Insiders, Outsiders and Ringsiders: Immigrants and Minorities in British Boxing Event

Abstract

Throughout its history, boxing - a sport with a worldwide appeal and profile – has been characterised by the significant involvement of ethnic minorities and immigrants. This is especially true in Britain, where illegal bareknuckle prize-fighting was transformed and codified in the nineteenth century, with gloved boxing going on to become one of the country’s most important and popular sports thereafter.

Drawing from research for his Gerda Henkel Foundation-funded project, Dr Dee’s talk will explore British boxing’s ethnic history from the late eighteenth century, when London-born Sephardic Jew Daniel Mendoza became the Champion of England, through to recent times and the successes of Amir Khan, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. It will demonstrate the considerable participation and interest in the sport amongst Jewish, Irish, Traveller, Italian, South-Asian and Black communities, amongst others, both inside and outside of the ring. However, it will also examine how and why boxing has impacted and influenced immigrant and minority identity, internal communal relations, the construction and deconstruction of ethnic and racial stereotypes and social, cultural, political and economic interactions between these groups/individuals and majority society.