European University Institute Library

Body & soul, notebooks of an apprentice boxer, Loïc Wacquant

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

contains biographical information

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Body & soul

bibliography

1257312737

Loïc Wacquant

notebooks of an apprentice boxer

"In this postface, I explicate the analytic agenda woven into the narrative fabric of Body and Soul to unpack its theoretical import and leverage its research implications. I recount how I took up the ethnographic craft; stumbled upon the Chicago boxing gym that is the main scene and character of my conversive ethnography of prizefighting in the black American ghetto; and designed the book so as to both deploy methodologically and elaborate empirically Pierre Bourdieu's signal concept of habitus. I draw out some of the biographical and intellectual connections between this research project on a plebeian bodily craft, the theoretical framework that informs it, and the macro-comparative inquiry into urban marginality of which it is an unplanned offshoot. I sketch how the practicalities of first-hand observation led me from the ghetto as implement of ethnoracial domination to embodiment as puzzle and springboard for social inquiry. Through this reflection on becoming a prizefighter as social phenomenon turned sociological experiment, I advocate for the use of fieldwork as an instrument of theoretical construction, the potency of carnal knowledge, and the imperative of epistemic reflexivity. I also stress the need to expand the textual genres and styles of ethnography so as to better capture the Sturm und Drang of social action as it is manufactured and lived"--, Provided by publisher"When French sociologist Loïc Wacquant signed up at a boxing gym in a black neighborhood of Chicago's South Side, he had never contemplated getting close to a ring, let alone climbing into it. Yet for three years he immersed himself among local fighters, amateur and professional. He learned the Sweet science of bruising, participating in all phases of the pugilist's strenuous preparation, from shadow-boxing drills to sparring to fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament. In this experimental ethnography of incandescent intensity, the scholar-turned-boxer fleshes out Pierre Bourdieu's signal concept of habitus, deepening our theoretical grasp of human practice. And he supplies a model for a carnal sociology capable of capturing the taste and ache of action. This expanded anniversary edition features a new preface and postface that take the reader behind the scenes and reveal the making of this classic ethnography. Wacquant reflects on his path to, and uses of, fieldwork based on apprenticeship. He traces the genealogy and draws the anatomy of habitus and explicates how he deployed it as method of inquiry. The postface retraces the trials and tribulations of his gym mates in and out of the gym over the past thirty years, and reflects on what they reveal about the economics of prizefighting, masculinity, and the passion that binds boxers to their craft." --, Provided by publisher

Notebooks of an apprentice boxerBody and soul