Martial Arts Studies As Kulturwissenschaft PDF
Martial Arts Studies As Kulturwissenschaft PDF
Martial Arts Studies As Kulturwissenschaft PDF
DOI
ABSTRACT
10.18573/j.2016.10016
This essay deals with some of the key theoretical issues of martial
arts studies: the definition of martial arts, the possible objects
of research, adequate methods, and the search for an applicable
theoretical framework. After a very short introduction to
the German-speaking martial arts studies (from whence the
following ideas derive), the differences between Anglophone
cultural studies and German Kulturwissenschaften will be briefly
shown. The text will then discuss the problem of normative/
object-language arguments in martial arts studies, and follow
with a critical assessment of terminological distinctions between
terms like martial arts, combat sports, etc. As an alternative, a
very wide working definition of martial arts will be proposed,
as well as five dimensions of meaning ascribed to martial arts
practice, which can help analyzing any given martial arts style.
In a next step, the various actualizations of martial arts, from
body images to cultural contexts, will be grouped into classes
of phenomena. Then, Itamar Even-Zohars polysystem theory
(devised for the study of literature) will be introduced and its
applicability to martial arts studies demonstrated. Finally, a short
discussion will highlight the method of scientific comparison.
KEYWORDs
martial arts studies, martial arts definition,
cultural studies, multidisciplinarity,
Kulturwissenschaft, polysystem theory,
comparative method
CITATION
Wetzler, Sixt. 2015.
Martial Arts Studies as
Kulturwissenschaft: A Possible
Theoretical Framework,
Martial Arts Studies 1, 20-33.
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Introduction
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On the one hand, the Kommission Kampfkunst und Kampfsport has been
successful in uniting a significant number of the German-speaking
researchers active in the field. On the other hand, it became apparent
that we are in need of a theoretical framework to guarantee the quality
of future work.4 So my aim here is to examine how to integrate the
different approaches into a coherent, meaningful field of research,
instead of a loosely connected collection of individual projects. My
proposal is that three basic questions have to be considered: First,
what are the objects that martial arts studies can or has to deal with?
Second, what are the sources that martial arts studies needs to take
into consideration? Third, what methods could be used by martial arts
studies researchers to approach these objects and sources?
This article suggests answers to these questions. More specifically, it
will address two of the main problems encountered in the discussions of
recent years. The first of these relates to the clarity of object-language
versus metalanguage and the problem of terminological pitfalls
(whether we use terms like martial arts, combat sports, self-defence,
etc.). I will then argue for an open description of the concept of martial
arts. This concept will be described as a network of different dimensions
of meaning ascribed to martial arts practices. These are actualized in
various classes of phenomena that, at the same time, are the objects to be
analysed and the sources from which to draw our information. Finally, a
theory will be proposed that may help us to understand and explain the
concept of martial arts in its complexity, and a method briefly described
by which its unique dimensions of meaning and classes of phenomena can
be approached.
4
The 2015 conference, held from September 30th through October 2nd at
the University of Mainz, dealt with theoretical and methodological questions, especially
with the difficulties of defining subject and field. The results will be published in 2016.
The conference title Martial Arts Studies in Germany Defining and Crossing Disciplinary
Boundaries was decided on in 2014, before Paul Bowman announced the title of his book
Martial Arts Studies: Disrupting Disciplinary Boundaries [2015]. However, the similarity is
no coincidence, but instead reflects the very nature of our field. A fruitful, monodisciplinary
approach towards martial arts is hardly conceivable much less desirable.
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5
The direct relevance of the discussion for our work is demonstrated by the fact
that Musner explicitly mentions Meaghan Morris as a leading cultural studies scholar and
quotes her book Too Soon, Too Late: History and Cultural Studies [1998]. Morris in fact
gave one of the keynote lectures at the 2015 Cardiff Martial Arts Studies conference. Thanks
to Eric Burkart for pointing out Musners text to me.
6
Die Cultural Studies enstanden im England der Nachkriegszeit als ein
gesellschaftspolitisches Projekt, die Kulturwissenschaften hingegen in Deutschland
und aus einer wissenschaftspolitischen Motivationslage heraus. Die einen sind oder
versuchen zumindest ein politisches Projekt sui generis zu sein, whrend die anderen ein
fcherbezogenes Innovationsverfahren sind, das aus unbersehbaren Krisensymptomen der
Geisteswissenschaften heraus entstanden ist. All translations from German to English by
the author.
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7
So spielten im weiteren Verlauf die gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen
Marginalisierungserfahrungen von Minderheiten und MigrantInnen, von Frauen und
sexuell Diskriminierten eine wesentliche Rolle in der Theoriebildung. Die kritische
Auseinandersetzung mit Marginalitt, Diskriminierung und damit korrespondierenden
Selbst-Bildern ist ein wesentlicher Topos der Cultural Studies und bestimmt ihr eigentliches,
ihr politisches Credo.
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martial arts from the implicit perspectives of their own academic and
martial arts backgrounds. This problem became most evident when
contributions worked with the terms and concepts of the objectlanguage and tried to elevate them to appropriate descriptive tools of a
metalanguage [as in the case of qi].
Terminological Pitfalls:
Martial Arts, Combat Sports, and Self-Defence
Those who argue within the frame of their own styles object-language
are often the same people who have no difficulty in deciding which
movement traditions qualify as proper martial arts and which do not.
However, this issue too is not at all easy to adjudicate. The criteria that
define one movement system as a martial art and disqualify another are
hard to establish and even more so in an intercultural context. Since
the term martial arts is widely used in colloquial language, everyone
brings along an intuitive understanding of what it denotes. As with all
general terms, at the core of this intuitive semantic field lies a group of
phenomena that most people would agree to call martial arts without
giving it much thought. But the field becomes less and less clear towards
its edges, where we find phenomena whose classification as a martial art
can be disputed.
The common assumption (also among scholars) of what the term
includes often seems also to subsume the field of combat sports.
Note that so far no one seems to have felt the need to call for an
individual discipline of combat sports studies. 8 Indeed, our intuitive
8
However, sometimes both terms are used to denote the field, as in the case for
example of the International Martial Arts and Combat Sports Scientific Society that has held
several international conferences on the topic over the last few years (www.imacsss.com), or
by the aforementioned German Kommission Kampfkunst und Kampfsport. While in German
Kampfsport is the more widely used term, both words stand in singular, in contrast to their
English correspondents. This is noteworthy insofar as the singular implies even more so a
sense of homogeneity between the different styles.
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9
Compare another recent definition proposed by Alex Channon and George
Jennings: Thus, our fundamental criteria for inclusion within the MACS [Martial Arts and
Combat Sports] model here involves the requirement of some form of orientation towards
improving/measuring martial or combative abilities regardless of how this is lived out
in actual practice [Channon and Jennings 2014: 4].
10
Martin Meyer has raised this question in his lecture on the kamehamehaproblem at the Kommission Kampfkunst und Kampfsports conference 2015; see the
forthcoming conference volume for a written version (http://goo.gl/cd12J3).
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combat sports. Within the martial arts community additional terms are
in use, often by practitioners of self-defence systems. With them, they
intend to emphasize their purely realistic approach: terms like practical
self-defence, hybrid systems, combatives, and CQC [close quarter
combat] systems can be found. The tripartite distinction martial arts
combat sports self-defence, employed by practitioners, is mirrored
in the triadic model which Alex Channon and George Jennings have
used in their article Exploring Embodiment through Martial Arts and
Combat Sports: A Review of Empirical Research:
Thus, we have adopted the aforementioned term martial arts
and combat sports [MACS], which we propose be used as an
inclusive, triadic model encompassing competition-oriented
combat sports, military/civilian self-defence systems, and
traditionalist or non-competitive martial arts, as well as
activities straddling these boundaries.
[Channon and Jennings 2014: 4]
All these distinctions are as helpful as they are deceiving. For although,
on a first glance, many of the better known standard martial arts can
be classified into one of the three categories, a closer look reveals how
poorly the categories depict reality. If we take, for example, Shotokan
karate, as one of the most widespread styles of martial arts, we can
see that the very same style can either be trained as traditional art, as
competition sport, or as street self-defence, depending on teacher
and school. In most schools, it will encompass all three categories.
Furthermore, the category traditionalist or non-competitive martial
arts is explained by Channon and Jennings as traditionalist, mindbody disciplines, or Eastern movement forms, such as kung fu and
taijiquan [Channon and Jennings 2014: 3].11 This definition quickly
unravels and proves to be more of a hindrance than a help. Movement
forms from the acrobatic performances of the Beijing opera to martial
arts-inspired folk dances in pencak silat and even meditative practices
like kyudo would have to be included, and this without even addressing
the problem of invented traditions. In a global perspective, the Eastern
component should be dropped altogether, as martial arts exist and have
existed in all corners of the earth.
Finally [at least in the German-speaking martial arts studies], the
constructed dichotomy Kampfkunst versus Kampfsport has helped to
institute imagined differences in the social value of respective styles [see
Leffler 2010]. Brought forth mostly by protagonists of Japanese budo
disciplines sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly true martial
11
Channon and Jennings, in turn, borrowed the term from David Brown and
Aspasia Leledakis article Eastern Movement Forms as Body-Self Transforming Cultural
Practices in the West: Towards a Sociological Perspective [2010].
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arts allegedly aim for the perfection of ones self and are of greater value
than primitive agonistic combat sports. Whereas there might indeed be
differences in the applicability of martial arts for pedagogical or health
care reasons, such normative judgements are wholly unacceptable from
the perspective of Kulturwissenschaften.
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Dimensions of Meaning
Instead of creating boxes to put the existing styles in, we could rather
search for common, recurring qualities in the martial arts. A discussion
of a given style can then analyse how these qualities are fulfilled, and
to what degree. Five common qualities of the martial arts shall be
proposed here, which will be called dimensions of meaning ascribed to
martial arts practices, or for short five dimensions. When presented to
other scholars, the five dimensions of meaning have sometimes been
misunderstood as a solid structure into which specific martial arts can
be forced.
This is the opposite of what I want to achieve. For, firstly, I would
not claim that the list is definite. Other dimensions may be devised.
Secondly, it is not a collection of necessary or sufficient conditions
that define a movement system as a martial arts style. And not every
style must actualize all five dimensions. The list is nothing more than
a tool that could help us to take recurring patterns of martial arts into
perspective, and to describe a given style more adequately. The five
dimensions that I propose are the following:
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26
Classes of Phenomena
The forms and degrees to which a given style fulfils one or more of
the five dimensions are not self-evident. They have to be deduced
from the actual phenomena that construct the styles existence. For
the researchers convenience, these phenomena can be arranged into
classes. The classes display varying degrees of abstraction and will be
presented here in order, from most tangible to abstract. Since many
of the phenomena are not exclusive to a single style, they can be put
into context both vertically and horizontally. Vertically, they represent
part or all of the actualizations and the repertoire of a single style.
Horizontally, they represent features of martial arts which are shared by
several styles. They can be the object of comparative analysis (I will say
more on this below). In a third dimension, depth, the historicity of all
these phenomena has to be taken into account.
Some classes of phenomena are as follows. Again, this list is not definite:
The Body: As obvious as it may sound, martial arts are physical activities.
The human body is the foremost tool with which they are expressed,
and also the canvas on which practitioners paint their martial selfimage. Often, a style implies a certain ideal body type, both for athletic
and aesthetic reasons. Attitudes towards the body can thus be discussed
on practitioner and style levels.
12
A question often raised here is, Why did the martial arts lose most of their
significance in the West while they thrived in the East? Apart from the ignorance vis--vis
historical developments in both East and West betrayed by this question, a possible
explanation for the strong position of the Asian martial arts might be that they were more
successful in fulfilling the five dimensions of meaning, thus solidly integrating martial
arts into contexts that, in the West, have become dominated by other cultural systems, like
medicine, theatre, firearms, esotericism, the gymnastic movement, etc.
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Movement/Techniques: The most obvious yet also the most difficult class
to understand and describe. As Eric Burkart has recently pointed out,
martial arts skills, being body techniques and tacit knowing, can only
be communicated interpersonally to a certain degree. For a complete
understanding, the re-enacting, or re-living with ones own body is
inevitable [Burkart 2014: 259-260].13
13
... als Krpertechniken [...] und als implizites Wissen (tacit knowings) jedoch
nur bedingt intersubjektiv kommunizierbar. Zum vollstndigen Verstndnis ist fr Dritte
immer der Nachvollzug, das Nacherleben mit dem eigenen Krper notwendig.
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14
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such structures, and the ensuing social dynamics within a style, are two
of the eminent subjects for research.
powerful factor among the latter [Even-Zohar 1990: 4]. To EvenZohar, literature as well as other cultural systems have to be perceived
and described as polysystems:
All these phenomena serve both as objects and sources for martial arts
studies. In the study of historical European martial arts, for example,
considerable linguistic, codicological, and art historical work has been
undertaken on the medieval and early modern fight books. In these
cases, they were the object of study. However, when the movements
and techniques of medieval European fighting are analysed, the same
books become the main sources for research.
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Conclusion
16
Woher man vor dem Vergleich wei, dass die Gegenstnde, die man
vergleichen wird, berhaupt in dieselbe Kategorie gehren.
17
Geht man nun der Frage nach, woher dieses Vorwissen eigentlich stammt,
landet man letztlich wieder bei assoziativ-subjektiven Konstruktionen Meist bildet
diejenige religise Tradition, die den Forschern am besten vertraut ist, den Bezugsrahmen
Es besteht die Gefahr, dass man in anderen Religionen nach etwas sucht, das dort selbst
wenn man es findet eine ganz andere Bedeutung, Stellung oder Relevanz besitzt.
15
Identitt von Phnomenen festzustellen womit ihr postuliertes Wesen
bestimmt wrde sondern vielmehr hnlichkeiten und Analogien von Erscheinungen
im Hinblick auf einen bestimmten Aspekt zu untersuchen; im Hinblick auf andere Aspekte
mgen sich die Erscheinungen durchaus unterscheiden.
18
Der Ausgangspunkt einer Vergleichsstudie kann also eine (mglichst weite
und offene) Definition der Begriffe sein, die den Gegenstandsbereich der Studie eingrenzen;
und als Ergebnis des Vergleichs kann die Begrifflichkeit modifiziert und przisiert werden.
Die so przisierten Begriffe knnen wiederum der Ausgangspunkt fr eine weitere
Vergleichsstudie sein, aufgrund derer die Definitionen wiederum modifiziert werden. Eine
solche kontinuierliche gegenseitige Befruchtung von Begriffsbestimmung und Vergleich
verhindert eine Essentialisierung von Begriffen und Vorstellungen.
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Quantitative Kriterien, die einen Gegenstand nach seiner Stellung und
Wirkung innerhalb der Tradition bemessen.
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References
Amberger, Christoph J. 1999. The Secret History of the Sword: Adventures
in Ancient Martial Arts. Burbank, CA: Multi-Media Books.
Lorge, Peter A. 2012. Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the TwentyFirst Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Morris, Meaghan. 1998. Too Soon, Too Late: History in Popular Culture.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
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EDITORS
Paul Bowman
Benjamin N. Judkins
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Kyle Barrowman
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