Magnus E N S T R Ö M Stenius | Stockholm University (original) (raw)

Staging the Arena in Mixed Martial Arts by Magnus E N S T R Ö M Stenius

Papers by Magnus E N S T R Ö M Stenius

Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2015

Men and Masculinities, 2015

This article is about the relativley new combat sport mixed martial arts (MMA). The focus is on h... more This article is about the relativley new combat sport mixed martial arts (MMA). The focus is on how the practice emerged and, how it was developed over time. most of all, however, it is centering o ...

”I buren ar man helt fri” : MMA ar den utskallda sporten som blivit en av Sveriges storsta publik... more ”I buren ar man helt fri” : MMA ar den utskallda sporten som blivit en av Sveriges storsta publiksucceer. Vad ar MMA och hur kommer det sig att det till synes raa och hansynslosa valdet fascinerar sa manga?

International Journal of Martial Arts, 2015

In this paper I present the starting of my ethnographic fieldwork. By giving an account of the re... more In this paper I present the starting of my ethnographic fieldwork. By giving an account of the researcher being aware of the researchers own position, fieldwork can be doubled up and thus contribut ...

Shoot-fighting, bodies in emotional pain : a translocal study in masculine gendering of violence,... more Shoot-fighting, bodies in emotional pain : a translocal study in masculine gendering of violence, aggression and control

The International Journal of Combat Martial Arts and Sciences Icmaua, 2013

Based on participant observation in a mixed martial arts club, this article analyzes the concept ... more Based on participant observation in a mixed martial arts club, this article analyzes the concept of cultural performativity in mixed martial arts (MMA) in relation to the ancient sport of pankratio ...

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2013

This paper starts with an actual reaserch report on MMA, to describe how the sport is situated an... more This paper starts with an actual reaserch report on MMA, to describe how the sport is situated and framed within the community as such being staged, artificial and yet authentic. Leading concept fo ...

Nordic Theatre Studies, 2011

Actors of Violence: Staging the Arena in Mixed Martial Arts Through ethnographic participation in... more Actors of Violence: Staging the Arena in Mixed Martial Arts Through ethnographic participation in a Swedish mixed martial arts club, this article investigates the interrelationship between theatre ...

Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2015

This article explores the sensuous experience of full contact fighting through ethnographic resea... more This article explores the sensuous experience of full contact fighting through ethnographic research in mixed martial arts clubs. Presenting its first card in 1993 in Denver, Colorado, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) stunned martial artists while thrilling and frightening spectators. Mixed martial arts (MMA) is an evolving combat sport pitting elite athletes trained in a variety of combat arts against each other in the " Octagon ". Contestants are permitted to kick, punch, elbow and knee as well as use grappling submission techniques to defeat opponents. Despite criticism, supporters claim that the efficiency of non-violent grappling techniques has made MMA much safer than boxing, where fighters absorb repeated blows to the head. As the sport developed, fighters adjusted their bodies in order to better utilize the positional and tactical techniques that proved more successful than brute force. The mediated representation of fighting revealed that despite of being in a state of rage, MMA was a technically challenging sport based on the sublime performance of participant's bodies. However, MMA remains the subject of debate in popular culture and the media, and medical expertise argues that the sport is dangerous and puts participants in harm´s way. On the other hand, proponents of the sport argue that health risks are overstated and that other, far less safe sports exist. The aim of this article is to scrutinize fighters as well as the opinions of media and the medical humanities in order to achieve an overview of the image of this combat sport. Convinced that the debate needs to be more nuanced, this paper examines how MMA

Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2015

Men and Masculinities, 2015

International Journal of Martial Arts, 2015

The International Journal of Combat Martial Arts and Sciences Icmaua, 2013

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2013

Nordic Theatre Studies, 2011

Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2015

Kulturella Perspektiv Svensk Etnologisk Tidskrift, 2014

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a sport on the rise within the field of martial arts in which competi... more Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a sport on the rise within the field of martial arts in which competitors fight in a cage and utilize full-contact movements using their fists, elbows, and knees as well as kicks, other strikes, and submission techniques to defeat their opponents. MMA has become a modern social movement in combat sports that has become globalized in a short time and is the fastest growing sport in the world.
MMA encompasses disciplines from various martial arts and Olympic sports such as boxing, kickboxing, karate, kempo, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, tae kwon do, wrestling, sambo, judo, etc. The rounds are five minutes in length and there are typically three rounds in a contest, unless it is a championship fight in which case the contest lasts five rounds.
The aim of this study is to analyze the bodily constructions and productions within the MMA culture and especially the constructed human violence associated with the sport. Based on autoethnographic participation in three Swedish MMA clubs, as well as shorter fieldwork case studies conducted in Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Brazil, and the US, this thesis investigates the interrelationship between MMA, excitement, sensationalism, and the spectacular physical violence that stains the participants’ bodies.
Concepts taken from performance ethnography are applied to an analysis of what is reconstructed bodily. This is followed by an analysis that attempts to outline what body-violence means and how this understanding of the informants’ bodies, as well as of the researcher’s body-knowledge, reconstructs the definitions of MMA.
A phenomenological approach to the concept of fighting is also included in relation to the MMA landscape. Thus, I present how the body learns the cultural enactments in fighting and how these forces shape the fighters’ gender, habitus, and way of resisting the discourse of critical opinions on MMA practice.
Moreover, in trying to grasp the inner sense of MMA, I argue that the physical phenomenon of MMA is dependent on an intersubjective engagement and on the control of one’s inner coordination, which teaches a fighter how to deal with power, pain, suffering, aggression, and adrenaline flows.
Keywords: abject, adrenaline, anthropology, athletes, autoethnography, body, combat arts, culture, desire, embodied, enculturation, ethnology, fieldwork, field-making, flow, fighting, full-contact, gender, harm, homosociality, intercultural, interobject, intersubjectivity, martial arts, materiality, masculinity, MMA, method, pain, personal, performance, performativity, phenomenology, pleasure, posthuman, postmodern, power, ritual, risk-taking, rush, self-reflexive, sportive, sport, stained, struggle, suffering, thrill, UFC, violence.

Magnus Stenius , 2021

This essay is focused on two coastal cairn areas located at the Gulf of Bothnia just south of Ume... more This essay is focused on two coastal cairn areas located at the Gulf of Bothnia just south of Umeå in Västerbotten County. Located between 30 – 50 m above sea level today they are thus removed several km from the shoreline due to land uplift and isostatic processes stemming from the last Ice Age. The cairns have been dated to approximately 1700 – 1500 BC at the beginning of the older Scandinaviean Bronze Age, but several strong evidence that are presented in this study is indicating that many of them are older than that dating to the late Neolithic instead – such as a round morphological shape surrounded by a brim of stones and large cists in the middle. Furthermore, the cairns are situated in an environment that mostly are inhabited by a sub-boreal milieu consisting of deciduous forest with some elements of coniferous forest and surrounded by raised shingle beaches. In trying to grasp after ancient settlement indications this paper thesis also analyzes traits after their whereabouts in the past in relationship to the existing cairns along the VästerbottenCounty’s shoreline. In doing this a GIS-analysis is applied in a Deulauney-cluster comparison. Two of the cairns, one located highest above all other cairns in Norrmjöle is being scrutinized as a “mother cairn” and the other cairn is long, almost formed as a ship and discussed in its symbolic meaning. By doing so, the cairns are also seen in a possible way of being ancient territory land-areas, marking to outsiders to keep out, and may also have been an intricate signal-system, to i.e., be lit in times of harmful situations coming from the sea or by land. The cairns are thus mitigated and seen in relationship with otherplaces in Sweden, namely Tjust area in Bohuslän county, and the resemblances of cairns at Gotland and Öland Islands. Finally, the Finnish Kiukais-axe (Eastern Karelien crossedged chisel) found in close terrain, as well as other findings from Bronze-age to a cluster of cairns dated to 2000 BC, is being investigated as a possibility of an alien southeastern affect in the area in late Neolithic times from Southern Sweden and Österbotten County in Fennoscandia, hence making the territory evaluated in many directions. The paper therefore tries to set the ancient landscape in a context in between these factors and give aholistic overview to interpreted cairn and its ancient meaning patterns in the region, seen in these regional circumstances to unlock its potential settlements hiding. Hence, getting a political, cosmologic and a maritime understanding and whereabouts in relationship to Late-Neolithic times in the area.