Managing Bodily Capital

This chapter focuses on the social world of black boxers in a gym in Chicago and examines their daily struggles both to enhance their bodily capital and to avoid the dissipating vices of the surrounding inner-city environment. There are few practices for which the French expression "payer de sa personne" ("paying with one's person") takes on a more powerful meaning than for boxing. The differences in disposition between the two boxers are redoubled by their respective constitution and character. Butch is easygoing, placid, and always even-tempered. Curtis's moods are constantly changing and unpredictable, his emotions brusque and edgy, worn on his sleeves, and his energy level as erratic as a fever chart. The chapter illustrates the various ways in which boxers encounter the problem of managing their body, preserving its integrity and energy, as much in the gym and in the ring as in daily life.