities, and the prevalence of other community organizations. JMS: While Wacquant originally intended to embed himself in the setting to better understand social relations within an urban black ghetto, I agree that this book only tangentially meets that goal. He emphasizes how one s social position reflects and is shaped by the context in which one resides. But, instead of starting with the gym and working outward into the broader neighborhood relationships, his focus turns toward the gym as a crucible that forges the ideals that allow residents in the ghetto to deal with their circumstances. Wacquant links the experience of boxers to the experience of the gym by describing his own selfprofessed surrender to the pugilistic habitus, but fails to systematically link the gym to the larger organization of the ghetto. PMK: In the preface, Wacquant notes that he aims to discredit perspectives that cast the ghetto as a disorganized place marked by unstable families and few reliable jobs. On the one hand, he describes the Woodlawn Boys Club as promoting stability in the lives of men and advancing pro-social values such as the idea that success results from hard work, perseverance, and luck. But on the other hand, Marxist perspectives might suggest that the club provides a convenient ideology that gives the men hope for success, while ensuring that they continue to work at low-wage jobs and provide a pool of people willing to work for little money. Although Wacquant details the rich and orderly social patterns extant within the ghetto, the men he describes seemingly have little opportunity to escape the neighborhood poverty and crime unless they break into the rarefied air of professional boxing. OTHER CONCERNS PMK: I would have liked a more systematic discussion of how gender operates within boxing and the larger neighborhood context. Wacquant routinely describes boxing as the manly art, notes that women are seldom accepted inside the doors of the Woodlawn Boys Club, and finds that sexual abstinence is routinely considered

5 Boxing it Out: A Conversation About Body and Soul 189 a sacrifice that is key to success in the ring. This suggests that masculinity informs who can occupy certain roles inside the gym and in the larger boxing community. Nevertheless, gender relationships receive little analytical attention. JMS: I agree that a more thorough examination of gender would provide further insight into the pugilistic habitus, and would offer a deeper understanding of the role of boxing in the ghetto. Further, the possibility of selection bias, wherein the members of the gym may not represent the usual residents of the neighborhood, is also important. Why are these members drawn to boxing? Why do they choose to endure harsh physical and mental discipline? How are the members similar to or different from others in the neighborhood? Although Wacquant suggests that the gym protects men against the hostile physical surroundings of Chicago s South Side, he does little to explain who is drawn to the gym and who is successful. Finally, Wacquant fails to discuss any negative consequences associated with participation in boxing. For example, the men spend a good deal of time training at the gym, which may detract from the time they spend with their families or continuing their education, and expose them to risks of bodily injury. At best, the club may serve as a palliative against the worst problems the men face; at worst, boxing may keep these men from pursuing other mechanisms for improving their situations while exposing them to injuries that may further harm their prospects. This idea is not implausibile Wacquant notes that his intoxication with boxing almost led him to leave academia and try his hand in the ring as a professional boxer. CONCLUSION Wacquant aims to avoid the Orientalizing perspectives that he suggests have plagued urban ethnography. Body and Soul attempts to focus on the corporeal qualities of boxing within the rules of the gym and ring, and within the urban ghetto. But lapses in analytical rigor and an emphasis on emotional appeal suggests that Wacquant s work may not be in a position to thoroughly express his criticisms of prior ethnographic work. Nevertheless, he nimbly provides many fascinating examples of important theoretical concepts including habitus and bodily capital that often remain in the abstract but are seldom demonstrated in practice. This work will not only serve as a key empirical companion to the more theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, but also offers rich extensions of those theories while offering insight into the practice of boxing within the U.S. ghetto. REFERENCES Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Wacquant, L. (2002). Scrutinizing the street: Poverty, morality, and the pitfalls of urban ethnography. American Journal of Sociology, 107,