Abstract
The empirical focus of this paper is a martial art, Savate, which has received little scholarly attention from social scientists in the English-speaking world. The disciplinary framework is based on symbolic interactionist approaches to bodies, embodiment and movement. The ethnographic methods employ the research agenda of John Urry as set out in his wider call for a mobile sociology. Here Urry’s research agenda is used as a strategy: a key goal for ethnographic researchers. The utility of Urry’s sociological work on mobilities for scholarship on combat sports is exemplified. Until now that approach has not been widely used in martial arts investigations or sports studies. The data are drawn from an ethnographic study conducted dialogically by an experienced Savate teacher and a sociologist who observes him teaching. Nine ways in which the ethnographic data on Savate classes are illuminated by the mobilities paradigm are explored so that previously unconsidered aspects of this martial art are better understood and the potential of Urry’s ideas for investigating other martial arts and sports is apparent.
Highlights
The title ‘A very unstatic sport’ comes from the only British book about Savate written by two pioneers of the sport in the United Kingdom [1].They stress that tireurs (Savate fighters) keep up on their toes, move constantly, and ‘dance about’.Savate enthusiasts believe learning the martial art is mentally absorbing and its ‘unstatic’ nature means that regular training is a way to produce physically fit and mentally alert women and men.This paper is explicitly designed to place Savate among the ethnographic, and symbolic interactionist, approaches to the sociology of sport
It is written by James Victor Southwood an experienced Savate teacher and a sociologist, Sara Delamont
The authors reflect on key issues arising from their research which is itself literally and metaphorically ‘unstatic’, using the sociologist John Urry’s work on mobilities as a methodological strategy for improving interactionist ethnography [2]
Summary
The title ‘A very unstatic sport’ comes from the only British book about Savate ( known as boxe français or French kickboxing) written by two pioneers of the sport in the United Kingdom [1]. This paper is explicitly designed to place Savate among the ethnographic, and symbolic interactionist, approaches to the sociology of sport It is written by James Victor Southwood an experienced Savate teacher (a Professeur) and a sociologist, Sara Delamont. The authors reflect on key issues arising from their research which is itself literally and metaphorically ‘unstatic’, using the sociologist John Urry’s work on mobilities as a methodological strategy for improving interactionist ethnography [2] The focus is both on the teaching of movements in routine classes and their display at grading events and competitions. In their work the familiar was medial education and hospitals, school teaching in urban Chicago, and liberal arts degree courses at Kansas State University We follow their precept focusing on the symbolic interactionist approaches to the body advocated by Waskul and Vannini [10]. A brief description of the research methods follows before the account of how ‘unstatic’ Savate can be studied and analysed to produce better ethnographic insight in the nine ways Urry proposed
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