The Urban Geography of Boxing makes a valuable contribution to the ever expanding literature on what is social, cultural and political about sport. Benita Heiskanen’s focus is an empirical study of the culture of boxing, including the key players, promoters, trainers, media networks and audiences, as well as boxers in the gym. This book, a new ethnography of boxing, with detailed evidence from research in Texas, focuses importantly upon the spatiality of sport and the ways in which space and place intertwine. The study is based on Heiskanen’s Ph.D, which she was awarded at the University of Austin in 2004. Although the book is written in the tradition of boxing ethnographies, The Urban Geography of Boxing is distinct, not least because of its scholarly engagement with the routine and everyday practices and transformations of life in the gym, including the participation of women, which, rather than being exceptional and unusual, is becoming ordinary. Heiskanen looks at Texas, in part, because global boxing has changed and Latino boxers, who are particularly well represented in Texas, are now a dominant group within the sport.
