'Fighting Scholars' offers the first book-length overview of the ethnographic study of martial arts and combat sports. The book's main claim is that such activities represent privileged grounds to access different social dimensions, such as emotion, violence, pain, gender, ethnicity and religion. In order to explore these dimensions, the concept of 'habitus' is presented prominently as an epistemic remedy for the academic distant gaze of the effaced academic body.

The book's most innovative features are its empirical focus and theoretical orientation. While ethnographic research is a widespread and popular approach within the social sciences, combat sports and martial arts have yet to be sufficiently interrogated from an ethnographic standpoint. The different contributions of this volume are aligned within the same project that began to crystallize in Loic Wacquant's 'Body and Soul': the construction of a 'carnal sociology' that constitutes an exploration of the social world 'from' the body.

'Fighting Scholars' offers the first book-length overview of the ethnographic study of martial arts and combat sports from the viewpoint of a 'carnal sociology'.

About the Author

Raul Sanchez Garcia is associate professor in the Department of Theory, Organization and Recreation at the Universidad Europea de Madrid.

Dale C. Spencer is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba.

Book Information
ISBN 9781783083466
Author Raul Sanchez Garcia
Format Paperback
Page Count 234
Imprint Anthem Press
Publisher Anthem Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 153mm * 26mm