Publications


Below are a selection of my most important academic contributions, which you’re welcome to download.

 
 

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Publications, Paper Discussion Christopher Matthews Publications, Paper Discussion Christopher Matthews

Communicating consent in sport. Paper discussion with Dr. Alex Channon

Consent in sport is under-theorised and under-evidenced. In this video, Alex and I discuss our process for pulling research together on the topic. It's taken us over a decade of chatting, thinking and formally collecting data to write up. We think there’s a lot to be learned from understanding how we work together.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

The fog soon clears: Brain injuries in boxing

Boxing is ‘all about bodies’; beautiful bodies, broken bodies and, sometimes, brain-damaged bodies. And while a lot of research has explored the physiological side of ‘punch drunk’ syndrome, far less work has attempted to consider how boxers experience brain injuries.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

The 'male preserve' thesis: Sporting culture and men's power

In exposing the inequalities enshrined within sports culture, along with the manifold dangers endured by boys and men in the stakes of ‘proving’ masculinity in and through sport, this body of scholarship placed the potentially harmful nature of the masculinity–sport relationship firmly into the academic discourse on sport and society.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

Sports violence and society

This chapter outlines an approach to classroom teaching that makes use of physical movement alongside more traditional lecturing methods when delivering lessons on abstract theoretical material. It develops the notion of embodied learning as a ‘physical metaphor’, outlining some examples of this practice that we have used in our recent work with a class of first year undergraduates.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

Becoming a decent man

During the ten or so years that I’ve been involved in boxing I’ve seen countless people change their bodies, behaviours and performances of self. For many, this has been neatly understood as a simple process of becoming a boxer.

In large part, such ‘becoming’ involves moving from pugilistic newcomer towards a relatively comfortable embodiment of the physical and emotional grammars that are commonplace within boxing subcultures.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

‘It’s only sport’ – the symbolic neutralisation of ‘violence’

Within the commodified world of professional ice hockey, athletes sell their bodily performances in return for a salary. A central feature of this transaction is the very real risk of physical injury – a risk inherent within most contact sports, but particularly so within those that feature seemingly ‘violent’ confrontations between competitors, as ice hockey is widely reputed to do.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

The tyranny of the male preserve

Within this paper I draw on short vignettes and quotes taken from a two-year ethnographic study of boxing to think through the continuing academic merit of the notion of the male preserve. This is an important task due to evidence of shifts in social patterns of gender that have developed since the idea was first proposed in the 1970s.

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Publications Christopher Matthews Publications Christopher Matthews

Approaching the gendered phenomenon of women warriors

Our initial motivation for producing Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports: Women Warriors around the World began several years ago when, as PhD candidates studying together at Loughborough University in the UK, Dr. Alex Channon and I developed a shared interest in combat sports through our separate but related research projects.

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Study a PhD with Dr. Christopher R. Matthews

I specialise in conducting and supervising immersive research, but I’m keen to discuss various projects and research methods with prospective students as well.