"This is Where I Built Myself"

In this paper, we present a case study illustrating how martial arts clubs can act as transcultural venues contributing to social integration. We identify taekwondo-dojangs (taekwondo clubs), which comprise practitioners of various ethnicities, religions, genders, and generations, as a ‘transcultural venue’ through which taekwondo practitioners can experience social integration. Interview data with practitioners in three clubs in Wales, UK, are combined with ethnographic contextual field notes from the clubs’ teacher in a thematic analysis. The data illustrate how as a transcultural venue, the taekwondo-dojang enables practitioners to experience a process of transculturation occurring between Korean culture, the practitioners’ cultures and the host culture. This process is enlivened by practices of diversity, inclusivity, and hybridity leading to a transcultural form of social integration. Our study offers an original theoretical development of the concept of the ‘transcultural venue’ and its utility in developing understandings of transculturation, transculturalism, and social integration

Club · Ethnography · Hybridity · Thematic analysis · Transculturation · Doping in Sports · Martial Arts: Techniques, Psychology, and Education · Sports, Gender, and Society