Scopic Sociality. Regimes of Visualization and Visual Practices in Boxing

Meyer C, von Wedelstaedt UK. Skopische Sozialität. Soziale Welt. Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung und Praxis. 2013;64(1-2):69-+.The paper explores the complexity and variety of visual practices in social interaction using the example of boxing. At first sight a boxing match seems to be a physical fight between two parties, in which bodily strength and technical skills play significant roles for victory or defeat. The present case study, however, shows that visual practices of different people involved in the fight play an important role, too. These practices relate to nested and overlapping "scopic regimes" in boxing, requiring the visualization of actions as well as their concealment. This includes the boxer's ostentatious implementation of instructions that are vocally shouted into the ring by the coach as well as the boxer's demonstrative compliance with the boxing rules addressed at the referee, his performance of having successfully punched or of not having been hit by his opponent addressed at the scoring judges or his display of athletic fitness, moral integrity and bold vitality in regard to the spectators. All these specific forms of visibility are simultaneously performed, each addressed at its respective addressee, by the boxer in his individual actions. Not least in the area of boxing is scopic practice an activity distributed between athlete and coach that manipulates the visibilities, but also physical activities in relation to visual expectations of all parties present (opponents, judges, spectators). Seeing then becomes an intersubjective, cooperatively produced social good