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How Can One be a Boxer? : Pain and Pleasure in a M anila's Boxing Camp
Author(s) -
Ishioka Tomonori
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of japanese sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.133
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1475-6781
pISSN - 0918-7545
DOI - 10.1111/ijjs.12030
Subject(s) - pleasure , ethnography , everyday life , psychology , sociology , order (exchange) , advertising , law , political science , anthropology , business , finance , neuroscience
This paper is an ethnographic account of daily life at a boxing gym in M anila in the P hilippines. My book, R okaru B oxer to H inkon S ekai conducts a social analysis of three different topics in order to grasp the lives of M anilan boxers on both theoretical and empirical grounds—namely, daily life at a boxing gym, an international boxing market structure in which F ilipino boxers are consumed as underdog roles, and the daily life in Manila's squatter areas to which the boxers are closely tied. The current study limits its examination to daily life in a boxing gym. Most of the unique characteristics that influence F ilipino boxing can be found in the live‐in residencies of its gyms. The gym is a place for training and living. It is not only by training but also as a result of various aspects of their life here that young men are able to become boxers. Unlike the gym in the A frican A merican ghetto described by L oïc W acquant, participating youths in F ilipino boxing come from the absolute lowest tiers of society. The youths live in boxing camps where every aspect of their daily live is strictly regulated, and thus are they inscribed with the rules that must be observed in this sport. This study is an examination of the pains and pleasures of life at one such boxing camp.