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Guest Contributor Stinchcombe: Making aLiving in the 2l't Century

Diamond: Beyond Social ClassHenke: The Mechanics of Worþlace Order

Maldonado, Valdés-Pizzini, and Latoni :Owning and Contesting El Yunque

Sohoni: Choosing the Big CiryWyrod: Warriors of the South Side

Book ReviewBoero: Sobal and Maurer's Interpreting

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Volume 44 / 1999-2000

126 BERKELEYJOURNAL OF SOüOLOGY

Warriors of the South Side: Race and the Body inthe Martial Arts of Black Chicago

Robert Wyrod

Abstract:

[;'rtr four decades, the Asian mortiar arts hqve been a part of rtfe onchicago's sorth side. In the nvo south side schools, or'dojos," thät arethe fttcus of this ethnography, rhe riruals of rhe Asian mariat'arts havebeen given new nteanings- meanings rhat resonate with peopre riving ntpoor, black commrnities. Through the highty rituarized phyiicar trailinglhat is ttnique to the martial arts, members of rhese ao¡ås iare ¡orgea ot,expressive culruralform thqt aims to counter the oppiessio,

"ip"íi"r""din everyday ltfe. The training in rhese dojos is q-means of reLouping as-ense of qgenc! over a body that is burdened by racist depictioni o¡being unruly

_and out of contror. These sites suggest that physicar, bodityactivity can be an important aspecr of agency on borh an ¡íd¡v¡ãuat an¿collective level. Bodily practices can empower individuars as weil ascontribute to rhe construction of a collecrive identirlt thar intends rooppose oppression. There is ø transformative aspecr of bodiry practiceslha_t_ links the body to resistqnce,, suggesting that the coårdinated,collecrive, physical qction of individualsLon thopt rheir relationshtip toeach other qnd to the larger social world.

Introduction

A giant black fist crutching a lightening bort dominares thestorefront window of the scorpion School of the Martial Arts. Locatedon the southwest side of chicago's loop, this now defunct black martialarts school held classes in karate and kendo for nearly twenty years. Afew miles due south, in one of chicago's poorest nãignborúotas, ttedilapidated home of the Black Dragon Slayers is stiÍ standins. Thedrawings of young black men, replete with generous afros andlarateuniforms, breaking boards and flying through the air, only hint at whatmust have gone on when the Black Dragon slayers *"." ìn their prime.But the history of the martial arts on chicago's South Side is one thatsfretches into the present. Today, there are at least a dozen schools, ordojos, on the south side offering classes several times a week. studentscan be found training in storefronts, churches, mosques, schools,community centers, and even the yMCA.

WYROD:WARRIORS OF TIIE SOUTII SIDE t}'l

So what accounts for the popularity of the martial arts in theSouth Side of Chicago, and many other black communities? Why have theAsian martial arts been so enthusiastically adopted and adapted by someblacks?

Part of the answer lies in what has made the martial arts popularall across America irrespective of race, namely, the appeal of pop cultureheroes from Bruce Lee to Jackie chan. Bur in the South sidè dojos thatare the focus of this paper, the rituals of the Asian martial arts have beengiven new meanings- meanings that resonate strongly with people tivingin poor, black communities. For the teachers, or senseis, who foúnded thetwo dojos in this study, martial arts instruction is not just aboutdeveloping athletic prowess in their students. These senseis see-thei¡ workas a way to rebuild selves destroyed by racism and life in the ghetto.Through the higtrly ritualized physical training that is unique to the irartialarts, members ofthese dojos have forged an expressive cultural form tharaims to counter the oppression experienced in everyday life.

what links the martial arts training, as it is practiced at these sites,and the forms of oppression it is designed to address is the bodv. Bothdojos are spaces where bodily activity takes center stage, and the workthat is being done fo institl self-esteem and discipline is primarily work onthe body. The body is also central to racist discourse about blaòks. Blackmen are represented as unruly and black women as promiscuous; bodiesout of control. such "othering" is material as well as representational,with the physical segregation and economic marginarization of blacksliving in the South Side of chicago a stark testament to attempts atisolating and containing black bodies.

My ethnographic evidence indicates that the physical, bodilyactivity of martial arts training provides a powerful means of contestingsuch forms of oppression. The students and teachers at these dojos havemade the martial arts their own, tailoring them to address the issues of lifein poor, black communities. But as this paper will make clear, the twodojos have slightly different missions. The Mt. olive school is focused onindividual empou/errnent, attempting to give young people the skills theyneed to survive in their dangerous environments. while the other school,the Typhoon School, has a more inward focus, using the martial arts tobuild a community within the dojo.t what the Typhoón school illustratesis that bodily practices, when performed collectively, open the door to thecreation of a collective identity, one that intends to oppose domination

' All the of the names have been changed to protect the identity of the subjects of rhisethnography.

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from above. As this ethnography will demonstrate, there is atransformative aspect ofbodiry practices that rinks the body to resistance,suggesting that the coordinated, collective, physical actioí of ¡n¿iui¿ualscan shape their rerationship to each other uì¿ to the rarger sociar wortd.Even at society's margins, where the effects of dominat-ion would seemmost determined, the body emerges as a source of both individuar andcollective agency.

The fieldwork for this ethnography was conducted over a twervemonth period. Twice a week I attended crãsses at two dojos on chicago,ssouth side, observing at one schoor and participating on tr," ,ãt, ,t tr,"other. such participant observation *us nà""srary to gain insight into theeveryday life of the dojo and negotiate my status as an outsider. Thisapproach was also cruciar for analyzing boãily practices - practices thatare significantly non-verbar and best stuãied as part of the rife of the dojo.Through this fieldwork I was abre to estabrish some rasting rerationshipsand create what Burawoy refers to as a "dialogue,' that"allows

-us ro"change our biases through interaction with others', (Burawoy lsit: +¡.

The Community of the Dojo

Although it was the middre of a chicago winter, I was sweatingprofusely, wiping my eyes with my brand new-karate urúform. ìi*., ,f,"beginning of my weekly jaunts to a lonely stretch of East 75th streel onchicago's south side for karate ressons at the Typhoon Schoor of theMartial Arts. Martial arts training was something nä* to *", und r-*u,self conscious of not onry my awkward gestures, but of my ihite skin inthis all black martial arts school.

The Typhoon School has been in existence for over twenty years,always located in poor, bracrq south side neighborhoods. ttr-"ír."n,location is a commerciar block in south shore, a mixed-incomeneighborhood that has been nearly r00 percent brack since the 1970s.Although there are more prosperous miàdle crass families in the area,most of the streets are marked by the vaeant rots, shuttered storefrãntsand gang graffiti that scar brack, south Side neighborhoods. As theexterior of this school attests, it has a rich and colorfül history. In its mostrecent incarnation, it is housed in a dilapidated old storefront, *¡tt t un¿painted drawings of tigers, yin-yangs, and mysterious Japanese characterscovering the exterior. To ensure that even the reast oËservant purrlruynotices the estabrishment, KARATE scHool is scrawred u.ro* inl-ropof the building in bold, black letters.

The interior of the scïoor is equalry unique and enigmatic. pushingthrough the cracked and broken wooden front áoor, you nîa yourr"rlin u

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY WYROD: WARRIORS OF THE SOUTH SIDE

dark and cluttered office space- The walls are covered with photos ofstudents, and the shelves are filled with a dizzying assortment ofknickknacks, including a golden Buddha, a porcelain tiger, and mostintriguing, what appears to be a white, bloated, human hand floating in alarge mason jar.

Deeper into the space, along a pitch black, narrow hallway, thereis an odd little tea room. Sliding back the half broken wood and paperdoor reveals a small, square space with a raised wooden floor and plainwooden walls. The floor is covered with tatami mats, and there are acouple of bean bag chairs filling up the corners. A few large metal incenseums hang from rusted chains, and some fake flowers sit covered in dust inthe ice tea bottle that serves as their makeshift vase.

Beyond the tea room is the main training areE where I foundmyself sweating and panting on many Tuesday nights. The cluttered roomis lit with very dim, sickly green, fluorescent lights, and heated by twolarge propane heaters. These heaters fill the dojo with a strong scent, andare the only source of heat for the entire building. The floor of this largeroom is covered with tom and faded mats, and as students and teachersfill the space it quickly becomes warm and stuSr. Littered along the edgesof the mats are a wide assortment of odd tráining material{ indudìngpiles of broken cinder blocks, huge logs, tattered gloves and pads, longbamboo poles, and even an arsenal of fake AIl.-47 automatic rifles.

That winter night when I started my training was fairly typical forthe Typhoon School. With my pale hands and feet sticking out of my illfitting new uniform, I certainly felt uncomfortable stepping on to the coldand damp mat. But much to my surprise, no one seemed too taken abackby the presence of a white student in the dojo. Marc, an older teacheraround forty, was in the front of the class, granting each studentpermission to enter the class, making sure they bowed and thensomersaulted on to the mat. I followed the strict protocol carefully, andtook my place in line with the other beginner students.

Like most nights, the dojo slowly filled up with str¡dents ofvarying ages and abilities. Marc was in charge of the younger, and'lessadvanced students, while another teacher worked with a group of oldermale students in their twenties and thirties. Both groups focused onrefining techniques for punching and kicking, throwing our fists and legsin the aiq striking imaginary opponents. As I quickly learned, it wasassumed that everyone would try to move in synch, punctuating our kicksand punches by yelling "ki-ah" in unison. Everyone was following theteachers' leads carefully, focusing very seriously on executing the moves

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properly. At times, there was little verbal instruction, and the only noisesthat could be heard over the heaters were feet gliding over the mat, thesnap of a gi, and the occasional ..ki-ah.,'

A-lthough the training was strenuous, I was finding the repetitivemovement meditative, and almost hypnotic. But this rathei pleasant .tut.was interrupted as a young boy ran into the dojo to make anannouncement. "sensei Tanaka wants everyone up front right away.Right now," he yelled across rhe dojo. Everyone immediatefi stoppeOwhat they were doing and quickry made túeir way to the'froni. InJapanese, "sensei" is teacher and "tanaka" is mothei and at this pointeven I was aware that it was James, the founder and head instructär ofthe Typhoon School, that wanted everyone's attention.

As all twenty of us rushed up front, we found James in his usualspot behind his extremely cluttered desk. Now in his tate fifties, James is avery large man, and the white prastic desk curved around his rotund bodylike a gigantic life preserver. Everyone stood perfectly still and waited forJames to speak. "I have calred ail of you up here to telr you that we aremoving into a more ¡ntense phase of training now," he said to hiscompletely quiet, captive audience. James continued, ;'we will begin totrain with weapons, and start the final era of this school. we are m"ovinginto the last era now, and it wirt be the most intense era yet. I may not behere much longeq so we have to move fast and begin our fináI, mostintense phase." After this brief address he reached into a cardbouá uoaand pulled out a six inch plastic knife. Each student was handed, or moreaccurately, bequeathed, a knife. I seemed to be the onry peison whofound this theatrical presentation odd, with all the other rtuã"nt, seriouslyaccepting the "weapon." once we were all armed, we were told to returnto the mats and resume our training. As we reassembred into our groups,both teachers picked up where they left ofi but integrated the knives intothe exercises.

Forty blocks north of the Typhoon schoor is another dojo thatholds classes at exactly the same time. This school is located at thenorthern end of the notorious four mile long corridor of public housingthat stretches up through chicago's south side. unlike ihe mixture ofstores and residential bungalows found in south shore, this neighborhoodis dominated by looming high rise housing projects. only theãccasionalconvenience store breaks up the oppressive monotony of block afterblock of six to twenty story utilitarian brick buildings. Although there aremore middle income families to the east of this school, most of theresidents of these projects are the working poor. And like the SouthShore neighborhood, nearly everyone is btack.

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY WYROD:WARRIORS OF THE SOUTH SIDE

Twice a weelq dozens of African-American children from thesurrounding projects descend on Mt. olive church for two hours ofmartial arts training. In stark contrast to the Typhoon School, classes areheld in a bright, clean, and sparsely decorated room in the church'scommunity center. Yet there is the same emphasis on protocol, u/ith thesenseis treating the space like a dojo. students are required to askpermission to enter the space, and they must bow before finding a spot onthe imaginary mat.

This school was founded by Nate, an energetic, middle aged manwho has been practicing the martial arts for most of his life. Like James atthe Typhoon School, Nate is recognized as the head ofthe dojo, and hedetermines how the martial arts are taught at the school. unlike James,however, Nate places a good deal of emphasis on training for-the manytournaments that are offered throughout the year.

At about the time I began my visits to the Mt. Olive School, Natewas working to prepare some students for tournament competition. whenI stopped by the dojo one evening, I found Jimmy, Nate,s assistantteacher, going through the usual training exercises. The majority of thestudents are under twelve, and a good deal of Jimmy's anention isdevoted to a very strict form of crowd control. If the students tal( laugt¡or deviate from the training, they face Jimmy's wrath. stalking around thedojo with a leather paddle in his hand, he watches the class closely,yelling furiously at any student who gets out of line. For the more difficultcases, Jimmy resorts to mild corporal punishment, smacking kids on thebehind with the paddle.

Jimmy's routine usually lasts forry five minutes, and then thestudents move on to one on one sparring. But on this particular night,Nate wanted to try something a bit di-fferent. Nate had the entire ctass sitin a large circle, and he called one young boy, around I years old, into thering. This boy was going to compete in the tournament, and Nate wantedhim to practice his techniques in front of the entire class. unfazed, theboy confidently stepped into the circle, and announced his namg ma¡tialart style, and the technique he was going to perform. Striding back intothe center ofthe ring, he paused to gather himsel{, and then v/ent thròugha long, choreographed series of punches and kicks. The class of sixtychildren was completely still, and the boy was extremely serious andfocused. Every punch and kick v/Írs accompanied by a loud grunt, as hemoved methodically and confidently from one move to the next. At theend of his routine, he bowed to Natq stepped out of the ring, and wasgreeted with a loud round of applause from his fellow students, After this

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brief performance, the classsparring began.

These martial arts schoors are just two of many ail brack dojosfound in the African-American communities of chicago's south Side.Although James' and Nate's crasses are unique in many ways, they areindicative of the generar popularity or ine martiai arts

'in úlact

c,ommunities throughout chicago, and the united States as a whole. withthe. success of hip-hop groups such as the wu-Tang cran, who makevivid use of martial arts imagery and terminology, the -nn""iion betweenblack culture and the martial arts has reached-the mass media. But theemergence of martial arts in the black communities of chicago stretchesback decades before the sugarhiil Gang jump-srarted rap witf, ..Rapper'sDelight" in 1979.

Both James and Nate received their martiar arts training from thefìrst generation of black martial artists in the united States. Maãy of theseearly senseis were first exposed to the martial arts during post-world warII.military service in Japan. when they rerurned to the slaies they broughtwith them their knowledge of these Asian art forms and began exposing ayounger generation to the martial arts. In the 1950s, chicago legendssuch as Jimmy Jones and preston Baker were some of the firsi blaËls toseriously pursue martial arts training. Known as the '.Father

of Karate inthe Midwest," Jones was instrumentar in exposing poor bracks to themartial arts, and it was through preston Baker;s p.ogrà*r that James andNate received their training. so by the gOs and 9õs, the once foreignmartial arts practices had become part of the cultural fabric of chicago'ssouth Side, and both rhe Mt. olive school and the Typhoon schooiareimportant parts of this rich history.

Both Nate and James have curtivated a devoted cadre of students.on a given night as many as sixty students wilr make the trek from theirhousing projects across contested gang territory to participate in classesat Mt. olive. Many of these students have trained with Nate for over ayear, and a few of the older teenage students have worked with him formany years. several adults also participate on a regular basis, training sideby side with their children. But it is not jusr ãttendance figures- thatindicate how compelling this space is for the participants. A sJ¡prisinglylarge number of Nate's students, both young and olà, appear to take thetraining quite seriously. These students follow Nate's ìnstructions vervclosely, working diligently to refine their skills, and showing a good dealof frustration when they perform poorly.

Although only approximatery twenty peopre wourd currentry cailthe Typhoon School their dojo, the students and teachers identifi, vervclosely with the space. some come fronr the immediat.

"o*,nuiitu tå

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

moved on to its regular format, and the

WYROD: WARRIORS OF TFIE SOUTH SIDE

train, while others come from neighboring poor, black communities onthe South Side. For many of the members the dojo is very much a homeand fellow participants their extended family. When on the mats, there is areligious adherence to protocol, and any deviation from the higtrlyritualized practices is not tolerated. Students shorv all the instructors agreat deal of respect, both on and off the mats, and everyone defers toJames' authority as the elder statesman of the dojo. Several members ofthe dojo volunteer many hours a week to facilitate classes, and in times offinancial need some donate what little extra money they have saved.During a recent financial crisis when the school nearly lost their space, aformer student who had just returned from years of service overseas inthe military offered his entire relocation allowance to cover the thousandsofdollars in unpaid properry taxes.

So both James and Nate have built on their personal interest in themartial arts to create successful dojos on Chicago's South Side. ButJames and Nate are connected in a more subtle way as well because bothsee their work as a way to resist racial oppression and discrimination.According to both senseis, martial arts is not simply athletic training, or aform of recreation, but also a means of coping wittL and confronting, theforces that make life in poor, black communities so precarious. Whenasked why he volunteers eight hours a week to teach children martial arts,Nate replied, "I see the need for the martial arts in the black communityas a vehicle for organizing the youth in the black community. AIso ameans for giving self esteem and discipline for those children that havelow self esteem and come from broken families, or drug afflictedfamilies." A similar question posed to James gets a similar response,"Learning the martial arts provides a discipline. Living in the housingprojects if you were going to be anything other than what the housingproject turned people into it took a strong will and a lot of discipline."

Both James and Nate have adopted and adapted the discipline ofthe Asian martial arts to address the needs of blacks living in poor, SouthSide communities. While their specific goals are different, and theatmospheres within their dojos distinct, both James and Nate areattempting to mold martial arts training into their own particutar form ofcommunity activism. Although they are not engaged in an active politicalstruggle to redefine the social forces impinging on their communities, theyare focused on altering the lives of individuals within the community ofthe dojo. As their own statements attest, both James and Nate see theirwork as a way to address, and in some ways resist, the oppressive livingconditions endured by blacks on the South Side. They are working torebuild the selves destroyed by racism and the oppressive conditionsfound in the underclass communities of Chicaeo's South Side.

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There are many possibre approaches to th¡s work of rebuildingselves, but these senseis believe the physical training of the martial artsoffers something unique and powerfur. The two schools do have theirdifferences. Most significantly, Mt. Olive has a much larger, and muchyounger, student body. yet despite these differences, both are spaceswhere bodily activity takes center stage, and fhe work that is beine doneto insti l l selÊesteem and disciprine is primariry work on the body.AJthough teachers at both dojos incorporate some form of verbarinstruction, most of the teaching occurs through non-verbal bodilygestures. Training manuals and written materials are ignored, with all ofthe instruction occurring on the mats. Teachers demonstrate techniquesand students mimic their movements again and again. week after week,students practice the same techniques, making once awkward gesturesseem natural. so it would appear that the changes that have occirred inindividuals at these dojos are attributable to prolonged, physical trainingon the mats. The body is central to how the senseis ã".ornptirh their taskof rebuilding selves, and it is the bodily rituals of the märtial arrs tharmake these spaces so compelling for both students and teachers.

Race and the Body

At this point it should be clear that it is the work on the body thatis most important to the members of these dojos. But a key question iswhy the body carries such meaning in the African-American cåmmunitv.Following Abu-Lughod (1990), we can use resisrance as a diagnostic årdomination to see how the activities in these dojos illuminate both theway power operates and how people respond to power. Resistance hereis understood as a response to povver dynamics, and it can be individualor collective, conscious or not. Labeling the activity in the dojos politicalresistance, however, is somewhat problematic. what is occuning at thedojos does not directly confront macro-structural forces that are-bearingdown on black communities. Members are not engaged in an activepolitical struggle to redefine the social forces that define the communitiesin which they live.

But to dismiss the work of Nate and James as apolitical would beas problematic as interpreting it as a conscious, organized form of directpolitical resistance. Although not often stated in explicitly political terms,there are elements of resistance in their dojos. And as their ownstatements attest, both James and Nate see their work as a wav toaddress, and in some ways resist, the oppressive living conditions endiredby blacks on the south Side. clearly, then, the activities at these dojos areconnected to issues of resistance, and provide a way of exploring thestructures of power and domination.

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If racism is understood as an ideological code in which biologicalattributes are invested with social value and meaning (Miles l9g9) ihenthe body is central to the way racism functions.2 Facial features. skincolor, and the texture of one's hair have become imbued with meanìngthrough racist discourse and used to justifu racist sentiments. Thus thebody is a focus of resistance in some black communities because racistdiscourse converges on the black body. The black, male body isrepresented as violent, unpredictable, hyper-sexual and in need ofconirol;the black, female body as dangerous, sexual and unruly. However, racismis not simply a discursive practice; there are very material aspects topower as well. In the united states, institutionalized racist policies haveconcentrated many poor blacks in underclass ghettos. This physicalisolation is coupled with the very real threat of porice violence designedto contain and control black bodies. These material and representationaleffects of power are mutually reinforcing and together give the body itsheightened significance in the dojos of Chicago's South Side.

Although the connection between racism and the body may appearselÊevident, there is little theorizing explicitly linking the body and ràóe inthe contemporary united States. one area where connections have beenmade between race and the body is the writing on cotonialism.

winthrop Jordan stresses how certain English predispositionsserved to problematize their first encounters with Black Africans. Jordan(1974) argues that certain biological characteristics had been givencultural values that led the English to racialize their contact with Africans.AJthough Jordan often discusses values as immutabre and trans-historical,his analysis higtrlights how representations of the black body as impureand soiled played an important role in the origins of racism.

This theme of the black body as foreign and unhealthy is alsocentral to the Comaroffs' (1992) work on colonial South AÊica. Theyconnect the development of British colonialism in A.frica to the

' Mile-s' insistence on racism as an ideological phenomenon is not without isproblems. By banishing racism to the realm of ideolog¡r, Mites reduces the cauÀalsignificance of race, making it secondary to more basic class and economicrelationships. Although he does stress the need to contextualize the impact of racismrvithin class relations, Miles remains reluctant to accord much power to race- I ammore sympathetic to Paul Gilroy's (198?) notion of racial identity, that sees race aspart of an on-going process of social formation. Like omi and winant (19g6), Gilroyargues for an understa¡ding of race as a process that ca¡rnot be reduced to economicrelations. However, rvhen atlempfing to find connections to race and the bodv. Miles'formulation is helpful.

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development of western medicine, drawing out the biological componentof the civilizing mission. what is important here is theiriecognitiån thatthese "probes into the ailing heart of A-frica" *"r" põrni*ed onrepresentations of the black body as "the very embodiment of dirt anddisorder, his moral affliction all of a piece with his physicar degeneracy,,(comaroffand comaroff 1992: 216). David Arnord irôl:¡ drais similarconnections in his work on nineteenth-century India, showing howwestern science was used to justifu racist otherings that depicted

"nativesas diseased and morally degraded.

This work on colonial othering is important to contemporarytheorizing on racism because it draws out the connection between raceand the body. As Radhika Mohanram (1999) argues, different meaningsof the black body at different rimes are metonymically linked. Eighieenthand nineteenth-centurycolonial categories of race were used to justify themassive social upheavar produced by the coroniarists, whire

"oni"*fãru.ywestern nations are the product of perceiving some citizens as ..being outof the place to which they "naturally" belong" (Mohanram r999: xiii. Inboth cases biological traits are used to rationãüze a racist world view thatplaces certain bodies in certain spaces, giving some bodies power whilemaking other bodies subject to domination.

Roediger's work on the white working crass in nineteenth-centuryAmerica indicates that the dynamics of racial othering in the coloniesoperated similarly in the metropole. whiteness is shorñr to be a fragireconsensus held together in part by "the idea that blackness could be madepermanently to embody the pre-industrial past that they scorned andmissed" (Roediger t99l: 97). Roediger's work highlights ttre dialecticalnature of such otherings, with a disembodied whiteness created throughan embodied blackness.

The anger elicited by such racist othering is iflustrated in Fanon'sBlack Skin, llhite Møsks (1967). His writing on racisr obiectificationcenters on how racism problematizes the relationship between blackbodies and the social world. For Fanon, racism works by destabilizing theconnections between blacks and their bodies, replacing a bodily ,"ñ"rnuwith a "racial epidermal schema," thereby turning subjects of hiitory intoobjects ofhistory (Fanon 1990: I l0). For Fanon racist representatións ofthe black body sever his connection to his own corporeal body. So in anodd way, the close connection between race and the body precludes anyconnection between the two for Fanon. The physical úody exists forFanon, but his own connection to it is shattered by racist representationsofthe black body.

what connects all these writers is an emphasis on rinking race, andracism, to the body. Whether it is in the iolony o. ,"trãpole, the

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eighteenth-century or the twentieth-century, racism is a process by whichcertain biological traits are endowed with meaning in order to create theother. It is through this process that blacks become embodied and whitesdisembodied. This is not to say that racial categories do not have anypositive valuation, but it indicates how central the body is in racistdiscourse.

Representations of blacks are integral to understanding theconnection between racial oppression, resistance and the body. But it isimportant to recognize that these discursive factors are s¡rmbioticallylinked to the very real, material conditions that impinge on poor, blackbodies on Chicago's South Side. As Massey and Denton argue inAmerican Apartheid (1993), blacks in Chicago are physically segregaredto a such a degree they are most accurately labeled hypersegregated.Through massive public housing projects, the city has been complicit increating immense, homogenous, poor, black communities, and fuelingracist notions that unruly black bodies need to be contained andcontrolled. The Mt. Olive School is located across from some of thecity's most depressed projects. According to the Local CommwùtyHandbook (1990) some census tracts have a99Yo black population and amedian family income of only $4,999. The a¡ea immediately surroundingthe Typhoon School had a higher median family income in 1990($21,845) but was 100% black. Although these statistics seem to indicatesome socioeconomic differences in these neighborhoods, I do not thinkthese differences are reflected in the memberships of the two dojos. Frommy experiences in the field, I believe that the majority of members of bothdojos come from some of the lowest socioeconomic brackets in Chicago.

Police brutality is another facet of the very real, bodily threatspoor blacks experience everyday. In the summer of 1999, Chicago madenational headlines with the police murder of two unarmed blacks in twoconsecutive days. Similar incidents tkoughout the country have increasedawareness of the epidemic of police violence in America, promptingAmnesty International to begin a human rights campaign against policebrutality in the United States. This ever-present threat of deadly force isperhaps the most graphic illustration of the convergence of racism and theblack body.

The physical segregation ofthe black ghetto is also connected toeconomic isolation. Like most Midwestern cities, Chicago experiencedmassive de-industrialization in the 1970s and 80s. National economicshifts from a Fordist economy based on full employment, to a post-Fordist economy with institutionalized unemployment, radically changedthe economic conditions in Chicago's South Side communities- Erosion

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of the labor market was felt severely in poor black neighborhoods, andstruck black males especially hard. chronic unemployment became moreof a threat for black men, and these threats were naturarized by racistdiscourses undermining the ability of black men to be competentemployees and responsible fathers. such an alleged crisis of blackmasculinity utilizes racist tropes about the black male body to rationalizethe economic despair found in poor, black communities.

The combination of physical segregation and economicmarginalization has lead some theorists and activists to claim that blacksin the South side of chicago have experienced a form of internalcolonialism. similar analyses emerged in chicano, Native American andPuerto Rican communities in the 70s (Blauner 1972). Although suchperspectives have been the subject of criticism (Burawoy 1974), theirstrengfh lies in their recognition of how socio-economic forces combinewith forms of cultural domination to produce and reproduce marginalizedand alienated communities. The material conditions in these communitiesare linked to forms of representation that exoticize and marginalize theother. Internal colonialism, then, remains an important way ofconceptualizing connections between race and the body because it showshow both discursive and material forces impinge on the black body.

The black nationalist movement of the 60s and 70s drew heavilyon theories of internal colonialism, and some activists in chicago's blackcommunity remain committed to this perspective. I would argue that thecontinuing pertinence of the internal colonialism thesis springs from itsability to capture the way racism and the body are intertwined, a point ofsome relevance in poor, black communities. It is also valuable on a moretheoretical level because of the way it neatly connects both therepresentational and material effects ofracism to the body.

The body, then, is what links the forms of oppression impingingon black communities to the type of martial arts training practiced at theTyphoon school and the Mt. olive school. For teachers and students atboth dojos, the martial arts is a response to the forms of domination thatconverge on the black body. Embracing the rigorous physical training andintense discipline of the martial arts challenges representations of theunruly black body and provides some mechanism to cope with thematerial conditions of the ghetto.

It is important to recognize, however, that racist discourse isgendered and creates different representations of black male and femalebodies. bell hooks acknowledges that body imagery animates thediscourse around black oppression, but she draws attention to thegendering of these racial constructs as well, arguing:

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY WYROD:WARRIORS OF TI{E SOUTH SIDE

Historically the language used to describe the way black men arevictimized within racist society has been sexualized. When wordslike castration, emasculation, impotency are the commonly usedterms to describe the nature of black male suffering, a discursivepractice is established that links black male liberation with gainingthe right to participate fully within patriarchy. (hooks 1990: 76)

Because sexism mediates racial domination, some black men, like whitemen, have come to equate manhood, and the domination of womer¡ withfreedom (hooks 1990: 59). Contemporary constructions of the blackbody, then, should be understood as arising out of a discourse that issimultaneously racist and sexist. This perspective is valuable whenanalyzing these male dominated dojos and attempting to understand howresponses to oppression can resist racism while, at times, reaffirmingsexism.

AJthough men do most of the supervising at the Typhoon Schooland the Mt. Olive School, women do participate at these dojos, and someof the most serious students at both schools are young women. I foundthis rather surprising, and it seems to challenge my conception of thedojos as male oriented spaces. For example, one of the highest rankingstudents at the Mt. Olive School is a woman who has been training forseveral years. When asked why she likes the martial arts, she says, "I likethe feeling of selÊcontrol," and "it is fun to scare the boys." Even thoughshe is leaving for college, she intends to continue her training, and she,"hopes to be able to open my own dojo some day."

At the Typhoon School the most intense and dedicated student isa very quiet young woman around seventeen. Off the mat she is soft-spoken and easily slips into the background of this occasionally chaoticspace. Yet when she is training she is totally focused, often reprimanding .me for not closely following instructions. She also appears completelycomfortable with all types of training, including the often brutal andviolent spaning that occurs at the Typhoon School. So some women havefound a place for themselves in these male dominated spaces wheremasculine bodily practices are the norm. Although these dojos aregendered spaces that would seem to discourage female participation,women are centrally involved as students and teachers. Even at'theTyphoon school, women are not at all marginal, plalng an active roledespite the gendering.

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I4O BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Martial Arts as Personal Empowerment and the Dojo as communit¡r

Having addressed why the body is central to martial arts trainingin the black community, it is important to specifo what meanings thesebodily practices take on in each dojo. Although both James and ñate seetheir work as a form of community activism, the martial arts acquire verydifferent meanings at each school. Nate has focused the training at theMt. ol¡ve School on young people, using the martial arts to bulld serr-confìdence in students on an individual basis. Nate sees the dojo as aplace where each member can rearn to maximize his or her own pãtentiar.By contrast, the Typhoon Schoot is focused on buirding a sense ofcollecrive identity within the dojo. unlike Nate, Jam;s does norencourage his students to compete in tournaments, but instead focuses oncreating unique rituals within the dojo - rituals that bind the members ofthe Typhoon School together and produce a collective, communalidentity.

For Nate, the martial arts empowers young people, giving themthe selÊesteem to overcome the obstacles they are confronteã wiú on adaily basis. "The martial arts in my concept ln relation to the politicatarena," he told me, "I see it as a vehicle to educate, to organize thi youthof today as counter to the ill fates of what is happening in the ilackcommunity, such as the drugs and gangs and things óf thainature.,'Thisemphasis on individual empowerrnent is echoed by both the students andparents alike.

Kelly is a parent who is particularly interested in Nate's classes,bringing not only her two children, but several other children from theprojects to the dojo twice a week. During class she sits attentivelv on thesidelines, making sure her children are following the teacher,s instructionsto the letter. when asked why she is so interested in the program, shesaid, "I thought that it was a.great idea for my son especialty, *-¡tt

"i t¡"

drugs and gang violence. something to teach him discipíine and serÊdetermination, and teach him to go after something he reaily wants...Andmy daughteq I brought her to karate because it's like she's not moreopen, and things she wants to do but she won't go after them, and I thinkthe karate class will help her achieve that." According to Kelly, theclasses have had a positive impact on her kids, making her son- moretolerant oflosing and her daughter more assertive.

The srudents I interviewed at the Mt. olive School echoed Nate,semphasis on individual achievement. Although most of Nate's studentsare under fifteen, there are a few older students who train consistentlv atthe dojo. Leonard is a young man in his early twenties, with a good joú asa surgical assistant. Given his success it was somewhat surprislng tó h.u.him discuss how the training has affected his serÊesteem: "I ieel a lot

WYROD: WARzuORS OF THE SOUTH SIDE 141

more confident in myself going from white belt to yellow belt. Being ableto break bricks, and boards, remembering the different katas and fo*r,and also even placing in the tournaments. So it makes a really bigdifference in my confidence."

The emphasis on individual achievement is also evident in theactivities at the dojo on any given night. students are often singled out todemonstrate their prowess in a particular area, such as boarJ breaking.These are usually solo performances in front of the entire group withNate evaluating the student along the way. If the student performs well,he or she receives praise from everyone at the dojo. In addition, everyclass at Mt. olive ends with a thirty minute sparring session where twostudents fight in front of the entire group. These small matches last forfive minutes and each one ends with a clear winner. Nate makes aconcerted effort to give every student a chance to fight each night, whichprovides every student a concrete assessment oftheir individual progressas a martial artist.

For Nate, his work as a sensei is a natural extension of his manyyears of community activism. In the late 60s, Nate was very active in theIllinois chapter of the Black Panther party for self Defense. Not onlv didhe work closely with Fred Hampton, the chapter's president, he was aisoHuey P, Newton's personal bodyguard. Today he is only infiequentlyinvolved with any direct political actions, but Nate's connection to tneParty's ideology is still strong. on occasion, Nate has used the martialarts to educate his students about the Party's involvement with radicalpolitics. In 1996, he hosted a tournament in honor of Fred Hampton, eventhough both the FBI and the chicago police made a concerteà effort rocancel the event. But the weekly classes at Mt. olive seem devoid of anyconscious attempts to build community, or collective action, througûmartial arts training. Although Nate sees the training as addressingproblems specific to black communities, in practice the emphasis on selÊesteem, selÊconfidence, and selÊcontrol is little different than any otherdojo. Karate schools in all white neighborhoods on chicago's North sideclaim to offer the same benefits to their mostly white, professionalclientele. Martial arts training is marketed to white women in particular asa way to build self-esteem and confidence as well as a form of bodilvprotection.

In stark contrast to Nate, James sees building black commurrity "*the central mission of his dojo. For James, the martiar arts have been a

way for blacks to create solidarity, and his school is continuing thistradition:

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For those who didn't lvant to go into the gang mentality and rventinro lhe martial arrs they found that it provided mititaÐ,:üength. Itgave us a rerationslrip of being in trre tribe, of being rvarriori. Butcvcn ntore il gave us family. As a school itself rve live as a family.Ir's a famiry of ancient history riving in the modern times rvith ourorvn rules and regulalions of governing things.

In James' mind, the Typhoon schoor has carved out a smail, autonomousniche in an otherwise oppressive society. with the martial arts as a formof cultural cover, or camouflage, the dojo has become a refuge beyondthe reach of a threatening, racist world:

So called free liberal society is destructive of an¡hing other thanitself. so if we find a disciprine in someone erse's martiar arrs thatcovers up our desire to be a tribe, and allorvs us to exist in the samervay as we are as a tribe, but comes from something they haveaccepted, then rve exist happily. And rve go on to fry and achieve thehighest levers Iin the martial artsl becausè it rvon't matter u,hat theythink because we rvill have found the energies ro repress any t)?e ofgenocide or aggression put against us by the gou.rnrn.ni óf

"nygroup ofpeople who object to our being.

so for James, the martial arts are not only resources for confronting andchallenging racial oppression, but a way to build a separate comm"urritybased on a mythical tribal past.

A-lthough James is the onry member of the dojo who explicitryconnects the training to a quest to regain a lost tribal ord-eq other tåchershave emphasized the strong sense of family they feer at tie dojo. whenasked what makes the Typhoon school unique, Dean, a teacher in hisearly twenties, replies, "Basically everyone is more of a family. Everyonefinds someone to cling on to more as a good friend, as oppoíea to ¡ist utraining partner." Fred, another teacher in his twenties, eiþressed ,i*i1",feelings about the school:

The uniqueness ofour teachings you ca¡ see it amongst our students,you can see it within our schoor- Not onry do rve run a schoor we arsohave a famiry atmosphere. we continue to socialize with each other.Ofcourse people are going to have little problems. But you can feelthe spirit of the school.

Fred recently returned to the united States after serving overseas in themarines for several years. Immediately upon his ani.,rãl in the unitedstates, he began regular training at the Typhoon School, and from anoutsider's perspective it appears that he n"u"i left the dojo.

A fourth perspective on the community of the Typhoon schoorcomes from James' brother Larry, who is also a teachår. unlike hisbrother, Larry is a very shy, soft-spoken man, who was rather reluctant ro

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY WYROD: WARRIORS OF THE SOUTH SIDE

talk about the school. He says he prefers to let his body speak on the mat,which is understandable, because he is an extremely graceful and agilemartial artist. of all the teachers at the school, he is the most interestìngto watch. But from interviews and casual conversations, it is clear thatLarry has much to say about the mission ofthe school:

This school here, in our ma¡tial arts advenhfes, we search out andbring our culture into our environment ofthe ma¡tial arts. you knowour pain, our suffering as a people is all in here. That,s why we trvto, like the Army says, be the best you cim be. We try to be the bestma¡tial artists that we cân be. Not rvhat society says for us to be butwhat we feet is the best for us fo be. Because sociew has neverdepicted us in the ri¿ht ways. It rvas ahvays in the nógative way,what. they want us to be.

Although Larry does not describe the dojo as an ancient tribat order, heclearly shares James' vision of the school as a space separate, andindependent, from society. The dojo is the refuge rrom tt e opprássi,reworld where Larry can work through what he sees as society's racistconstructions of black men.

As these stories and statements attest, the Typhoon schoor hasdone something unusual, and surprising, with the martial arts. Thetraining is more than simply a resource for building selÊesteem and selÊconfidence, but also a means ofcreating and sustaining the social ties thatbind members to the community of the dojo. unlike ñate's emphasis onindividual development, the work of the Typhoon School is a coilectiveproject, concerned not only with individual transformation but creatinecommunity.

The differences between these dojos lead to the question oî howbodily practices foster collective action. Bodily practices should not bethought of in any essentialist sense, in which the practices themselveshave some natural essence that produces certain social relationships.Bodiþ practices only take on meaning in a social context, and as tüatsocial context changes, the meaning of bodily practices shifts as well. Inaddition, these material, physical practices are not only shaped by theirsocial contert, but also play a role in constructing that soõial cóntext.social relations give meaning to how peopte understand their bodies, andthe collective, physical action of individuals in turn shapes those socialrelations.

Returning to the activities inside the dojos, the different meaningsthat emerge from similar bodily practic"r

"un

-b" attributed to the social

context in which these practices are performed. Although both dojosdraw on a similar set of martial arts practices, the subtle, and not so

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subtle, differences in the way these practices are conducted infuse themwith very differenr

Le^anilgf Thesè practices have U"en ,t uf"ã ou".time, and now have a rife of their own, äctivery shaping social interactionsat the schools. And it is through these practices themsãrves that Mt. orivebecomes a space centered on individual empowerment, focused onrebuilding relationships between individuors anã the *o.l¿ u"voJ ,n"dojo, while the Typhoon school becomes a corective project oiuuiraingcommunity within the dojo.

Because of the intense hierarchy of any dojo, Nate and James praya major role in shaping the sociar contãxt of tie slhoors. tnitiatty, then, itwould seem that their personalities arone wourd determine *r,"i å"""i"g,emerge from the bodiry practices. If James says the training is supposedto build community, then that is the meaning it takes on at his s"holì. guton closer analysis, it becomes crear that thãir personarities arone are notdetermining the meaning the training has for teachers and students. It is inthe practices themserves, and more importantry, how they ur" f.."ii".a,that make the meanings created at the dojos so different.

To appreciate how the practices differ at the two sites, it is usefulto closely compare the training at the schools. Both dojos píace u gooadeal of emphasis on the proper protocol for entering ttt" truininf *"ã. etthe Mt. olive Schoor the students are expected to bow onãe to theteacher and once to the dojo before entering. Ifthey forget to do this theyare denied entry untir they figure out whatihey dii wro"ng rt'" i/fnoonschool takes this proto.cor a few steps further. students st-and at tt å

"ag"of the training mat and wait for a tèacher's permission to enter the mat.They then bow, do a somersaurt on to the maì, and then enter the crass bywalking behind any other students already on the mat. No matter who isin charge of the class, these rules are all fóllowed closety.

_ Warm-up exercises are a large part of the training at Mt. Olive.The first half of every class is devoìed to very mundane warïn_upexercises. There is a lot of toe touching, squatting and bending, aìongwith a few martial arts stances. The children'rollo.r-ulong a¡rlv leri, uutoften drift off after a short whire. There is also a lot of moanlng on ttrepart of the children. when an exercise gets too demanding the whäle classwill start to whine and complain

At the Typhoon School, warm_up exercises are usually fairty briefclass often begins with some stretches, Lut even these mundane e*er"ir",seem to be taken seriously by everyone. some of the stretches can berather strenuous, but the students try not to show any pain, und no on"whines or moans. occasionalry, the warm-up routinà invorves morecardiovascular exercise, with the students *nnìng and jumping in piu."Everyone counts out loud together, and yeils "ki-ah" ui tt e enã of err..y

BERKELEY JOT'RNAL OF SOCIOLOGY WYROD: WARRIORS OF TT{E SOUTH SIDb

jump to stay in synch. There appears to be an unspokeq or rarely spoken,rule that everyone should work together, in unison, through the exercises.

At Mt. Olive the \¡/arrn-up exercises slowly transition into moremartial arts training. The students practice punching and kicking, butthere is surprisingly little technique training. Rarely will Jimmy (Nate'sassistant) make the students go through a series of moves, such as acombination of punches, blocks and kicks. Usually he stresses a singlemove, and then goes back to more stretching. The older students,however, are usually working with Nate in a separate group practicingpunches, blocks, and kicks. These students are ail very focused on theiractivities, and they occasionally get supervision from Nate. They seempretty detached from what is going on in the rest of the dojo,concentrating instead on their own small group.

The last forty five minutes of every class is reserved for sparring.The entire class forms a circle, and students enter the ring two at a timeto spar. Nate judges the matches just like they are judged in a tournament.Each match lasts about five minutes, so nearly everyone gets a chance tospar. The night usually draws to a close after Nate and the other highranking students have had a chance to spar.

By'contrast, much of the training at the Typhoon School isdevoted to refining specific techniques. Most teachers start by focusingon one or two specific moves, such as a front kick or a side kick. Thesemoves are practiced again and again before the class proceeds tosomething else. So much of the training involves repeated exposure to thesame movement, with everyone doing the same thing at the same time.The training often involves little or no verbal instructioq and the groupjust moves in a kind of perpetual motion, accenting certain moves with a"ki-ah."

But the training can vary considerably f¡om one teacher to thenext, and from one night to the next. One teacher, for example, places alot of emphasis on strength training, while another is more interested inteaching basic martial arts stances. From participating in and observingthe training, one gets the sense that a lot of the training is completelyimprovised. The teachers are drawing on a wide range of techniques,

some traditional and others most likely their own creation, and stringing

these techniques together in their own enigmatic ways. The studentsnever question the authority of the teacher, however, and the techniquesare still performed in unison by the group.

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one of the more interesting aspects of these classes is that for thefirst half all the students, regardless of skill level, train together. Many ofthe exercises seem like they would be boring to a black uãlt, uut e,ren themost advanced students are very serious about participating. They seemto find this more basic training as fulfilling as the morgadvanced t*iningthey undergo later in the evening.

Although both dojos emphasize protocor, and rery on repetitivebodily practices in their instruction, there is a special form of ritualizedbodily practice that emerges at the Typhoon School. Both doios areritualized spaces, but rhe Typhoon school has placed their own stämp onthe martial arts, creating ritualized bodiry practices that are unique to ih"i.school. unlike Nate, who has based the training at his dojo on the moregeneric model of tournament competition, James has cieated a spacewhere individuals can come together to both create, and participate in,unique ritual practices. These rituats are created, performed, and learnedon the mat, through the bodily practices unique to ihe typhoon School.

For James, the community of the dojo has emerged out of thespecific forms of racial oppression endured by blacks living in the poorcommunities of chicago's South Side. The discipline of thi school is acounter to the perils of the ghetto, and the dojo is a community defined inopposition to mainstream society. But this type of opposition takes on avery specific form. Although the dojo is a space for building a collectiveidentity, it is a collective whose attention is focused inward-. For James,the mission of the dojo is not to directly challenge and change the forceswhich impinge on blacks, but to forge an autonomous space within ahostile society. For James, the martial arts provide u *uy of

"r"uting what

he has called "a social structure within a structure," one that dois nordirectly resist the forces of domination, but seeks to exist bevond theirreach.

Gender also plays a role in the way the imagined community ofthe dojo is defined. For James, a return to an ancient tribal order ls areturn to a world with very rigid gender roles. Men are required to be thetraditional warriors, providing for, and protecting their families. Thesesentiments are echoed in some of Larry's more personal comments aboutthe school, "I feel I have here my freedom, my sense of manliness andmanhood and I won't let anyone come up on me to try and take that awaybecause I know who I am." It is easy to see how the mascurinized aspectsof martial arts training would provide a way to address such genderanxieties. Becoming a warrior is a familiar martial arts trope, and Ãesheswell with the way racist representations of black males have threatenedtheir masculinitv.

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY WYROD: WARRIORS OF THE SOUTH SIDE

But practicing side by side with the men at these doios arewomen. Although the school is clearly male dominated, woman have beenencouraged to parlicipaæ, take readership roles, and become an integralpart of the community of this dojo. Both the men and women seem drãwnto the training as a means of improving oneself within the community ofthe dojo. what this would suggest is that despite the patriarchal overtónesof the "tribal order" there may be some continuity in the way women andmen participate in, and experience, this space. However, rithout moreethnographic data that explicitly addresses the experience of women arthe dojo, such claims are tentative at best.

Conclusion

What these sires suggest is that physical, bodily activity is animportant aspect of agency on both an individual and colíective level. It isnot only the forces of domination that determine how people understandthei¡ bodies and what people choose to do with their-bodìes. Embodiedsubjects themselves are also instrumental in shaping their relationships toeach other and to the social world. In addition, the Typhoon sËlootillustrates that bodily practices can contribute to the co'struction of acollective identity that provides some refuge from the oppressronexperienced in everyday life.

This ethnographic data helps us to move away from notions of thebody as a passive, biological entity onry animateá through discursiverepresentations to an emphasis on an embodied subject whoie interactlonwith the world is mediated through an active, material body. It is here thata sense of embodied agency becomes evident, an agency that has beenshown here to take on both individual and collective forms. The Mt. oliveschool is a space for individuals to build stronger selves, while the uniquerituals of the Typhoon school have forged a collective identity that strivesto maintain some degree of autonomy from mainstream socieiy.

ln The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, ùntle Durkheimprovides a framework for understanding the importance of ritual inbuilding collective identity. Although not explicitly about the body,Durkheim's emphasis on ritual is an implicit recognition of the importanceof bodily practices to collective identity. For Durkheim, these rituãls bringpeople together, reaffirm their common bonds, and reinforce a sense ofsocial solidarity. In religious ceremonies, the heritage of the social groupis maintained and continually revitalized, counteracting those õrceswhìch could threaten and undermine social cohesiveness.

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\ì/hen applied to complex societies, Durkheim's framework canalso be used to understand the connection between ritual and resistance.The ritualized bodily practices ofthe Typhoon school can be understoodas reinforcing a sense of social solidarity among members of the dojo.Drawn together by a shared experience ofracial oppression, the studentsand teachers participate in bodily rituals that reaffirm their commonbonds, and foster a sense of community. Through these bodily rituals, themartial artists are able to produce their community within the dojo andrevitalize the social ties that allow it to withstand the forms of racialoppression that threaten its existence. so it is through the ritualizedbodily practices that the Typhoon School is able to establish and maintainan oppositional community within a hostile host society.

Similar practices have also allowed Nate's students to strengthentheir selÊesteem and recoup a self-image that runs counter to racistconstructions of the black body. The detachment and withdrawal of theimagined community of the Typhoon School, and the emphasis onindividual empowerment at the Mt. Olive School, make labeling thesepractices a form of resistance problematic, but they allow us to envisionthe potential for something truly oppositional. In an era when racistdiscourse converges on the body, and when black bodies are faced withdaily threats to their survival, bodily practices emerge as an importantway to create and sustain resistant collective action- When a group ofindividuals begin to see their embodied selves as objects of similar formsofoppression, and when the corporeal aspects ofthe oppression becomeevident, bodily practices can emerge as a means of building solidarity andpossibly complementing more overtly politicized forms of organizing.

BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

References

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Arnold, David. 1993. Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and EpidemicDisease in Nineteenth-Century India. Berkeley, CA: University ofCalifornia Press.

Blauner, Robert. 1972. Raciol Oppression in Americq. New york, Ny:Harper & Row.

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Burawoy, Michael. 1974. "Race, Class, and Colonialism.,' Sociql andEconomic Sndies 24.

I991. "Introduction." ln Ethnography (Jnbound: power andResistqnce in the Modern Metropolis, eds. M. Burawoy et al., l_7. London, England: University of California press.

chicago Fact Book consortium. 1990. Local communilt Fqct BookÇhicqso Metropolitan Area 1990. Chicago, IL: ùniversity ofIllinois Press.

Comarofi, John and Jean. 1992. Ethnography qnd the HistoricalImagination. Boulder, CO: Westview press.

Durkheim, Emile. 1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious L1p. NewYork, NY: The Free press.

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Miles, Robert. 1989. Racism. London, England:Routledge.

Mohanram, Radhika. 1999. Black Bodlt: llomen, Colonialism, andSpace. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota press.

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BERKELEY JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY BOERO: INTERPRETING WETGHT

Review Essay

Constructionist Perspectives on Body Weight: ACritical Reviewl

Natalie Boero

Sobal, Jeffiey and Donna Maurer, eds. 1999. Interpreting Ileighr:Fatness qnd rhinness as sociør probrems. New iork: ãrdine neGruyter.

Is body weight an objective attribute of individuals, and a sotelypersonal matter? The construction of body weight u. u p"rronul matterpersists in spite of recent devetopments in pubric heaìth warning of"epidemics" of eating d.isorders and obesity. ihough these ..epidemics"are stratified on the basis of race, gender, and socióeconomic tlass, andraise core sociological questions about deviance and stigm4 sobaí andMaurer rightly point out that historically questions of fooã, nutrition, andbody weight have rarely been addressed by the sociorogicar tit".atur"This lack of sociological attention to issues of body weigit tras recenttybegun to shift, particularry in right of feminist scholarsñip on the bodyand eating disorders @ordo 1993) and the gendered natuie of foodandfood oreparation @evault r99l). However, in spite of this gro*ingattention to the body, the social science literature on fatniss hasremained particularly thin.

In Jeffrey sobal and Donna Maurer's edited votum e, Interpretinglíleight: Fatness and rhinness os sociar problems, the ediíors bågin b!problematizing this individualistic view of body weight and then sãet todevelop an understanding of weight as an inherentlyiociø/ phenomenon.Drawing on the work of spector and Kitsuse (19g7) they sei out ro applya multi-disciplinary, social constructionist perspective to the issues'offatness and thinness. Pointing out that most approaches to the study ofbody weight begin with an undersranding oi weight as an objectivesocial fact, sobal and Maurer argue that a constructionist accoïnt ofbody size will contribute to our understandings offatness and thinness associal problems by "focusing on how social problems are created,maintained, and promoted within social environments" (3). In theiropening chapter sobal and Maurer loosely classifu a constnrctionistperspective as an approach to the study ofsocial pro6lems that does not

I My sincere thånks to orit Avishai, cheri Io pascog Ba¡rie Thomg Kerry woodward,and the BJS editorial board for their thoughtfrrl comments on various drafts of t.trisessay.