The ancient and picturesque sport of cockfighting has persisted in the United States, Latin America, and parts of Asia. In the United States this activity is popularly regarded as deviant, and is, indeed, a legally proscribed behavior in most jurisdictions. The persistence of cockfighting is explicable due to the existence of a deviant recreational subculture. / The deviant recreational subculture allows cockfighters a supportive setting in which to reinforce and affirm the disvalued cultural identity of its practitioners and, thus, serves as a boundary maintenance device. This particular deviant subcultural type is unique due to the fact that it possesses the following characteristics: (1) no criminal self-concept for members; (2) a religio-teleological rationale concerning the nature of the activity; (3) a strong overt identification with the existing socio-political order; and, (4) a high degree of intrastate, interstate, and international communication on topics of subcultural interest, and commerce in "tools of the trade." Furthermore, the cockfighting subculture has other attributes of a deviant behavior system consistent with the subcultural thesis proposed herein: its own rules, argot, customs, networks of obligation and reciprocity, and recruitment patterns. / The cockfighting subculture may be seen in an additional dimension--as an instrumental-expressive anachronistic voluntary deviant association. This means that cockfighters reject conformative and alienative attitudes toward dominant social values in favor of an anachronistic world-view. / Moreover, in terms of the dominant method by which it hopes to achieve its objectives, the subculture is both instrumental and expressive, hence the appelation "instrumental-expressive." Instrumental groups want to defuse or remove threatening legislation, thus removing or reducing stigma, while expressive groups are more concerned with providing recreational, social, and informational activities for their members. Expressive groups exist to furnish activities for their members while instrumental groups exist to resist or promote change. The cockfighting subculture has definite attributes of both types of groups. / This work suggests that the models of the deviant recreational subculture and the instrumental-expressive anachronistic voluntary deviant association might prove of heuristic value when applied to other socially and legally problematic deviant subcultures. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-02, Section: A, page: 0552. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74757 |
| Contributors | HAWLEY, FRANCIS FREDERICK., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 365 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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