• DOI:10.1177/1357034X12440829
• Corpus ID: 146627642

Boxers, Briefs or Bras? Bodies, Gender and Change in the Boxing Gym

@article{Paradis2012BoxersBO,
  title={Boxers, Briefs or Bras? Bodies, Gender and Change in the Boxing Gym},
  author={Elise Paradis},
  journal={Body \& Society},
  year={2012},
  volume={18},
  pages={109 - 82}
}

• Elise Paradis
• Published 24 May 2012
• Sociology
• Body & Society

In this ethnography of Full Contact, a San Francisco Bay Area boxing gym, I use Bourdieu’s theory of practice to illustrate how ‘rules of the game’ shape people’s perceptions, interactions and positions (capital). First, I show how the unwritten, unspoken rules of boxing as a field (its doxa) impact readings of bodies and bodily capital, readings that then have an impact on micro-level interactions and hierarchies at Full Contact. Second, I show the micro-level consequences of hysteresis – delays in the realignment of habitus and field that result from change at the field level – on social interactions and hierarchies. Gender is at the core of my analysis, for it is both a fundamental part of my and others’ habitus, and a symbolic trait of significance in the hypermasculine doxa of boxing as a field.