“Being Mean” and “Spazzing Out:” Social Calibration and Gender in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Training

Abstract

This article draws on ethnographic data from a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym to describe “social calibration” as ongoing interstitial work through which actors assess expectations of intensity and adjust their behaviors and dispositions accordingly. It explores two intensity breaches at the gym: “spazzing out” and not “being mean” enough. Using a microsociological lens, it analyses gym members' understandings of, and reactions to, these breaches. This study provides theoretical insight into micro‐interactional processes of social calibration used to negotiate and align intensity levels with prevailing norms, and shows how through these processes practitioners transgress or reinforce gendered expectations. A video abstract is available at: https://bit.ly/Burke2022.

On Doing Concept‐Driven Sociology

“…Many symbolic‐interactionist works today involve developing a set of theoretical ideas related to a specific qualitative research site or community. Recent articles in this journal, for instance, have focused on male former athletes' negotiations of masculinity in relation to brain injuries (Simonetto and Tucsok 2023), the social calibration techniques and gender performances in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training (Burke 2022), and the interactional techniques of gamers that reproduce gender inequalities in gaming (Buyukozturk 2021). Other SI contributions apply existing theory to help explain and interpret a definite empirical problem.…”