‘Undisputed’ racialised masculinities: boxing fandom, identity, and the cultural politics of masculinity

Abstract

Scholarship on race and gender in boxing have examined how meanings of masculinity are produced vis-à-vis a boxer’s identity. This study offers an ethnographic exploration of boxing spectator relations, especially how male fans of colour negotiate racialised masculinities outside of the ring. The subsequent analysis yields important insights into how race intersects with masculinity, class, sexuality, and nation. Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted during a Manny ‘Pac-Man’ Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez boxing match, interviews, and critical discourse analysis (CDA), this article examines how performances of racialised masculinity permeate the fan space. In this space, African American, Latino, and Filipino American men negotiate meanings of masculinity that reproduce unequal power relations. Here, in the presence of other men of colour, differences among them are accentuated through the politics of gender relations that inevitably produce conflicts among marginalised communities and reveal competing versions of masculinity that inevitably rely upon heteronormative underpinnings.

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