Paper short abstract:

The lecture will highlight the commercial, legal and moral aspects of the Thai "Prison Fight" project.

Paper long abstract:

The director of the infamous Klong Pai prison near Bangkok, Aree Chaleaysuk, negotiated with the state that he could organise Muay Thai tournaments in his prison, where prisoners could fight against foreign professional athletes to reduce their sentence. Piling up victories, several inmates have managed to leave the prison as free men. Of course, there is martial arts training in prisons in other countries as well, but actual reduction in prison sentences by winning a martial arts tournament is something that you would expect from a Stallone film from the 80s rather than in reality.

Despite the increasing professionalisation under the brand name "Prison Fight", information on this topic is scarce to this day, especially since 2017.

"Prison Fight" is not only a legal specialty, but also a moral one. Although only prisoners who generally show good behaviour are allowed to compete, the felonies which have led to their imprisonment are irrelevant, according to "Prison Fight" officials.

Since the inmates never fight against each other in order not to fuel clashes between the inmates themselves, foreign volunteers are recruited as opponents.

However, despite the undoubtedly unique challenge to be pitted against brutal criminals in an exotic prison, the foreign fighters are also facing a huge moral dilemma: Will their defeat enable a murderer or rapist to return to society and commit crimes again? Or do the foreigners feel sorry for the prisoners, who share prison cells less than five square metres in size with four other inmates, maybe for decades?

Paper short abstract:

The paper and installation present a map of Buenos Aires scrutinising two trajectories of Taekwondo athletes to explore the social topography of sports and dreams of social mobility.

Paper long abstract:

The paper traces the Asian martial art Taekwondo in urban Argentina as a tool to explore the social topography of sports and dreams of social mobility. Since WT Taekwondo was acknowledged as an Olympic sport, and an Argentinian won Gold in 2012, Taekwondo became more popular as a sport. World ranking tournaments came to Argentina and dreams and aspirations of young athletes spread. Besides of dreams of travelling the world, the organisation of the competitions also create paid job opportunities. Hence, the apprenticeship of Taekwondo and the competitions operate on multiple scales where it affects, influences and signifies forms of circulation and appropriation of urban spaces.

Thinking through symbolic, primarily bodily capital (Wacquant 2004) the paper describes two ethnographic examples that depict possible career paths of athletes who meet at the crossroad competition. Conversely, the texture of the city shapes the geography of Taekwondo in the Capital of Argentina. Engaging with the routes that the athletes travel and the locations they transgress, it allows us to examine the routes of aspirations of social mobility through the geographic traces and locations.

As a mode of presentation, I work with a map and visual elements. The installation shows besides the two sporting trajectories further possibilities to explore intrinsically concepts of gender, class, ethnicity and other actors that shape the landscape of the combat sport.

Paper short abstract:

In Sri Lanka, cricket is seen to be reconciliatory. From an ethnographic study of cricket in Colombo, this paper describes the relationship between space, movement and social relations. It explores the ongoing tension between sport's inclusive capacity and its reproductions of social inequalities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an ethnographic account of sociality within a cricket club in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Cricket is a prominent feature of the physical and cultural landscape in central Colombo, and has been identified as a potential tool for reconciliation. This paper responds to the broader call to critically assess the impact of sport in development and peace contexts (SDP). Ethnographic engagement with cricketing spaces reveals underlying organising metaphors for social relations, identity and change. The framing of the cricket ground as a neutral, liminal space enables new identities to be constructed, brought into proximity and tested, while ideas about movement suggest that with purpose and direction positive social change can be effected. When combined with a sporting ideology of equality and meritocracy, these local logics illustrate the reasoning behind claims cricket can be a unifier in post-conflict life. Yet, analysis of the social relations fostered during cricket suggest that deep seated notions of hierarchy remain integral to cricketing sociality, and a tense interplay between notions of equality, meritocracy and hierarchy has to be negotiated at training and matches. While cricket's reconciliatory capacity is logical by Sri Lankan standards, problems remain in practice. This work therefore contributes to the critical assessment of the tension between sport's inclusive capacity and its reproductions of social inequalities. Notwithstanding, cricket remains one of the few arenas where meritocracy is legitimately found in Sri Lanka, so I suggest that while the ideological reductionism of sport may be a weakness, it may also be a strength.

Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork with an elderly population in rural Russia, this analysis conceptualizes dance as social performance and examines its importance both in the communist political domain and the individual narratives of change in Russia.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout fieldwork in a rural Russian village on the outskirts of a large industrial city, the social importance of dance consistently emerged in the narratives of the elderly. Dances were part of the recreational program the communist state approved of and thus constituted contested embodied practices of freedom and power. Organized community dances were a site of social mobility by creating the conceptual as well as physical space for interaction between social groups. Such dances attracted youth from other villages and small cities; they were also opportunities for courting. These embodied memories stand in stark contrast with the current embodied experiences of the elderly, largely of pain and discomfort. The dances were important representations of the unity that is essential to socialist ideology and was important in the personal narrations of experiences of the Soviet Union of the participants. Thus, dance becomes embroiled in the politics of memory and nostalgia. This analysis conceptualizes dance as social performance and examines its importance both in the communist political domain and the individual narratives of change in Russia.

Paper short abstract:

In my presentation I reflect on strategies of women who appropriate spaces in amateur football in Rio de Janeiro – as amateur football coaches and referees.

Paper long abstract:

I plant an argument based upon my PhD research results in social and cultural anthropology. I understand spaces as physical and social areas. Women appropriate spaces – football fields – and at the same time take on new social roles, functions and responsibilities. I will give an overview of the history of women in Brazilian football and will introduce my theoretical and methodological framework, followed by case studies of several female coaches and referees and their strategies of space appropriation in amateur football in Rio de Janeiro. Most of the women are from lower social class and are affected by different forms of exclusion and discrimination in their daily life. At the end I would like to show how space appropriations in sport can have an impact on processes of female empowerment.