Pretty fly for a white guy: the politics of race, nation and difference in professional boxing

John Harris; David Chaplin

doi:10.1080/1070289X.2021.1970980

Pretty fly for a white guy: the politics of race, nation and difference in professional boxing

John Harris, David Chaplin

GSBS School Office

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

205 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In 2008 Joe Calzaghe (from Wales) fought Bernard Hopkins (from the USA) in a light-heavyweight boxing match. Prior to the fight Hopkins had taunted Calzaghe with the refrain that he would never lose to a white boy. This paper assesses the interplay of discourses surrounding race and nation in the build-up to the contest between the two boxers. The analysis highlights how simplistic binaries are used to perpetuate notions of difference and considers how this accentuates divides in contested racial and national terrains.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-18
Number of pages	18
Journal	Identities
Volume	30
Issue number	1
Early online date	16 Sept 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2021.1970980
Publication status	Published - 2023

Keywords

Calzaghe
Hopkins
Wales
USA
social class

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cultural Studies
Anthropology
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

Documents and Links

10.1080/1070289X.2021.1970980

Harris, J. & Chaplin, D. (2021) Pretty fly for a white guy: the politics of race nation and difference in professional boxing
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 679 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Pretty fly for a white guy: the politics of race, nation and difference in professional boxing

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Documents and Links

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