Striking distance: karate as global assemblage and transnational cultural practice

Almost every night, all across the United States, small groups of people who may have nothing more in common than a shared appreciation for the practice of karate gather together in churches, gyms, garages, middle schools, and studios to spend an hour or more focused on their martial art. Most people are familiar with karate as an Asian practice of punching, kicking, and blocking, but it is often overlooked that karate, in its ubiquity and wide recognition, is evidence of the extent to which our lives are affected by globalization—the increasing interconnection and interaction of previously separated communities, across geographical distances and cultural differences. Karate is the result of the movement of people, practices, and ideas, and this research looks at how it is that a martial art developed a century or more ago on the other side of the globe is now made available and remains relevant to people living in the United States of America at the beginning of the 21st century.

Using the concept of global assemblages—the idea that cultural practices or ideologies with widespread or “global” recognition and influence are made up of a mixed collection of discourses, ideas, practices, institutions, and physical bodies tied together by mutual interaction—this dissertation explores how karate practitioners in the United States make use of global and local networks to create ideological, emotional, and behavioral tools and frameworks which they use in their everyday lives. Specifically, a key finding of this study is that karate acts for many of its adherents as a means to push back upon, side-step, or momentarily escape the pressures and anxieties of everyday life. Far from being a relic of the past or a foreign oddity, karate is a vital activity that these adherents use to assist them in navigating their modern world.