Wacquant, L. Anima e corpo. La fabbrica dei pugili nel ghetto nero americano, DeriveApprodi, Roma, 2002.

Abstract

Wacquant’s book focuses on the relationship bertween street culture and the world of the gym. Wacquant’s goal is to avoid the exotic insight often adopted in representing the environment of boxing, in order to focus on the gym space and on the daily life practices by a group of pugilists who are not probably going to be professionals. The gym turns into a a window allowing to observe the migratory flows towards U.S., since boxers belong mostly to the working class. The Author analyzes deeply the connection between pugilists and the coach, often similar to a father-son connection. The main issue of the book, however, is the teaching and learning dynamic through which they learn how to become pugilists. The training method of the “noble art”, indeed, shows the paradox of an individual discipline that implies a collective training. It’s impossible to learn boxing through a theoretical pathway. To learn a punch requests to repeat it thousands of times. Teaching a physical practices involves a lot of theoretical issues – this should be taken into careful consideration by social science when attempting to give a theoretical account of processes that happen mostly at an unconsciouos level.