ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY ON LEISURE OF JIU-JITSU AT LUNCHTIME:

A CONGREGATION OF MEN AND THEIR MASCULINITIES

Abstract

This article addresses an ethnographic investigation on lunchtime leisure by male practitioners of jiu-jitsu. In the process of understanding that spacetime experienced by those men, we found a ‘congregation’ sustained on daily actions that became socializing factors in favor of a specific type of masculinity. By demarcating the importance of work – and therefore reasserting their positions of authority and highlighting their supposed supremacy over women and non-heterosexual men – those men turned that leisure spacetime into a means for keeping the ‘masculinity mandate’ that has been historically sustained in our society. In summary, this study provides the following contributions to understanding leisure within that spacetime in people’s lives: it bears the complexity of social elements of daily life in which those people are situated and, by becoming a ‘congregation,’ it enhances bonds and agreements, significantly influencing that daily life.

Key words: leisure, masculinities, jiu-jitsu