초대서양(Transatlantic) 문화로서의 19세기 프라이즈 파이팅과 민족과 국가 정체성 만들기

초록

The rules of prize fighting were codified in 18th-century Britain. Though prize fighting originated from working-class fair activities,many aristocrats and gentlemen also patronized it. Some intellectuals tried to advocate this illegal sport that they considered as the most masculine and “English” sport of all. They constructed prize fighting as a transnational tradition to articulate their ethnic and national identity. Prize fighting was a transatlantic culture. The movement of people,ideas, and systems facilitated the dissemination of culture across national boundaries. In the mid-19th century, the Irish migrated to America in large numbers and constructed their ethnic identity through prize fighting, which originated from Britain. This process shows how an ethnic group was continuously reproduced through the selection, adaption, and appropriation of cultural materials. Yet ethnic reproduction also accompanied class and gender divisions among the Irish, and the Irish developed multiple ethnic identities. Prize fighting made working-class Irishmen share some cultural traits with other working-class Americans, but also made them articulate a type of ethnic identity different from that of their middle-class counterparts. Prize fighting also became a cultural space in which the Irish developed dual identity in the 1880s and 90s. Utilizing anti-British sentiment shared by Americans, Irish American boxers actively reconciled their ethnic identity with American identity. For them,Americanization was not the self-denial of their ethnic identity, nor was it a process in which a new national identity replaced an old ethnic one.

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