BETWEEN THE BOXXING GYM AND GYM'S BOXING: AND ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

Abstract

This work brings elements for the discussion on the diversity of meanings of "sportive" practices by ordinary people in the everyday of the cities. It does that from an ethnographic study of the boxing practice in the context of a fitness center in the city of Porto Alegre, observing the way it articulates the meanings of "boxer's boxing" and students' fitness, and if it implicates on a logic of unesportiveness. After the analysis and interpretation of the empiric material produced, we can conclude that the practice studied has a hybrid aspect, in the sense that it is characterized by insertion (very dynamic, tense and disputed) of elements and meanings of "boxing gym" and "gym's boxing". In this sense, it would not be strange to referto the simultaneity of the "unesportivization of boxing" and the "sportivization of fitness".