Description
Book SynopsisCapoeira began as a martial art developed by enslaved Afro-Brazilians. Today, the practice incorporates song, dance, acrobatics, and theatrical improvisationand leads many participants into activism. Lauren Miller Griffith's extensive participant observation with multiple capoeira groups informs her ethnography of capoeiristas--both individuals and groups--in the United States. Griffith follows practitioners beyond their physical training into social justice activities that illuminate capoeira's strong connection to resistance and subversion. As both individuals and communities of capoeiristas, participants march against racial discrimination, celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, organize professional clothing drives for job seekers, and pursue economic and environmental justice in their neighborhoods. For these people, capoeira becomes a type of serious leisure that contributes to personal growth, a sense of belonging, and an overall sense of self, while also imposi
Trade Review“Griffith provides a rich and convincing account of the often surprising connections between the practices, orientations and ‘affective habitus’ of capoeira and social justice struggles. This compelling argument is based on years of ethnographic observant participation and countless hours of interviews with diverse practitioners. The end result is an engaging, highly readable, thoroughly enjoyable, yet always seriously scholarly account of capoeira and its place and work in culture and society--an account that is as surprising, dynamic, and graceful as capoeira itself.”--Paul Bowman, author of
The Invention of Martial Arts: Popular Culture between Asia and AmericaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Making of a Politicized Art
Chapter 2. Social Justice and Resistance as Analytical Frames
Chapter 3. Becoming a Capoeirista
Chapter 4. Capoeira’s Pedagogies of Resistance
Chapter 5. The Capoeira Community
Chapter 6. Group Actions
Chapter 7. Jogue Pra Lá: Individual Applications
Chapter 8. Challenges to the Social Justice Perspective
Chapter 9. Boa Viagem
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
