EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-29DOI: 10.1177/14661381211036134
L. Pedrini, D. Brown, G. Navarini
{"title":"The antifascist boxing body: Political somatics in boxe popolare","authors":"L. Pedrini, D. Brown, G. Navarini","doi":"10.1177/14661381211036134","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211036134","url":null,"abstract":"Palestre popolari (‘people’s gyms’) are flourishing in contemporary Italy. These gyms are run by leftist grassroots organizations (ANTIFA), which promote an alternative boxing style: boxe popolare (‘people’s boxing’). Drawing on a three-year ethnography, this article focuses on body usages in boxe popolare. Connecting Mauss with Bourdieu, the study elucidates that the ways in which bodies are deployed in boxe popolare shape a scheme of dispositions – mutualism, combat, engagement and conviviality – forming an antifascist pugilistic habitus. A leftist physicality is hence incorporated as an interpolation of political dispositions with virtues of prowess, self-control and toughness, instilled in boxe popolare bodies regardless of their gender identity. This emergent leftist physicality becomes bodily hexis as soon as it is displayed publicly by the fighters, both men and women, as the legitimate representation of the political community to which they belong. The study ends highlighting implications for research about political somatics.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":"22 1","pages":"311 - 333"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47774812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-29DOI: 10.1177/14661381211038430
Maria Törnqvist, T. Holmberg
{"title":"The sensing eye: Intimate vision in couple dancing","authors":"Maria Törnqvist, T. Holmberg","doi":"10.1177/14661381211038430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211038430","url":null,"abstract":"Vision tends to be associated with the mind and theorized as the least bodily sense. Notably, the eye often symbolizes distance. Foregrounding the fleshy embeddedness of the gaze through an analysis of jitterbug, the present article stresses the bodily and intimate significance of vision in dancing. Analyzing ethnographic observation and interview data, we develop a phenomenological approach to dance and gaze that stresses the need to address multi-sensoriality, adding vision to the perspective of tactile-kinesthetic touch. However, the article develops a more-than-optic perspective on “dancing as vision.” The “sensing eye” is analyzed, first, as a body technique central to couple dancing and, second, as the use and meaning of vision across spatial distance, as between dancers and bystanders. Throughout the article, the dance floor unveils connections between eye and body, self and other, and passive and active and thus pushes notions of emplacement and embodiment.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46632432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-29DOI: 10.1177/14661381211035482
George Jennings
{"title":"‘A Punch Has No Paternity!’: techniques, belonging and the Mexicanidad of Xilam","authors":"George Jennings","doi":"10.1177/14661381211035482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211035482","url":null,"abstract":"This article combines ethnographic and netnographic data to explore the relationships between body techniques and a sense of belonging through the contemporary Mexican martial art of Xilam. This art, founded by a female Mexican martial arts veteran, is slowly developing as a hand-to-hand sport, and has attracted critics for its supposed use of East Asian fighting techniques. Netnographic data reveal online debates on the origins and ‘true belonging’ of specific techniques while ethnographic fieldwork in a Xilam school demonstrates how the art is made ‘Mexican’ through specific accompanying practices and philosophy surrounding the movements. The movements of sitting, punching and standing are selected as key examples as understood through Mauss’s classic thesis. I conclude that Xilam follows a philosophical pedagogy that associates these techniques with a sense of Mexicanness – Mexicanidad.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":"22 1","pages":"411 - 428"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44044718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-29DOI: 10.1177/14661381211038290
Luana Gama Gato, Anna Matyska
{"title":"Gendered encounters in mobility: Women researching migrant construction workers","authors":"Luana Gama Gato, Anna Matyska","doi":"10.1177/14661381211038290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211038290","url":null,"abstract":"Writing about sexism and sexual harassment in the field is still generally discouraged outside gender ethnography, despite a growing gender reflexivity in research. This is mostly due to certain established norms and expectations about ethnographic work that tend to ignore how these issues contribute to women’s fieldwork experiences and subsequent ethnographic accounts. In this article, we go against this tendency by setting out our gendered experiences as female ethnographers conducting research on labor mobility in the male-dominated construction industry among Brazilian internal migrants in Rio de Janeiro and among Polish migrant workers in Europe. We foreground how gendered dynamics affected our fieldwork experience and how they generated a degree of self-doubt and self-blame about our methodological choices. Our hope is that writing about our experiences will help female ethnographers to better prepare for and consider the different kinds of sexism that will inevitably shape their knowledge production.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42133033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-27DOI: 10.1177/14661381211038534
Isabelle Clair
{"title":"“La racaille,” a performed figure in French contemporary youth","authors":"Isabelle Clair","doi":"10.1177/14661381211038534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211038534","url":null,"abstract":"In France, la racaille is a stereotyped figure of a young (usually identified as Arab or Black) man who lives in a suburban cité (social housing estate) . I have repeatedly met la racaille during my ethnographic studies on heterosexual romantic relationships among 15- to 20-year-old youngsters from three different social backgrounds—working class in cités (2002–2005), working class in villages (2008–2011), and bourgeoisie in Paris (2016–2020). I encountered it in the form of a performed figure—object of speech, clothing choices, gestures, movements, and ways of speaking. This presence reveals a collective fascination in which various negative judgments are mixed with shared admiration for its high social visibility. Stylish and powerful, la racaille is fascinating, at any rate because it embodies an exaggerated masculinity that is untroubled and unquestionable.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44148115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-26DOI: 10.1177/14661381211038927
T. Mccorry, Paul C Fuller
{"title":"“We take responsibility!”: Governing the neighborhood—governing the self","authors":"T. Mccorry, Paul C Fuller","doi":"10.1177/14661381211038927","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211038927","url":null,"abstract":"This ethnographic study of a neighborhood association focuses on the process of organizing residents to collective action. Situated in the post-industrial city of Buffalo, New York, the Urban Community Collaborative (UCC) employs two main governing techniques: (1) “taking responsibility” and (2)“working collaboratively” that emphasizes the rationality of “active citizenship” and the formation of horizontally linked collaborative partnerships to address perceived urban social problems. Similar to previous studies, we view this political rationality as a discursive constitution that shapes the actions of the members of the UCC (Atkinson, 1999; Schofield, 20002). This political rationality invokes neoliberal discourses of individual responsibility, entrepreneurship, and community partnership in place of a dependency on the government. We find residents utilizing moral techniques of responsibilization which entails calling on their neighbors to “take responsibility” and to “work collaboratively” with one another and paradoxically, with the government itself in revitalization efforts.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43167763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-25DOI: 10.1177/14661381211035476
Einat Bar-On Cohen
{"title":"Yokozuna Hakuhō—Japanese Mongolian hero","authors":"Einat Bar-On Cohen","doi":"10.1177/14661381211035476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211035476","url":null,"abstract":"Yokozuna Hakuhō, a prominent Sumo wrestler, is a Mongolian-born Japanese national hero. However, he, as other Mongolian wrestlers, presents Sumo with tensions between worldviews, which are battled both within the hierarchical setting of the Sumo association, and in public opinion. Those concern questions of etiquette and ethical behavior, between what is understood the “real Japanese” spirit, and the Mongolian attitude. Moreover, the Mongolian attitude also coincided with modern tendencies and the culture of celebrities so that those tensions are also a case of a Japanese way of dealing with the external influences of globalization. Moreover, since both Japanese and Mongolian cosmos are “inclusive,” namely, tend toward the non-dual, the tensions are not resolved but rather create a cultural enclave of shifting assemblages yielding both new regulations and popular opinions. And while those tensions are negotiated, the common belief as to what constitutes true Japanese traits is also forged and inculcated.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":"22 1","pages":"334 - 350"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44709536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-24DOI: 10.1177/14661381211039162
Michael D Hill, Consuelo Fernández-Salvador, Julie L. Williams
{"title":"Reflexive collaboration: Building pluri-ethnographic partnerships in an Ecuadorian bank","authors":"Michael D Hill, Consuelo Fernández-Salvador, Julie L. Williams","doi":"10.1177/14661381211039162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211039162","url":null,"abstract":"This article illustrates the value of reflexive dialogue regarding foundational assumptions about ontologies of culture and cultural change, as well as regarding key methodological and epistemological tensions at critical junctures in the research process, in a collaborative ethnographic study undertaken by Ecuador’s largest banking institution in partnership with a team of university anthropologists. While acknowledging the importance of ethnographic positionality and the complexity of organizational interests in business anthropology, the case highlights the role and power of consciously positioned reflexivity and dialogue to overcome tensions, build trust, and ultimately reach cultural insights that are products of an inclusive and pluri-ethnographic approach as opposed to a more hierarchical, or “othering,” para-ethnographic perspective. The case demonstrates how this approach requires attention not only to divergences and convergences between academic anthropologists and corporate culture workers but also to multiple positionalities within organizations themselves that inflect understandings of cultural ontologies and ethnographic epistemologies.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43574685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-24DOI: 10.1177/14661381211042818
D. Nardini, G. Scandurra
{"title":"‘Hand-to-hand sports and the struggle for belonging’","authors":"D. Nardini, G. Scandurra","doi":"10.1177/14661381211042818","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211042818","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue on hand-to-hand sports aims to analyse how collective identities and forms of group and community belonging are defined, strengthened, built, imagined or even denied in the sportive and social contexts in which hand-to-hand combat or wrestling disciplines are practised. Considering the wide-ranging cross-cultural distribution of combat and wrestling practices in very different cultures and societies across the contemporary world, this issue intends to provide a (not-exhaustive) comparison of practices originating in highly heterogeneous geographical, social and cultural contexts. Indeed, comparisons focus on specific practices (combat and wrestling activities) and their relationship with belonging. The contributing scholars have studied and reflected on a particular style of wrestling or combat practice and its links to social belonging and identity, whether it be expressed on regional or national, local or global, social or ethnic, institutional or ‘counter-cultural’, symbolic or concrete levels.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":"22 1","pages":"289 - 294"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43742197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EthnographyPub Date : 2021-08-20DOI: 10.1177/14661381211035908
M. Hann, D. Chevé, C. T. Wane
{"title":"“Tying your ngemb”: Negotiating identity in Senegalese wrestling","authors":"M. Hann, D. Chevé, C. T. Wane","doi":"10.1177/14661381211035908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14661381211035908","url":null,"abstract":"More than merely a combat sport, Senegalese wrestling combines professional athleticism with cultural traditions, political relations, and religious belief. For many young men in Senegal, wrestling also represents a model of success in otherwise challenging circumstances characterized by socio-economic crisis and increasing precarity. Young wrestlers must navigate and perform an elaborate set of identities in order to demonstrate their success—both within the sand-filled arenas in which fights take place, and in the complex social worlds which have emerged around the practice. Referring to a panoply of identity markers including ethnicity, religious affiliation, and village or neighborhood loyalty, wrestlers simultaneously demonstrate their alignment with dominant discourses around masculinity and urban knowledge. The article draws upon lengthy ethnographic research to explore the dynamic, contradictory, and hybrid processes of identity construction through which wrestlers present themselves to the world.","PeriodicalId":47573,"journal":{"name":"Ethnography","volume":"22 1","pages":"396 - 410"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2021-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47220505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}