Journal articles on the topic 'Cockfight'

The human occurred cockfight as different to those cockfights which are occur naturally like any other traditional game and is governed by some rules with customary ethnic tradition. Though, importance of cockfight varied from place to place and also as time to time. However, in India, in last few decades’ blood sports events like Cockfight have been popularized where animal may harmful during the events. While, most of the time cockfight is closely associated with continuation of ‘ethnic tradition’ and ‘culture’. Cockfight is common in ethnic community like Santal. History of cockfight pointed out that the fight have bottomless outline in rural India especially in tribal communities. However, present study, carried out in a selected village named Foringdanga under Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, India. In the studied village the game cockfight occurred regular basis in every week during winter season. Winter season is the time of the cockfight and during this season the game occurred two days in every week and also occurred in especial holidays like Saraswati Puja, Republic day, Sankranti and so on. The Foringdanga village also dominated by Santal tribes thus the present author select the village as study area and focused on the death-defying game cockfight which arranged and practiced by the the Santals people. In the study area not only the santal tribal people participated; here also participated other caste people. The present study try to demonstrate that one of the scary game is cock-fight where one cock fights against another cock until the death. Where cock-fight is completely illegal but the fight frequently happened during the winter season in an open public place like weekly market, village fair, festival days in rural areas of Paschim Midinipur district of West Bengal. The fight owing with the prohibited in several jurisdictions and to essential ethical selflessness which exclude becoming visibly participative in the present research, therefore, I developed conscious point of view through "observation method" with some case studies. However, the present paper exposed the death-defying views on Cockfight where the fighter cock flow the blood of opposite cocks until unless the victory or defeat. The study also pointed out that Cockfight is a strictly male event that contains socialistic and aggressive where women are not welcome.

AbstractFor more than a century the processes of making academic appointments to Italian universities have regularly made news – bad news. The charges are serious: abuses of professorial power, collusion to fix outcomes in advance, favouritism to loyal followers, tolerance of mediocrity, indifference to scholarly merit. None of the many modifications to the selection rules between 1865 and 2010 has been reckoned effective in extirpating corruption and entrenching meritocracy. Drawing on participant observation of appointment processes in anthropology, I shall question the extent to which they do indeed represent a straightforward example of corruption. In particular, by considering both the formal rules and the academic community which has to use them to reproduce itself, I shall explore the possibility that the practices branded “corrupt” might more often be interpreted as efforts to reward merit rather than as conspiracies to flout it.

The Dove-cooing contest in Thailand began as a leisure activity, the hobby of a particular group of men who found peace, pleasure, and enjoyment in listening to the songs of the singing doves. Some hoped for good luck in raising doves with propitious characteristics. The hobby developed into a sport through the initiative of the Association of Dove Breeders in Thailand. The Association’s encouragement of dove breeding found enthusiastic support from dove lovers in all regions, especially in Southern Thailand where many prize-winning doves came from. The study presents the training and care of doves, selected scenes of the contest, the rules by which the singing doves are judged, and analyzes multiple structural and ideational dynamics involved in the event. Not simply a folk sport, an animal sport in and of itself, the dove-cooing contest is about the dove fancier. But it also transcends the individual. In its national, societal context, the people who organize and participate in the event are more socially and ethnically diverse, more socially aware, and more engaged in the needs of the community. The contest facilitates boundary-crossings: ethnic, social, economic, regional, and international - as diverse groups of dove fanciers enter their prized doves into the arena and hope to be a winner. It is a “deeper play” in the Geertzian sense.

The relationship between the media sports fan and the sporting event closely parallels the position of the ritual participant acting out a mythic celebration. Such identification between the viewer/participant and the event has been characterized as “deep play” by Geertz (1973). However, this fan experience in the modem era is shaped not just by human face-to-face interaction, as was Geertz’s famous Balinese cockfight; instead, a specific media technology and commercial advertising provide the structure through which the public accesses media sports. This study examines grounded data on audience size and composition, advertising, commercial infrastructure and incentives, and other institutional aspects of the political economy of mass-mediated sport. What do cultural and ritual theory contribute to our understanding of the mass-mediated sports experience of today’s “deep fan”?

The following essay explores the use of fiction in ethnographic research. While the concept of fiction as a research methodology is not a new one, most proponents claim that fiction is most useful in the writing of ethnographic data. Despite the gradual acceptance of arts-based methods in ethnography, there still remains a false dichotomy of art and scientific research. This essay contributes to the discussion by arguing that fiction also plays an active role in producing knowledge and truth. To make this argument, the author brings together in conversation scholars of art and literature with social researchers. While multiple examples are illustrated to show how fiction creates knowledge in ethnography, the primary focus will be Clifford Geertz’s (2005) “Notes on a Balinese Cockfight.” The purpose is to demonstrate how fiction can be a means of knowledge production, so long as it is situated in sound research methods.

Bagi masyarakat Hindu, melaksanakan upacara yadnya merupakan bagaian yang tak terpisahkan, baik yang berhubungan dengan pelaksanaan upacara atas nama pribadi, kelompok dadya, maupun desa pakraman. Masyarakat melaksanakan upacara dengan perasaan tulus iklas, murni dan suci sebagai ucapan terimakasih pada Yang Kuasa atas segala rahmatNYA. Suatu hal yang sangat memprihatinkan adalah pelaksanaan upacara yang murni, suci, tulus iklas, dengan tampilan yang sangat artistik, tidak selalu diikuti dengan suasana religius karena upacara tersebut sering dimanfaatkan untuk menunjukan stratifikasi kehidupan sosial di masyarakat, sehingga sering dalam ritual seremonial lebih utama dari religiusnya. Selain itu banyak ritual selalu dibarengi dengan judi tajen yang dimaknai sebagai tabuh rah. Sebuah fenomena, antara ritual yang suci selalu bergandengan dengan gengsi dan judi yang maksiat. Hal ini disebabkan karena pemahaman masyarakat tentang upacara yadnya, tabuh rah dan tajen sangat kurang. Upacara pun tak terhindar dari situasi paradoksal, berada dalam suatu posisi yang sangat sulit, karena upacara yang sangat religius selalu dibarengi dengan gengsi dan judi yang maksiat. Tujuan penciptaan ini adalah untuk memberi pemahaman pada masyarakat bahwa upacara yadnya harus dilaksanakan dengan hati yang tulus iklas dan tidak boleh diikuti dengan judi. Hasil penciptaan ini diharapkan dapat dijadikan studi komparatif bagi seniman dan mahasiswa dalam penciptaan karya seni lebih lanjut.Religious ceremonies are inseparable part of being Balinese Hindus, either those related to personal yadnya rites, dadya groups, or desa pakraman. Various ritual facilities are attractively and beautifully displayed, expressing the beauty of those offerings as well as sincere, pure and sacred feeling. What concerns us most is that the supposedly sacred rituals that are held with sincere and pure feelings are not always meant to be purely religious activities. It could be because such rituals are held to show off social status; therefore ceremonial aspects are more dominant than the religious ones. In fact, more often than not, tajen cockfights accompany the rituals construed as tabuh rah: a phenomenon that combines sacred rituals with a show off and immoral gambling. The reason has been the lack in understanding of the rituals: tabuh rah and tajen. Here lies a difficult paradox: the sacred religious rites have always been accompanied by a show off and immoral cockfight as gambling. The creation of this sculpture work is intended to give bettors (or bobotohs) an understanding that the rituals should be held with sincerity and not using them for gambling. The creation is expected to serve the purpose of comparative studies on further creation sculptural works.

Abstract The catch per unit of effort (CPUE) data of cockfish, Callorhinchus callorynchus, during 1986-2011 was evaluated for the bottom trawl fishery of the San Matías gulf (Patagonia, Argentina). The objective of this work was to detect what are the factors related to fishery dynamic that affect catch rate of cockfish and to assess standardized CPUE by General linear models (GLMs) and General linear mixed models (GLMMs) as a relative abundance index. The annual trend of the catch rate indicated an increase during the evaluated period. The nominal CPUE and the indices standardized by the Delta-GLM and Delta-GLMM showed the same annual trend, with increases of 57%, 61.1% and 60.7%, respectively. The LogNormal models have the best-fit model and explained 23.5% of the total variability. The factors year, month, depth and hake CPUE explained the highest variability. The analysis of the models indicated that the catch rate of cockfish is subject to the lack of an homogeneous distribution of the fishing effort during different years, months and vessels. This was related to the fleet dynamic searching the targets species. The increasing trend of CPUE and landings would be indicating an increase in effort directionality to the cockfish in the last decade.

Morphology of the main digestive features of cockfish, Callorhinchus callorhynchus, is described and linked to feeding habits. Composition of the diet and size-selective foraging of this species on scallops was studied in northern Patagonian waters and analysed in relation to depth, sex and size. Three species of bivalve molluscs (Pitar rostratus, Aequipecten tehuelchus and Ennucula puelcha) and flabelligerid polychaetes were predominant in the diet of males. The scallop Zygochlamys patagonica dominated the diet of females. The diet of juveniles consisted of small gastropods (Olivella sp.), bivalves with fragile shells (e.g. Pandora cistula), amphipods and polychaetes. Differences in food composition between sexes and between juveniles and adults are attributed to two factors: extrinsic (concerning prey availability) and intrinsic (concerning the morphology and behaviour of the predator). Size-selective foraging on two species of scallops, Aequipecten tehuelchus (subject to commercial fishing) and Zygochlamys patagonica, was found in adults; it is argued that maximum scallop prey size is constrained by the strength of the crushing apparatus of the cockfish. The diet of the cockfish is compared with that of other holocephalans. It is concluded that species of Callorhinchus can be generally characterized as benthic foragers that specialize in crushing shelled invertebrate prey.

This research aims to compare the story of Ciung Wanara (West Java) and Cindelaras (East Java). In addition to comparing the two stories, this study also explores the cultural values contained in each story. The research applies a qualitative method with comparison technique and content analysis. A comparative study uses an analysis of one literature with another, or comparing literature with other field of art. The result of the research shows that, despite being similar, the cultural background causes the two stories to have differences. A folktale has a cultural tradition inherent to the habit undertaken by the society in which the story develops. In the Ciung Wanara story, there is a tradition of cockfights, naming babies based on natural events, and belief in mythology. While in the story of Cindelaras, besides having the same things, we also find the representation of culture, especially the image of the king’s mistress as instead of the queen.

In 2014 in Guasipati, an agricultural and cattle town in Southeastern Venezuela, I witnessed a group of men of all generations who staged themselves through the orgasmic rite of cockfights. In Geertz's famous ethnography of cockfighting in Bali, the ‘irrationality’ of betting appears at first as surprising. But cockfighting is a game that dramatizes status and tests group solidarity, it is a measure of moral import and of meaning. This photographic record of masculinities at play in cockfighting builds on Geertz’ interpretation. The images were taken in the gallera (cockpit) of Guasipati during a clandestine night. It is here that the participating men engage in a form of capitalist communication that directly questions the Bolivarian Revolution. Many are workers within socialist enterprises, and they tremendously enjoy this illegal and transgressive activity. Within this space, the patterns of exchange become competitive and inscribed in subterranean capitalist circuits, evoking a symbolism of masculine power disputes (who is a man and who not) vis-à-vis the prohibitions of socialism. It is here that illegal enrichment that serves as a source and mark of status within the state controlled economy is effectively played out. Behind the individual and collective euphoria seen in the photographs, there are even more euphoric social tensions of betting and status at work.

Abstract Pigeon shoots are examples of "contested traditions" that invite comparison with other controversial spectacles of killing animals, such as cockfights and dogfights. In the United States during the late twentieth century, mass protests of America’s largest public pigeon shoot occurred in Hegins, Pennsylvania. This article offers a folkloristic perspective on the contested tradition by analyzing how the protest rhetorically served to present tradition as a "problem" in the ethical modernization of society. The clash between animal rights protestors and supporters of the shoot became a moral drama based on a clash of rural and cosmopolitan values in modern America that derives from fundamentally different views of human dominion over the land and its creatures. The interpretation of the event hinges on a semiotic layering that takes into ethnographic consideration the different meanings of symbols for various participants in the event. Compromise became impossible in controversies over pigeon shoots because the sides perceived symbols so differently. For protestors, the shooters represented predatory, phallocentric rapists who promoted violence for its own sake, whereas, for supporters, they symbolized a pioneer and biblical heritage based on human dominion over the bountiful land. For protestors, the process of the ritualized shoot perpetuated cycles of abuse and patriarchy; for protestors, it acted to regenerate the land, confirming the wholesomeness of agrarianism. The pigeons could be symbolized as profane, dirty pests or sacred doves of peace. The widely publicized controversy implied larger questions, and fundamental conflicts in America, about the role of tradition in modernity.

El autor estudia cómo estaban constituidos los circuitos o redes de comunicación en la Provincia de Cartagena en la década de los treinta del siglo diecinueve; periodo durante el cual la política aparecía mediada por un conjunto de prácticas y vivencias propias del entorno provincial y vecinal. Más que una opinión pública, en sentido moderno, las redes componían sistemas de comunicación oral, escrita e impresa que terminaban siendo determinantes en la legitimación de las instituciones y el poder local. Unos sitios y entornos específicos (una fiesta, una parranda, una gallera, la tropa, el aula de clases) y unos medios (el chisme, la conversación, el libelo, el pasquín, el periódico) servían a la recepción y reelaboración de la política en la provincia. La “bulla”, los “ruidos públicos” y el “desorden” son entendidos como formas prácticas de participación en la vida política. La articulación de los diferentes espacios y formas de comunicación fue un hecho fundamental para una sociedad en la que la impresión y la escritura eran determinantes en el acceso a la representación política.Palabras clave: Circuitos de comunicación, correspondencia, impresos, “ruidos públicos”, participación política. Politics from the communication network in Cartagena Province, 1830-1839 AbstractThe author studies how the communication networks in Cartagena Provice were composed during the 30s years in the 19th century, a period in which politics was influenced by the local milieu experiences. More than a public opinion, in modern terms, networks used to establish oral, written and printed communication systems which had an important influence on institutions and local power establishing. Some specific places and environments (a party, to be out on the town, a gallera[1],thw gang, the classroom) and some media (the gossip, the conversation, the libelous article, the rag, the newspaper) used to be for receiving and re-elaborating the politics within Cartagena Province. The “noise”, the “public noises” and the “disorder” are understood as practical ways for participating in politics. The connection of the different moments with the communication ways was a vital fact for a society in which printing and writing were deciding for accessing to politics representation.Keywords: Communication Networks, Mail, Printed, “Public Noises”, Politics Participation.[1] A “Gallera” is a round arena, usually carpeted, with tribunes and chairs overlooking, where cockfights take place.

The subject. The article analyzes the arguments of the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil, used in the consideration of disputes concerning animal rights, in comparison with the developments of theorists in this field.The purpose of the article is to justify the necessity of respect for the rights of animals and the “animal dignity” by the courts.The methodology includes formal-legal analysis of courts’ decisions, comparative-legal analysis and synthesis as well as formal-logical analysis of scientific researches in the field of animal rights.The main results and scope of application. It is wrong to claim that the Brazilian Supreme Court decision in “Vaquejada” case (or even in “Farra do Boi” or cockfights cases) would be an increase in the process of a supposed recognition of animal rights in the Brazilian constitutional jurisdiction. In such cases, most of the Judges who participated in the trial pondered and reinforced the prevalence of environmental law, including it wildlife protection (and non-submission of the animals to cruelty), pursuant to Art. 225, § 1, VII, of the Brazilian Constitution. In this way, it would have been disregarded the categorical difference between environmental law and animal rights. The Constitution itself encourages confusion between those categories when dealing with the prohibition of animal cruelty in a chapter on the environment (chap. VI). This article argues that the focus on the statement of environmental law, the Supreme Court allows them to be strengthened arguments considered as obstacles to the defenders of animal rights, particularly the anthropocentric argument that the balanced environment is important to make possible to human beings more quality of life. Analyzing the decisions, especially in of Vaquejada and Farra do Boi cases, it appears that points many important analyzed in the theoretical debate about animal rights, such as the notions of “animal dignity” and “flourishing life” are totally neglected. The article uses widely the arguments presented by Martha Nussbaum in her text Beyond “Compassion and humanity”: Justice for Nonhuman Animals, particularly to show that the approach of “capabilities” developed by it can provide a better theoretical orientation of the approaches Kantian contractualism and utilitarianism to the animal rights, mainly because it is able to recognize the breadth of the concept of “animal dignity”. It is considered that the central point to be faced in order to recognize the rights of animals is the one raised by the High Court of Kerala in the case of Nair v. India Union (June 2000), which Nussbaum highlights as the epigraph of the her text: “Therefore, it is not only our fundamental duty to show compassion to our animal friends, but also to recognize and protect their rights [...] If human beings have a right to fundamental rights, why not animals?”.Conclusions. Understanding the prohibition of animal abuse as a measure of environmental protection for the benefit of present and future generations is incorrect and does not take into account the basic principles that form the core of animal rights.Brazilian law will go a long way towards protecting animal rights when (and if) it expressly recognizes that animals (at least some of them) are creatures created for a decent existence”; when, for example, it permits the trial of habeas corpus filed in favour of a bull locked up in a farm or slaughterhouse.

Esta é uma etnografia sobre brigas de galos realizadas no litoral norte da Paraíba, Brasil – região caracterizada pelo contato interétnico entre indígenas Potiguara e a população não indígena. Tais rinhas ocorrem dentro e fora da área indígena, o que faz dessa pesquisa um exercício antropológico de compreensão de uma situação limite, que envolve clandestinidade e fronteira étnica. Como, então, se configura a interação entre índios e não índios num evento ritual masculino, ilegal, marcado pelo enfrentamento simbólico e que tem animais não humanos enquanto personagens centrais? Para responder essa questão, tomo a abordagem da “antropologia da performance” como filtro epistêmico e metodológico, e analiso as rinhas com o intuito de compreender e descrever quais rotinas, cenários, personagens e conflitos estão implicados nessa prática. Tendo em vista que os galistas (nativos) encaram a briga de galos como um esporte em que o galo é o atleta e os humanos são seus treinadores, apoio-me nesse trinômio nativo para interpretar tal atividade.Palavras-chave: Animais humanos e não humanos. Masculinidade. Contato interétnico. Esporte. Antropologia da performance.Cookfights in the northern coast of Paraíba: performances in a sport interethnic AbstractThis is an ethnography about cockfights held in the northern coast of Paraiba, Brazil - region characterized by interethnic contact between Potiguara indigenous and non-indigenous population. These cockfights occur inside and outside the indigenous area, which makes this research an anthropological exercise understanding of an extreme situation, which involves hiding and ethnic border. How then configures the interaction between Indians and non-Indians in a male ritual event, illegal, marked by symbolic confrontation and has non-human animals as central characters? To answer this question, I take the approach of "anthropology of performance" as epistemic and methodological filter and analyze cockfights in order to understand and describe what routines, sets, characters and conflicts are involved in this practice. Considering that the native people perceive the cockfight as a sport in which the cock is an athlete and the humans are its coaches, support this trinomial (sport, athlete and coach) to interpret this activity.Keywords: Human and non-human animals. Masculinity. Contact interethnic. Sport. Anthropology of performance.

ABSTRACT The feeding habits of Callorhinchus callorynchus were investigated in coastal waters off northern Argentina. The effect of body size, seasons and regions was evaluated on female diet composition using a multiple-hypothesis modelling approach. Callorhinchus callorynchus fed mainly on bivalves (55.61% PSIRI), followed by brachyuran crabs (10.62% PSIRI) and isopods (10.13% PSIRI). Callorhinchus callorynchus females showed changes in the diet composition with increasing body size and also between seasons and regions. Further, this species is able to consume larger bivalves as it grows. Trophic level was 3.15, characterizing it as a secondary consumer. We conclude that C. callorynchus showed a behavior of crushing hard prey, mainly on bivalves, brachyuran, gastropods and anomuran crabs. Females of this species shift their diet with increasing body size and in response to seasonal and regional changes in prey abundance or distribution.

ABSTRACT The cockfish, Callorhinchus callorynchus, is a widely distributed holocephalan in the south-western Atlantic and an important resource for Argentinean fisheries. The reproductive characteristics of this species were studied in northern Argentinean coastal waters, where specimens arrive seasonally (winter-spring). Sexual dimorphism in maximum precaudal length (PCL) and total body mass (TM) was found, being females (PCL=630 mm; TM=3330 g; n=167) larger and heavier than males (PCL=482 mm; TM=1630 g; n=19). Maturity size for females was 466.22 mm PCL, representing 74% PCL of the largest female sampled. The mean number of ovarian follicles was 8.37 (± 4.84). The highest values of ovarian follicles diameter, gonadosomatic and oviducalsomatic indices were found in spring. A high proportion of mature females (44%) had atretic ovarian follicles, suggesting that they were in the resting stage of their reproductive cycle. The low number of mature males recorded and the absence of mature females with spermatophore masses or egg cases indicate that the study area would not be a reproductive zone. The seasonal presence of C. callorynchus in this region could be related to trophic movements. These results, obtained in an area with high fishing pressure on chondrichthyans, will be useful for implementing conservation and management measures.

Metaphors of 'game' and 'play' are increasingly popular in academic writing, partly because games themselves are becoming increasingly important to media experience, and partly because something in the 'game' idea seems to describe the post-modern experience. However, the metaphor sometimes forgets what games can be like in practice. What I want to do, then, is go a round or two with the term, to question what the metaphor invokes. Round I: 'Game'? Games are played on a dedicated field -- a board, a screen, a playing-ground -- which is marked off so that in some sense it becomes a separate 'space', Huizinga's "magic circle". Play begins, and then, Huizinga argues, it is over, its effects lost (13). Players choose to play, agreeing to arbitrary rules controlling the game 'world'; goals and penalties are agreed in advance. Thus the gameworld provides an oasis of order in a chaotic, unruly world (Huizinga again); despite (sometimes) volumes of rules, games themselves are less complex and more clearly defined than "the casual and confused reign of everyday existence" (Berger, qtd. in Holquist 122). The sanctity of the game-space offers something more than mere order. The construction of order through arbitrary rules temporarily dissolves the significance of the outside world. Players concentrate wholly on the game -- on the dice or the puck or the pawn; good gameplay (to use Banks's expression) makes you forget yourself and the passage of time, not operating consciously but going with the flow. Play, writes Csikszentmihalyi, "is going. It is what happens after all the decisions are made -- when 'let's go' is the last thing one remembers" (45). It is a difficult state to attain but it seems valuable, from academia's overly rationalistic perspective, to get out of our heads and let some other sense drive for a while. Games engage different senses. Players use skills not ordinarily valued, striving for self-fulfilling perfection. Mundane time is linear, but games are full of diversionary, goal-deferring loops -- "the movement which is play has no goal which brings it to an end; rather it renews itself in constant repetition" (Gadamer 93). Gameplay is unpredictable; it shuttles back and forth, unsettled, dynamic, open to chance. You cannot surely predict the outcome. And then you play again. We like, too, the superficiality of games. They are useless, wilfully inefficient, pursued solely for the pleasures they provide. Games can be seen as representative -- of power struggles, of unspeakable impulses -- but the action is distanced from the self. Imbued in an (in)animate piece or a disguised self, games license performance, freedom from the mundane self. Most importantly, game goals aren't 'really' important; we don't 'really' care; "no chains of causes and effects, means and ends, are supposed to connect the isolated area of play with the real world or ordinary life (Riezler 511). Thus, reasons the theorist, the gameworld is a privileged space. Having freely chosen to play and consented to pre-determined constraints, players slip the controlling lead of the superego in pursuit of mastery. Difficult impulses are exorcised -- cathartically, if you like -- in the safety of the gamespace, the temporary "otherwhere" of experience where nothing really matters; no lives are actually sacrificed; no deaths are permanent; no loss is irreversible. Games are interactive, simultaneously controlled and risky. If one excels, one is celebrated; if one loses -- ah well, it was only a game. Afterwards it ceases to matter: handshakes all round and down to the pub. Or so the theorists tell us. Round II: The Magic Circle My brother and his friends liked to play Skirmish. But afterwards, they were stiff and sore, with bruises lasting for months or longer. Players are regularly injured, permanently maimed, or even killed while playing those games we call 'sport'. True, you might forget yourself while playing, but what about afterwards? The embodiedness of players -- the constancy of muscle memory, bruises and scars -- imprints lasting effects on minds and flesh, inextricably binding the game world to the mundane. Besides physical injuries, however, are the continuity of memory and the excess of feelings (affect). Games, after all, are played by people, "who only indirectly and ambiguously share in the perfect order of their games" (Holquist 115), stuck as we are with irrational feelings. Losers feel sore, disgruntled; someone else has proven cleverer or faster or trickier; they never quite got in the flow; it wasn't fun. So when Stephenson writes, "play is enjoyed, no matter who wins" (46) -- well, no. People sulk, they cry, they become vengeful: people don't like losing -- witness the origins of football hooliganism. Perhaps the cost of being rationally detached from the outcome of a game, of leaving the mundane, ratiocinatic world behind, is an irrational, affective investment that sometimes matters when it shouldn't. To describe games as discrete, then, assumes that people are disembodied, completely rational and extremely forgetful: these are the only terms under which gameplay can be "detached". Huizinga and Caillois posit such players when they describe games as 'separate', 'unproductive', 'unreal'. They let the metaphor take over, mistaking form for practice. Somewhat extremely, Gadamer argues, "the real subject of the game ... is not the player, but instead the game itself" (95). No game, however, exists prior to or without players, and no players are free from the 'irrational' of their bodies and senses. Round III: Representation John Banks's "Controlling Gameplay" reminds us of the 'other senses' invoked in play. Games, he argued, are never simply representational. Gameplay is a forward momentum, engrossing and unselfconscious. He was right, but I want to recall, momentarily, the representativeness of games. It is, after all, partly their commitment to symbols that makes people willing to (be) hurt in a game, even to risk their lives. Besides the irrational commitment to the symbol engendered by the affective gameworld, is the representational content. The violence debate hinges around the detachment of the gameworld: theorists argue that in gamespace, it's 'not real; we're 'just playing'; "things within this area mean what we order them to mean. They are cut off from their meanings in the so-called real world or ordinary life" (Riezler 511). The game frame theoretically negates commitment to content and underlying meanings (see Bologh). Fink reminds us, though, that content always draws on the world of experience: it "is always partly, but never wholly, the creation of fantasy. It always has to do with real objects [or ideas], which fantasy transforms into play objects" (qtd. in Anchor 92). Hodge and Tripp argue that, although play modality undermines or inverts meanings, symbols retain their mundane meaning: "the surface content of the image coexists as part of the content. An image of violence is still an image of violence, and viewers who enjoy it are still endorsing those impulses in themselves" (117). Games invoke the imaginary, the symbolic and the sensual in ways beyond ordinary 'consciousness', but that never makes it insignificant. Memory and affect again. Structural anthropology provides ample evidence that games represent society (see, for example, Cheska). Clifford Geertz showed how games structurally reflect (often backwards) the values of a society. The game, he argued, reminds players of the overlap between their own and their society's values (27). Thus games function as social ritual (see Bakhtin, Caillois or Huizinga). But ritual, Handelman shows, is "how society should be" (189) -- in which case he is arguing that society should be ordered, rigidly rule-bound, oriented towards arbitrary goals and values, competitive, and simplistically representational. People -- and indeed, existence -- are complex, messy, defiant and irrational. "Not recognising the bounds between stylised game and causal reality is to do violence to the complexity of existence" (Holquist 121). Round IV: Structure Another remove from content, is structure. In Western society games are agonistic. Huizinga explicitly argued that their value lay in striving for glory over one's fellows, in proving oneself superior: that is what winning is. Although theorists now value the process more than the goals, gameplay nevertheless consists in trying to beat your opponent. Games are about conquest. Even those games featuring teamwork only require cooperation to vanquish opponents -- to inflict on them the humiliation, disappointment and (however infinitesimally) diminished social status that inevitably accompany losing. Moreover, there are hierarchies within teams. A good point guard is never as well paid as a good forward; the Dungeon Master or GM determines the 'fate' of the other players. Just as players and teams are hierarchised, so are leagues, reflecting Western society's valorisation of hierarchy. Many must be conquered for the individual to triumph. While players may freely accede to rules, they don't decide them -- they are governed conservatively. Rules may evolve organically but become reified, regulated top-down, detailed knowledge itself becoming a source of hierarchical authority. Game rules are not folk-knowledge; they are dictated, published, refereed: another source of contest. Time The game metaphor has its uses. Certainly what happens when one disappears or is lost in gameplay is worth serious attention. But to pretend that games are microcosmic, free, without affect, effect or meaning, and that they end with the final bell, is to forget the player, who lives on in the society reflected by the game. References Anchor, Robert. "History and Play: Johan Huizinga and his Critics." History and Theory 17 (1966): 63-93. Banks, John. "Controlling Gameplay." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 1.5 (1998). 15 Oct. 2000 <http://www.api-network.com/mc/9812/game.php>. Bologh, Roslyn Wallach. 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Hodge, Robert, and David Tripp. Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach. Cambridge: Polity, 1986. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Trans. anonymous. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949 [1944]. Riezler, Kurt. "Play and Seriousness." The Journal of Philosophy. 38 (1941): 507-17. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Rebecca Farley. "Game." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.5 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/game.php>. Chicago style: Rebecca Farley, "Game," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 5 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/game.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Rebecca Farley. (2000) Game. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(5). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/game.php> ([your date of access]).