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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

The thrill of the fight : sensuous experiences of boxing : towards a sociology of violence

Matthews, Christopher January 2011 (has links)
This thesis employs ethnographic methods to examine lived experiences of sports violence, particularly, the ways in which action in, and around, a boxing ring can be psychologically and physically significant. Crucial in this regard is the social conditioning of such experiences. Here, norms and values that dominate the framing of sports violence are informed by participants assumptions based on traditional understandings of gender and class. In this way, social processes associated with masculine identities and the working classes inform what was considered possible, permissible and pleasurable. It is contended that phenomenologically informed accounts of such pleasurable experiences of violence remain relatively underrepresented within research examining sports participation. The central focus of this thesis is to provide such an account within a boxing environment. As such, the observations and interviews presented in what follows contribute to the sociological study of sports violence in particular and violence more generally. Alongside this substantive dimension, there are also conceptual, theoretical and methodological contributions that can inform future sociological study in the area and more broadly. Specifically, the contention that experiences of sports violence tend to contain a mimetic dimension and a figurational or processes sociological interpretation of such experiences, are empirically evaluated. The naturalisation of biological interpretations of masculinity as a popular means of explaining and justifying acts of violence is explored. The embodiment of social processes, including masculinity, is theorised using figurational sociology, specifically employing the interconnected concepts of habitus, figuration and established/outsider relations. Methodologically, notions of insider / outsider knowledge are reconceptualised using Elias discussions of involvement/detachment. The sports violence masculinity complex is proposed as a means of conceptually framing the social processes that contour the pleasurable experiences of conducting, and being the target of, violence. This overarching frame is linked to local factors that also impinge upon the gym space. With these social fault lines explored, a phenomenologically sensitive account of sports violence is presented. In this way, it is hoped that some of the theoretical pitfalls of other, arguably asociological, examinations of emotion and sensation are avoided. Using field notes and interview extracts a wart and all picture of gym life is painted. Particular attention is paid to sensuous experiences of working the bag and sparring. Here, significant physical markers and emotional expressions are detailed. Inside and around the ring, men learned the techniques and tactics of mimetic violence. These experiences enabled a socially conditioned, controlled decontrolling of emotional controls and the elicitation of physical sensations that generally remain off limits during the relative emotional and physical staleness of their work-a-day lives. It is contended that the experiences detailed within this thesis and the theoretical frame used to interpret them can inform future work examining sports violence and violence more generally.
2

The energetics of amateur boxing

Davis, Philip January 2012 (has links)
Research into amateur boxing has previously been based on data of selected technical elements rather than all fighting actions, or physiological acute responses without the corresponding information on fighting activities. Detailed research is needed to improve the sport and the preparation of its participants. This series of studies discovers what an amateur 3 x 2 min boxing bout is comprised of and the physiological demands it places on boxers. A bout includes 131 ± 31 punches, 30 ± 20 defensive movements and 231 ± 58 vertical hip movements. The most successful boxing strategy to land punches is a high frequency of straight lead hand punches to the head. However, triple punch combinations have the highest probability of being counted by judges as a landed punch whether they land or not. The overall metabolism of a simulated bout is supplied aerobically with a Wtot of 564 kJ and fractions of aerobic, anaerobic alactic and anaerobic lactic sources of 72, 23 and 5 % respectively. The metabolic demands of a full-contact bout are similar to the simulated bout with a Wtot of 603 kJ and fractions of aerobic, anaerobic alactic and anaerobic lactic sources of 70, 23 and 7 % respectively. To achieve this metabolic profile the novice boxers in this series of studies had an aerobic capacity similar to elite amateur boxers (60 ml-kg-l-min-1) and the ability to tolerate a lactate production rate of ~ 2.0 mmol.l-1.min-l. This thesis has shown that it is possible to create an accurate and reliable simulation for full- contact amateur boxing bouts. In doing so we discovered that landing punches is not the only strategy to win a bout. Furthermore, this thesis has turned previous speculation of the energetics of amateur boxing being 80 % anaerobic on its head.
3

The development of an amateur boxing simulation protocol

Thomson, Edward January 2015 (has links)
There is a dearth of research attempting to quantify the external (physical) and internal (physiological) demands of amateur boxing performance. Therefore, the purpose of this programme of research was to investigate the external demands of amateur boxing performance, and subsequently, develop a sport-specific simulation protocol that could replicate these demands and the accompanying physiological responses while appraising the reliability and validity of the attempt. To achieve this it was necessary initially to identify key offensive and defensive performance indicators and assess the intra- and inter-observer reliability with which such actions could be quantified. Intra-observer reliability was deemed excellent with high agreement (>92%) for all actions identified. Inter-observer reliability was less impressive (>75%), though remained consistently high nevertheless. Subsequently, research utilising this template quantified the offensive and defensive external demands and effectiveness (i.e. frequency of actions deemed successful) according to the independent and interactive influences of contest outcome, weight class and ability using post-contest video analysis. Main effects, two- and three-way interactions were established when appraising the frequency of actions and their outcomes in relation to the independent variables. Whilst the ability of the boxers evidenced the most prominent impact, contest outcome and weight class remained important influences for most actions. Moreover, substantial (CV >30%) within-group variation was evidenced implicating the role of boxer ‘styles’ and strategies in modifying the demands. The offensive and defensive demands were then supplemented with Global Positioning System (GPS) analyses of the boxers’ sport-specific time-displacement movements. Having established the GPS’s reliability and validity for assessing the boxingmovements, it was observed that boxers typically moved a distance of 35.9 m·min-1 at an average speed of 0.6 m·s-1. Such data was amalgamated with the technical demands to produce a boxing-specific simulation protocol that was reflective of the average competitive demand and thus had the potential to be a boxing conditioning and fitness test (BOXFIT). Despite providing the most valid external demand to-date, owing to confounding influences and within-group dispersion, application of the typical external demand was shown to afford only an approximation of the actual demands in all boxers. As such an issue is characteristic of simulation protocols, the BOXFIT was still employed to evaluate the physiological response and appraise the associated reliability and validity. The internal demand was characterised by a high aerobic cardiopulmonary response (peak heart rate > 189 b·min-1; peak VO2 > 55 ml·kg-1·min-1) coupled with a marked indication of anaerobic energy provision (blood lactate = 4.6 ± 1.3 mmol·l-1). The reliability of the physiological responses elicited by BOXFIT performance was generally sufficient to enable the detection of moderate effects (i.e. 0.6 x pooled SD) and practically relevant changes in physiological and physical performance owing to training and nutritional interventions. However, the BOXFIT-induced responses underestimated selected markers of internal load (e.g. Mean heart rate ≈ -4.5%), questioning its validity. Thus, application of the average external demand typically approximated, rather than replicated, the actual physiology of boxing. With modifications, the validity of the external demands and internal response could be improved. The BOXFIT might therefore be used as part of a boxer’s conditioning, providing a sport-specific means of training and offers an ergonomic framework to assess the impact of systematic, intervention-based changes in boxing-specific exercise physiology.
4

Fighting for change : narrative accounts on the appeal and desistance potential of boxing

Jump, Deborah Louise January 2015 (has links)
This doctoral research addresses the relationship between the sport of boxing and men’s desistance from violent crime. It examines how men make sense of violence as a result of participating in the sport, and how they subsequently rehearse and practice violence in their everyday lives both in and outside of the gym walls. Thirteen men were interviewed using Biographical Narrative Interviewing techniques as part of a six month ethnography in an inner-city boxing gym in the north of England. Furthermore, I spoke with three policy makers in the field of sport and desistance from crime, to ascertain whether or not they determined sport to be beneficial in promoting pro-social behaviour among adolescents. Throughout this thesis I pay particular attention to the participant’s understanding of violence and also how the logic of the gym reinforces attitudes favourable to violence and the maintenance of respect. Thus, this research discusses and elaborates on previous assumptions in sporting and desistance literature, and argues that while relevant, diversionary activities and sport-based rehabilitative programmes are only one element in the theory of change. In conclusion, arguments are put forward that state that boxing actually traps men in an attendant culture of respect that requires them to respond in aggressive ways to maintain an image of both masculinity and respect. This attendant culture - that is transposable between gym and street – can override the pro- social desisting elements that the gym can offer, and reinforces the logic and discourses that evokes and traps men in habits of responding to violence, therefore in terms of future policy and practice new directions need to be sought.
5

The boxer's point of view : an ethnography of cultural production and athletic development among amateur and professional boxers in England

Stewart, Alex January 2008 (has links)
Since the late nineteenth century boxing in England has been socially organised into two ideologically distinctive versions - amateur and professional boxing – that to this day are practiced in spatially segregated social universes. Nonetheless, both amateur and professional boxing-practitioners understandings and lived experiences in and through boxing are necessarily grounded in the wider social and cultural contexts through which they interpret meaning and construct worldviews and identity. Thus despite the institutional, ideological and spatial boundaries demarcating either code, on a rather more subtle yet incredibly powerful cultural level, amateur and professional boxing are both symbolically and practically deeply intertwined. Over a five year period, I conducted ‘insider’ ethnographic research among distinct cohorts of amateur and professional boxers based in Luton and London to investigate the lived experiences and socially constructed worldviews, values and identities developed by practitioners immersed in either code. The overriding aim of this research was to critically evaluate the limits and possibilities of boxing-practitioners association with and development through ‘boxing’ henceforth. The findings of this ethnography reveal that it was common for the amateur and professional boxing-practitioners studied to cultivate empowering identities through intersubjective and socially validating instances of purposefulness, expressivity, creativity, fellowship and aspiration. These lived dimensions were grounded in sensuous, symbolic and emotional attachments respective to the social organization defining the social practice of either code of boxing. Equally, the research reveals that under the veneer of collective passion for and consequent fellowship experienced through boxing, an undercurrent yet ever-present sense of dubiety, tension and intra-personal conflict was in evidence among both the amateur and professional boxing-practitioners studied. It is suggested, therefore, that as a consequence of an array of both micro and macro post-industrial societal reconfigurations defining the structural principles of amateurism and professionalism in the practice of ‘boxing’, contemporary boxers are increasingly predisposed to developing athletic identities predisposed towards patterns of meaning production “…dominated by market-mediated consumer choice and the power of individualism” (Jarvie 2006 p. 327). Thus through complex, historically dynamic and seemingly paradoxical social processes of cultural (re)production and transformation - dialectically fusing individualistic aspirations geared towards self-interested gain, acts of group and subcultural fellowship and social resistance to measures of institutionalised control - it is argued that the role of boxing as an agent for humanistic personal and social development in the contemporary late-modern era of structural reconfiguration is progressively rendered impotent.

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