To Be Like the Greatest: The Limits and Possibilities of Performing Socially Embodied Difference

This article explores the limits and possibilities of social actors to represent and alter “socially embodied difference” through language and sporting performance. Performative cohesion is contingent on assemblages of colonial domination, racial-gendered hierarchies, and other forms of material and symbolic inequalities. These assemblages result in events where particular forms of socially embodied difference have varying registers within the performative social space. In turn, these varying registers make it possible for some social actors in the boxing world to try to embody something different, even if slightly different. Their efforts can prove revolutionary, go unnoticed, or serve as seeds for future resistance and social change. Beyond sport, this research has implications for our understanding of race, performance, and antiracist advocacy—particularly as these relate to sociohistorical dynamics in North America.