Guest lecture “The Boxer and the Doxa: A City and its Boxing Stories” (Dr Gary Armstrong, City University London)

As both a sport and a spectacle, boxing fascinates. Its danger and virility provide for morality tales and parables, bringing out the best and worst in humankind. The boxer offers reflections on notions of inequality and redemption. The former asks us to consider what motivates a man to punch and be punched for a living. The latter asks what redemption is being sought in said violence; is it to a better life than hitherto known or is it redemption from a matter found in the individual psyche? These are big questions not the least because of the common perception of boxers as barely literate individuals from desperate backgrounds, seeking to punch their way to fame. Boxing does have such people and their stories, but there is more to it than that. For too long the contest has been pathologized and reduced to two troubled individuals acting out some form of public release and a survival strategy in a harsh world. We accept that the fight the public seeks—and the pay-day the protagonists pursue—is the culmination of a body-obsessed regime requiring constant denial by the two fighters. Such processes need mentors as well as the institution that is the boxing gym. In the walls of the latter exist the living embodiments of inequality and redemption; the boxing trainer usually as well-versed in such aspects of life as their protégés. In this results-based business, the ultimate vindication of a boxing life, well lived, is victory. In defeat the boxer can lose his future and learns the lesson that a fighter is not allowed an off-day. The best exponents however can be elevated to a position amongst the world’s richest sports stars. The loser meanwhile receives some financial recompense for his bravery, ideally lives to enjoy such income but is not always afforded much by way of an appreciation; and not all will attain any sense of redemption. Drawing on research in one working class English city, between 2014 and 2019, the presentation considers the macro-complexities that populate debates about inequality and redemption from the micro-perspective of boxing gym. Crucial to this research was a search for answers to the questions: Who has a penchant for promoting and featuring such public suffering in the name of entertainment? and what knowledge inspires the mentors who imparts instruction?