The figuration of contemporary sport from an ethnography in MMA

Abstract

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a sport created and modified in association with the media, whose main exponent are UFC events. This work aims to understand 'from the inside' the symbolic elements involved in MMA and present a configurational relationship, understanding the imbrications adjacent to the functional dependence relationship between the elements for the discussion of contemporary sport. The methodology, ethnographic, used participant observation in an MMA academy, in combat sports events and in the TUF Brasil program, field diaries and interviews. The analysis of the reality show showed sportization strategies, personal/family dramas and the fighter's 'humanization' process, where the different uses and meanings attributed to violence are highlighted. Finally, when observing the 'owner of the event', the spectacle above victory and violence as a spectacle, the importance of broadening the concept of sport to understand MMA was indicated. This study advocates that another process is underway with the entry of the media and the spectacle in the sporting configuration, probably a second sportization.