Local Boxers and the World of Poverty

Local Boxers and the World of Poverty [enlarged and new edition]
Tomonori Ishioka

210 mm x 148 mm
396 pages
JPY 3,600
ISBN 9784790717898
Pub date: January 2024

The lives of these boxers are depicted through fieldwork in which they eat and sleep together. What kind of life do these boxers live as they continue to fight in the international market? This in-depth investigation looks at their “never-ending will to be” as they survive in a world of poverty. This is the long-awaited new and expanded edition of the book with commentary by Masahiko Kishi and a “later chapter” describing what happens to the boxers afterwards.　

Points of Appeal
1) Powerful fieldwork at a poor boxing gym in the Philippines
2) Analyze the global system that produces “losers” and how it creates poverty

Table of Contents
Introduction From the world of local boxers

Chapter 1 Methodological approach to the physical culture of local boxers

Chapter 2 The spatial composition of boxing gyms

Chapter 3 Becoming a boxer: boxing as a collective sport

Chapter 4 The structure of the boxing market: the production of losers

Chapter 5 The boxer’s body in reciprocity: the everyday life of the retired boxer

End Chapter: Towards a bare-bones reality
Later chapter: Boxers afterwards

Notes / Afterword / Postcards to the enlarged and new edition / List of figures and tables / Bibliography / Index
Explanation: Time, body, life (Masahiko Kishi)

Reviews
“I was overwhelmed by his detailed observation of the structure of gyms and the entertainment system, the behavior of boxers up to the day of their fights, alcohol, and women. It was as if I could hear the breath of the boxers living on the ground, and I couldn’t stop turning the pages.”―Maki Kanai, writer

“As if holding his breath and diving deep into the cold, dark night, Tomonori Ishioka enters the scene.” ―Nobuhiko Kishi, sociologist

“A poor boxing gym in the Philippines that provides the ‘losers’ needed for the Japanese entertainment industry. Watch the true fights of the naked fighters with whom the author has lived and slept together here. The ‘sport’ set up by financial power is no longer enough.”―Tatsushi Fujihara, historian