Anastacia is a saint-like figure in Brazil and is depicted as a beautiful ... the worshipping of Anastacia, allow participants to become part of an intense community ...
Will Hotopf
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3681.1288/1
Capoeira and Brasilidade: an Uneasy Relationship
Introduction
Minha Bahia
My Bahia
Berço da cultura brasileira
Cradle of Brazilian culture
E também da capoeira
And also of capoeira
Olha eu vou na Bahia
Look I’ll go to Bahia1
Over the past fifty years, capoeira, along with other Afro-Brazilian arts and events such as samba and the infamous carnaval [carnival], has, somewhat ironically, become synonymous with Brazilian national identity. Numerous scholarly accounts point to capoeira becoming a major representative of Brazil in the global context (see Robitaille 2007; Stephens & Delamont 2014). Indeed, with the phenomenal increase of overseas interest in capoeira, it has become a tool for promoting brasilidade [Brazilian identity]. This was evidenced in 2008, when capoeira was recognised by the Brazilian government as part of the country’s cultural patrimony (Green 2009). This interest has resulted in huge publicity, ranging from the memorable BBC1 ident, featuring capoeiristas [capoeira players] playing to the backdrop of St. Pauls Cathedral (Stephens & Delamont 2008), to calls for capoeira to become the new Olympic sport of 2012 (Nichols 2012). The capoeira boom can be attributed to the ‘exoticism’ that capoeira holds in the eyes of the global audience, with Brazil evoking “an exotic land of sensual and embodied pleasures” (Robitaille 1
Brigham, M. 2006. Capoeira Song Compendium Version 1.0. Start Playing Capoeira.
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2010: 8). In a similar vein to the global boom in tango in the 1920’s and 30’s, discussed in Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (Savigliano 1995), the association of both arts with a Latin American nation bequeaths them an unparalleled Latin exoticism. However, unlike tango, carnaval or samba, the relationship between capoeira and the state is of a far more ambiguous nature than is apparent at first glance. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian cultural art and was created by African slaves in the Bahia region of Brazil as a resistance against the Brazilian slave society of the epoch (Talmon-Chvaicer 2002). Due its past schizophrenic relationship with the state, both outlawed and celebrated, capoeira has always had an ambiguous relationship with its country of origin. Wesolowski (2012) suggests through her article, which focuses on a process of debates regarding the institutionalisation of capoeira in Brazil, that there is a major discord between capoeira mestres [masters] and the Brazilian state about what capoeira is: is it Brazilian, or is it ‘capoeira’? In this dissertation I draw upon this discussion, aiming to pick apart and unfold the ambiguities inherent in capoeira, positing the simple directing/guiding question: is capoeira an accurate cultural representation of Brazil? Through discussion and analysis of capoeira’s history, teaching and ethics, I demonstrate that capoeira, rather than serving as a faithful representation of Brazil, is instead a confrontation. Capoeira is a critique and resistance to the rhetoric of brasilidade, even as it simultaneously deploys Brazilian imagery overseas to gain a more global audience. Ultimately, I show that capoeira still occupies a discordant position within society as a counter-culture of state resistance, which facilitates and renegotiates an alternative understanding of brasilidade. First addressing the history of capoeira, I juxtapose this with a discussion of the democracia racial [racial democracy], a term coined by Brazil’s first ‘native’ anthropologist Gilberto Freyre (1956). The adaption of racial democracy by the Brazilian state and its then President-cumDictator Getúlio Vargas (1930-45, 1951-54) is fundamental to understanding the uneasy relationship between capoeira and state. I shall then focus on capoeira and its corporeal practice. This is done through studying the capoeira body as a cultural phenomenon, in particular the
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embodiment of two traits, named malícia and malandragem, via mimetic practice. These traits allow the player to better navigate the inherent racial and social based constraints and limitations rendered invisible by the racial democracy that the Brazilian state so dogmatically adheres to. I then address the importance of the capoeira community in Brazil, drawing influence from Gledhill’s notion of apolitical forms of resistance within the context of neo-liberalism (Gledhill 2006). From this discussion, I claim that capoeira constitutes one of the myriad choices that neoliberal citizens have at their disposal to create an alternative community, and, in the process, to change the underlying contours of hegemony. To conclude, the Brazilian capoeira community seeks, through an alternative understanding of Brazil, to critique the State, and in so doing, to constitute the community that Brazil pertains to – and could – be.
Reading Review There is a surprising wealth of anthropological studies on capoeira, of which two, Downey (2005), and Lewis (1992), are recurrent references in almost every article on the subject. Both these ground-breaking studies set the foundation for many subsequent ethnographies (Rosenthal 2007), and are filled with thick description and analysis of the internal functions of capoeira. However, whilst both books focus on reading the corporeality of capoeira, Lewis concentrates on analysing the interior meaning of it, whilst Downey focuses on the effects of the art on a player’s external world. Talmon-Chvaicer (2007) is pivotal for a comprehensive understanding of capoeira’s history, and Bourdieu’s seminal work on the habitus (1977) is crucial for an understanding of embodiment. Marx (1998) gives a strong and convincing overview of both the founding of the idea of racial democracy, and its failure to result in an equal society. Gledhill (2006), is vital for an understanding of the importance of apolitical forms of resistance and community within the modern, neo-liberal Brazilian context. With the exception of the aforementioned Wesolowski (2012), and Robitaille (2007), who focuses on capoeira and brasilidade in the international sphere, there is little anthropological work specifically on the ‘uneasy relationship’ that capoeira possesses
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with Brazil. This is surprising, given that almost all works refer to the inherent element of resistance within the art, which is often referred to by ethnographers and capoeiristas alike as a “a theatre of liberation” (Fryer 2000: 27). This gap is precisely where I will base my discussion.
Methodology The research for this dissertation, though overwhelmingly from literary sources, was also conducted through several interviews. I am currently a member of the capoeira group MQFSM – Menino Quem Foi Sue Mestre2, and have done several interviews with my mestre, Boneco. These were conducted through informal conversation without set questions, and recorded with a dictaphone. Boneco is a Brazilian, from the city Fortaleza, and has practiced capoeira since the age of six. As a corporeal art form so often described as a “body dialogue” (Wesolowski 2007: 42), my own understanding of five years’ worth of training and the subsequent embodied learning has, I believe, been crucial to this dissertation. I have studied capoeira under three different mestres, each in different locations: London, Brighton and Quebec City (Canada). Portuguese words are italicised with an explanation provided initially, and recurrent words feature in a glossary (Appendix A). Ladainhas [songs/litanies] are essential to capoeira, as they not only make the jogo [the game], but are also an oral record of both rituals and the history in capoeira. They are therefore used to break up the essay and as a verbal resource. All ladainhas come from the Capoeira Song Compendium (Brigham 2006).
2
Young boy who was your master.
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The History of Capoeira
Da, da, da no nego
Get, get, get the negro
No nego voce nao da
You are not getting the negro
Da, da, da, no nego
Get, get, get the negro
Mas se der vai apanhar
But if you get him, you’ll take a beating
The uneasy relationship that capoeira possesses with the Brazilian state is just one of many such ambiguities within the art. From attempting to position it solely within one genre, to its history and founding myths, through to the game itself, capoeira defies definition. This section elaborates on what capoeira is, how it is played, and, most importantly, its history – from its roots in African slavery, to its interweaving with Brazil through Vargas’s racial democracy. Capoeira is best described as a kinaesthetic practice which comprises of many elements, mixing music, African culture, gymnastics, martial arts, and singing. Unsurprisingly, therefore, many anthropologists (Robitaille 2007; Downey 2005; Wesolowski 2007) note the difficulty in its very definition – as Da Conceição puts it so well: “is [it] a dance, a fight, a game, an art form, a mentality, an identity, an African ritual, a worldview, a weapon [or] a way of life?” (n.d: 1). One of the oldest recordings of capoeira is the painting by the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas (1835), who, through his title Jogar Capoëra ou danse de la guerre (capoeira game or war dance), captures perfectly this difficulty of definition – a dance or a fight?3
3
See figure 1.
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Figure 1. Rugendas 1835 “Jogar Capoëra ou danse de la guerre”. In: Fryer 2000
There are several possible origins for the word capoeira. Perhaps the most widely accepted is that the word refers to a clearing in a jungle or plantation, stemming from the Tupi language (caa: forest, puera: extinct)(Fuggle 2008). These clearings were used for practicing capoeira away from the eyes of the slave owners. Capoeira, as a game, is fought between two people, who try to outdo one another within the roda – the ring formed by the musicians and onlookers, who clap and sing. Unlike other martial arts, capoeira is non-violent. Instead, it suffices to demonstrate you could have landed the hit. Indeed, within the capoeira community, this knowledge of being outfoxed and outplayed is said to be more painful that the actual blow (Stephens & Delamont 2009). The roots of capoeira are no less simple to decipher, because of the reliance until recent times on oral transmission, both by the slaves and by their descendants (Downey 2005; Stephens & Delamont 2014). Lewis notes that the origins of capoeira are difficult to trace, with different groups claiming different origins, either in Africa or Brazil:
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[T]hose in Brazil who identify themselves as an exploited and marginal subgroup, typically the darkest and sometimes the poorest, tend to argue the same way [African origins]… others think of Capoeira as a Brazilian invention, especially those of higher socioeconomic status, which on average corresponds to lighter skin. (Lewis 1992: 15) One thing though is certain, that the game as we know it today was developed by African slaves, brought to colonial Brazil by the Portuguese for labour, particularly in the North-Eastern state of Bahia, in the sugar plantations (Robitaille 2007). Capoeira was born as a response to the dehumanising conditions within which the slaves worked, and functioned both as a means to keep alive the African rituals and traditions, and as resistance to the western norms imposed upon the Africans (Sosa 2006). It was a way of using culture as a resistance: “[t]he fighting, a weapon inlaid in the body of the player, would tend to something more ‘cultural’, thus being a more effective weapon of resistance, inlaid in the ‘body’ of the black community itself” (Da Conceição n.d: p.6). The art was formulated as a fight-dance in order to hide the potentiality for violence from the purview of their masters or foremen (Fuggle 2008). It is well documented that Brazilian slaves engaged in both overt and covert resistance (but predominantly the latter), with many authors (Talmon-Chvaicer 2007; Downey 2005; Robitaille 2007) pointing to capoeira being an every-day resistance, or what Scott terms a ‘weapon of the weak’ (Scott 1987). This idea of covert resistance can be seen in one of the oldest ladainhas, Vâ dizer ao meu Sinhó:
Vâ dizer ao meu Sinhó
Go tell my master
Que a manteiga derramou
That the butter spilled
A manteiga não é minha
The butter isn`t mine
A manteiga é do ioiô
The butter is the master’s son
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This narrative of a ‘mysterious spillage’ is akin to that which Scott describes in Malaysia during his ethnographic fieldwork: the “perpetration of petty acts” (Scott 1987: 38). Capoeira, and the disguising of capoeira as a dance, functioned within the every-day resistance of the slave as a means of empowerment in an environment shrouded in the constant threat of violence. Indeed, as Scott maintains in his book, overt violence against the system is not always a desirable strategy when the penalties are too great. This is particularly the case with slave societies: “such forms of stubborn resistance are especially well documented in the vast literature on American slavery, where open defiance was normally foolhardy” (Scott 1987: 33). Slavery was finally abolished in Brazil in 1888. Although slavery had ended, the domination of blacks continued, leading to Afro-Brazilian art forms still being used as a form of resistance (Downey 2005). Hence, in 1890, capoeira, along with other black cultural expressions, was declared illegal by the Brazilian government in an effort to stamp out what were seen as ‘uncivilised’, ‘barbaric’ practices (Talmon-Chvaicer 2002). It was not until the 1930s, when Getúlio Vargas assumed power, that the edicts would be revoked. Vargas’s intention was to create an essentialised, unified, brasilidade, as part of a Brazilian national ‘project’. This creation of a national, ‘imagined’ identity, of a “deep, horizontal comradeship” is fundamental to the 19 th and 20th century formation of the Modern nation state (Anderson 2006: 5) The ‘project’ was founded on the South American ideology of mestiçagem4 [miscegenation], in order to create an inclusive identity. Mestiçagem is a nation-building trope “for living sameness through a sense of shared mixed-ness“ (Wade 2005: 249). Vargas was strongly influenced by the writings of Brazil’s first native anthropologist, Gilberto Freyre (1956), who is credited with the concept of democracia racial, an ideology Marx states is an “ingenious form of social engineering” (Marx 1998: 168). Freyre believed that the historically widespread practice of miscegenation between the three ‘races’ of Brazil – African, European and Amerindian - had led to the creation of an ‘equal’ society: the racial democracy. Vargas adopted this model, intending to 4
Mestizaje in Spanish.
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use it to reduce both subaltern antagonism towards the ruling classes and resistance to the Brazilian state, through the integration blacks and Amerindians under the axiom of a racial democracy (Talmon-Chvaicer 2002). The integration of the subaltern was done through the legitimisation and nationalisation of their cultural expressions, in turn making them symbols of brasilidade (Pravaz 2008). The discourse of democracia racial was very successful, with Marx affirming “[t]he convergence of Brazilian nationalism and the image of racial democracy had the almost magical result of projecting an established social and racial democracy without conflict” (Marx 1998: 168). The relationship capoeira has with Brazil stems from this epoch, with its popularity and distinctiveness cleverly exploited by Vargas in his populist project of modernity (Downey, 2005). Capoeira was a fundamental component of Vargas’s conception of brasilidade, leading him to declare it “the only true national sport" (Lewis 1992: 60). The transformation of capoeira from banned to exalted is fundamental to the understanding of its position today in the global context (Robitaille 2007). Vargas’s ‘project’ not only transformed Brazilian society, but capoeira itself. Much of this was accomplished through the work of two contemporary mestres: Bimba and Pastinha. Both were instrumental in the creation of academies and the standardisation of the practice. These actions resulted in capoeira becoming more attractive to the previously hostile Brazilian white middle and upper classes (Browning 1995), who sought to embrace the new ‘Brazilian’ identity and cultural practices through mimesis. This is similar to Michael Taussig’s work on racial mimesis in Venezuela, where (he claims) white racial identity is based on a mimetic exchange with non-whites (Taussig 1993). In the new Brazil, ironically, it was the whites who had to reaffirm their Brazilian identity. Racial democracy was and remains a source of pride for Brazilians, especially when Brazil is put in direct comparison with countries with a history of constitutional racism, such as the USA, or South Africa (Marx 1998). However, despite this pride, many recent studies demonstrate that this discourse of mixture and heterogeneity merely “obfuscate certain persistent structures of
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inequality and opposition in Brazil” (Moehn 2007: 184) such as racism. Indeed, in terms of social distribution of wealth, Brazil is one of the most unequal societies in the world (Pravaz 2008), with ‘black’ being synonymous with ‘poor’ (Vargas 2006). DaMatta explains that this racial inequality is so well hidden because, according to racial democracy discourse, every Brazilian is supposedly part African and part Amerindian - thus it follows that they cannot be racist (DaMatta 1992). Hence, if you are poor, according to the ideology of ‘democracia racial’, it is because you are poor, not because you are black or indigenous. Scheper-Hughes dispels this illusion, demonstrating that the concept of Brazil as a non-racist society is fundamentally a myth, with racial democracy serving to dilute historical antagonisms, such as slavery and racial division, through the creation of a lineal, nationalist history of mesticagem (Scheper-Hughes 1992). Furthermore, it submerges and disallows discourse on racial inequality, which systematically negates access to wealth and power to Brazilians of Amerindian and African descent (Rosa-Ribeiro 2000). Vargas reiterates this when studying a 2006 activist project, which installed gates and cameras in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, in order to prevent police violence. Through an analysis of the responses to the project by both press and public he demonstrates that racist, hegemonic common-sense ideas about Afro-Brazilians are prevalent in society. These ideas support and reaffirm every-day race-based structural discrimination. To quote Marx: “Freyre created the most formidable ideological weapon against blacks” (Marx 1998: 167). Racial discrimination is concealed by a sacrosanct semblance of equality within a racial democracy, which thus ironically impedes racial parity. Within this context, there has been a wide-spread critique of Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions, which, through their adoption into mainstream Brazilian culture, are said to have become sterile and ‘whitened’ (Downey 2005; Sheriff 1999). Branqueamento5 [whitening] refers to the transformation of Afro-Brazilian cultural expressions due to selective pressures aimed at making them more ‘Brazilian’ and inclusive, thus diluting and subsuming the distinct ‘black’ identity, such as African rituals surrounding the arts. Through a process of gentrification and 5
Blanqueamiento in Spanish.
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integration into the national imagination, many Afro-Brazilian art forms have been changed through their commodification into spectacles endorsed and sold by both municipal governments and the entertainment industry (Pravaz 2008). As Browning states: “[t]he twitching white soapopera star who crowns a Rio carnaval float is the same… as that of the national broadcast which portrays whiteness as desirability” (1995: 98). Popular Brazilian subaltern discourse likens this cultural appropriation to theft. This is a central theme in Sheriff’s work on samba and the Rio carnival (Sheriff 1999), which, he argues, have been racially and politically neutralised.
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Malícia and Malandragem
Jogo de dentro, jogo de fora
Inside game, outside game
Jogo bonito e esse
A beautiful game is this
Jogo de Angola
Game from Angola
Yet with capoeira this process of nationalisation through the dilution of the ‘black identity’ did not occur. Many authors have noted that capoeira resists standardising and commoditising practices (Robitaille 2007; Lewis 1992; Wesolowski 2007). Downey confirms this, stating: “[e]fforts by the state (and other nationalist institutions) to co-opt, control and recast capoeiragem6 (and later ‘capoeira’) as a sport have failed repeatedly” (Downey 2002: 2). Capoeira's roots, explicitly bound with slavery, are inescapably embedded in opposition to the politics of Brazilian social and racial hierarchy. Capoeira’s opposition to state dialogue displays itself through embodied learning of the capoeira philosophy. This philosophy is a way of looking at life, a way of understanding reality, which is best described as luta que é a vida – ‘the fight is life’. This simultaneously refers to the internal fight within the capoeira roda, and to the external fight of the day-to-day struggle (Lewis 1992). Wesolowski observes that with luta: Many practitioners hold the view that though slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, a large majority of Brazilians continue to live in slave-like conditions of extreme poverty, racism and violation of human rights… *f+or these citizens, simply surviving is a day-to-day struggle (Wesolowski 2007: 19).
6
An archaic term for capoeira.
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Mestres are instrumental in the spreading of this philosophy, not only through the teaching of capoeira, but also through an overt discourse of the systemic injustices of the Brazilian system. As Boneco states: …Ever since Vargas did that [racial democracy], Brazil continued to be unequal. That was then in 1930’s, and the result of that, as a Brazilian we are continually fighting for our rights, but the poor, they accept that. So capoeira is a way to get kids out of that idea – it has the power to bring you out of that consciousness of inferiority. It gives you a way out from the troubles you might well end up in, becoming a murderer or a drugs-dealer in Brazil, because the society plans that - they basically ask us [the poor] to get rid of ourselves7.
This description of a continual struggle is by no means solely inherent in capoeira. Scheper-Hughes (1992) discusses the daily slough of violence in poor communities within NorthEastern Brazil8. Like Boneco, she attributes this not to the people themselves, but to the structural violence wrought upon the poor from both the state and racial discrimination. She theorises this understanding as ‘everyday violence’, which “encompasses the implicit, legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular social, economic and political formations” (2004: 21). The evidence of a struggle is a prevalent theme within ladainha lyrics, such as Oi Sim Sim Sim, a traditional capoeira song. Oi Sim Sim Sim speaks of a struggle for food and livelihood - the oscillating fortunes of those on the peripheral edges of society:
7 8
Mestre Boneco 2014: Quote from audio-recorded interview. The birthplace of capoeira.
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Oi Sim Sim Sim
Oh, yes, yes, yes
Oi não, não, não
Oh, no, no, no
Mas hoje tem, amanha não
Today there is some, tomorrow none
Mas hoje tem, amanha não
Today there is some, tomorrow none
Teaching of the philosophy of the luta by mestres is done through the learning of embodied practices, via the playing and training of capoeira. These practices, in turn, produce certain values and traits, a corporeality which not only affects the practitioner in the jogo de dentro – the ‘inside game’ of the roda - but also in the jogo de fora (the ‘outside’ game) - Brazilian society (Lewis 1992). These values and traits are often referred to as a set of tools, which equip the capoerista with a ‘resistance kit’, allowing him or her to live better within, and to resist, Brazilian society’s internal structural violence, which he or she encounters daily. As Downey puts it, the capoeiristas “are acquiring skills that bleed over into everyday life” (Downey 2005: 30). Through playing internally, you learn to play externally - to dance within the fight. Lewis states that, through the concepts of the jogo de dentro and jogo de fora, capoeiristas are commenting that social life is a combat like capoeira (1992). Fuggle, however, claims the discipline’s philosophy of luta acknowledges a Foucauldian understanding of how power operates within society (Fuggle 2008). Foucault believed that power is not a singular entity, but a collection of relations, which is always changing and transforming itself - hence power is everywhere (Foucault 1976). He claimed, therefore, that overt resistance is difficult; because every resistance is embedded in power relations, one can never resist externally to it. Hence, Fuggle's estimation that “[o]ne cannot step outside of power but one can ‘play' with it. And it is this notion of 'play' which is at work in capoeira” (2008: 206). Foucault’s conception of
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power corresponds with the two main tenets of the play-philosophy: malícia and malandragem. Although different in meaning, both focus on a resistance of ‘playing’ within the system, whilst simultaneously acknowledging and emphasising the faults within it. The Portuguese word malícia, unsurprisingly, derives from the same root source as its English cognate, malice. However, this is not a direct match, malícia translating more idiomatically as deceit, or trickery (Stephens & Delamont 2009). Unlike the English translations, the word has positive connotations amongst Afro-Brazilians, as it is fundamental within capoeira, being the deception that slaves had to practice in order to survive. Unlike many martial arts, a game of capoeira not only requires one to be skilful with ones moves, but also to be malícioso - to trick the opponent, to fake a kick leading the opponent the wrong way, towards your oncoming cabeçada [head-butt]. To be malícioso [cunning] is “to be deceitful, suspicious, watchful, prepared, flexible, opportunistic, clever, knowledgeable” (Wesolowski 2007: 191). Malicia is simultaneously an aptitude and an act, a theatre of dramatic pretence. A good player will not only be in complete control of his/her emotions, playing with a cabeça fria [a cool head], but also able to fake them to feign anger and joy - in order to befuddle the opponent and bedazzle the onlookers. Malícia is also fundamental within capoeira’s oral tradition. For instance, Downey recounts the story of Besouro, a famous anti-establishment capoerista and outlaw in the early twentieth century (Downey 2005). In this story, Besouro finds himself within the scenario of the ‘last stand’, as he realises that he is surrounded by approaching policemen. However, unlike Eurocentric myths and stories, in which an heroic fight-to-the-end would have ensued, Besouro “fell to the ground crying like a baby in order to prevent violence and to stupefy them” (Downey 2005: 134) - an act which was so successful, so malícioso, that he escaped. Evidently, the importance of malícia is twofold, both within the game and, secondly, outside the game, where it gives the player a knack of seeing the true intentions of others (Green 2009). Malícia is, in short, a coping device, a type of cultural agency that emphasises self-awareness and survival. Indeed, the word is not exclusive to
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capoeira, rather it is a Brazilian trait and used as a descriptor in contemporary society. Boneco demonstrates: A person who has got malícia, is a person who takes risks every day and overcomes the problems in the street - you are clever. Again, it’s being vulnerable, pretending to be hungry. [It is] a way of dealing with problems of Brazilian society. If someone tem malícia *has malícia+ it’s a way of saying they are clever, they can deal with their situation and problems in life and that you can twist it [the situation] around and manage them [the problems]9. If malícia is the device, then malandragem, a word which signifies any kind of ‘shady activity’, can best be described as the code of ethics accompanying it (Wesolowski 2007). The word derives from malandro, which best translates as ‘rogue’ - the malícioso urban hustler working within the informal economy and on the edge of society. DaMatta states that “the basic rule of the street is deceit, deception and roguery (malandragem)” (1992: 64). In Brazil malandragem is pejoratively connoted in popular culture and by its affluent citizenry (Lewis 1992). Within capoeira, however, the practice of malandragem is a positive cultural trait, which represents the ability to survive in disadvantageous conditions through the use of ones guile and physical skills. To ter malandragem [to have malandragem] is to be someone who can carve out a space of opportunity for his or herself within an otherwise hostile society. A malandro, however, is no revolutionary, rather someone who, instead of overtly trying to change the Brazil’s rigid bureaucracy and non-egalitarian hierarchy, attempts to manipulate the system to his or her advantage (Downey 2005). Wesolowski describes this as ‘a creative resistance’, which has at its core component the jeitinho, or ‘little way’, a euphemism for the favours given in order to navigate bureaucratic and structural restrictions (Wesolowski 2007). Thus, malandragem can be conceived as an ethical code based on survival through the fighting of fire with fire, founded on a
9
Mestre Boneco 2014: Quote from audio-recorded interview.
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heightened awareness of the foucauldian-esque reality of society – one resists eternally within power. Both these facets of capoeira are said to be inherent within one, elements of the self, used to survive. However, these traits are more honed in someone who lives the luta, the everyday struggle. Nevertheless, for those who do not experience the luta in their daily lives, capoeira still develops these traits through its practice. As mestre Boneco states: Anyone can learn it, it is inherent, we all have it; it’s like that something that you have and express. To get that, you need to develop it out of you - and capoeira is the magic - I believe capoeira is the greatest tool [for this] we ever had in our hands10. The acquisition of malícia and malandragem through embodiment is best explained through Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of habitus. This concept is heavily influenced by Marcel Mauss (1973), who in the early 20th century suggested that the body is not simply a vessel for man, but also a sociocultural phenomenon, a phenomenon upon which various cultural, social and national ‘techniques’ are imposed and unconsciously exemplified in everyday life. As such, man’s body and his movements are all a product of his culture and upbringing. Bourdieu took the ‘technique’ and embedded it societally, creating the habitus. Akin to Mauss’s concept of techniques of the body, the habitus is the unconscious embodiment of external structures in the person’s immediate environment, creating “durable dispositions of behaviour” (Bourdieu 1977: 85). This ‘behaviour’ allows one to navigate society as it permits “agents to cope with unforeseen and ever-changing situations“(Bourdieu 1997: 72). However, Bourdieu demonstrates how the habitus internalises not just societal norms of behaviour, but also the symbolic violence11 of societal impositions. Hence, “the habitus of an individual bears the stamp of a group’s collective history” (Wainwright, Williams and Turner 2006:
10 11
Mestre Boneco 2014: Quote from audio-recorded interview. This is very similar to Scheper-Hughes’s conception of everyday violence (see page 13).
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537). Additionally, this process of internalisation not only leads to the corporeal enculturation of the individual, but is also instrumental in reproducing and legitimising the individuals surrounding social structure, which influenced the habitus – it is a dialectical relationship. Habitus, therefore, explains concretely how many subaltern Brazilian citizens, through the internalising of the myth of racial democracy, become, in effect, vessels to the dogma, rendering them simultaneously blind to the effects of a racist society, and complicit in its reproduction and lifespan. Crucially, habitus also demonstrates how resistance to a system can emerge. This is because the habitus is not static and unchanging. Thus, just as people change throughout life and do not have a fixed essence, so too does the habitus changes through one’s existence and encounters - the environment, the people and the cultural processes to which we expose ourselves. Bourdieu therefore opens up potential for resistance. He notes that within a society the habitus can vary, depending on group or class, suggesting “[t]he practices of the members of the same group or… the same class are endowed with an objective meaning that is at once unitary and systematic, transcending subjective intentions” (Bourdieu 1973: 81). Bourdieu also states that practices such as dance and sport, which implicate corporeal education and an understanding of one’s body, in turn alight a consciousness of one’s own bodily habitus; one’s way of being (1990). This coincides with the common belief amongst practitioners that “years of training capoeira fundamentally shape their perception and movement in the world” (Wesolowski 2007: 159). Thus, through a process of learning and playing capoeira, one starts to become the capoeira - to embody its habitus-cum-philosophy of malícia and malandragem. Capoeira is taught predominantly through mimesis, which Taussig defines as "the nature that culture uses to create second nature, the faculty to copy, imitate, make models, explore difference, yield into and become Other” (1993: xiii). Hence, when someone starts capoeira, he or she learns the philosophy of malícia and malandragem in the process of corporeal mimesis. As capoeira is taught through mimesis of the teacher's movements, it is also non-verbal. Indeed, the mestres rarely explain moves, aside perhaps translating the names from Portuguese,
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often teaching the class in Portuguese, under the somewhat misguided belief that students will learn Portuguese through the process. The process of learning a habitus through the mimesis of the mestre has been studied at length by anthropologists Stephens & Delamont, who have produced several joint ethnographies on learning capoeira within Britain (2008, 2009, 2014). They are particularly useful in describing the detailed process of learning capoeira, which is exactly the same procedure as within each group I have participated in: Our teacher, Achilles, stressed three things when asked if malícia can be taught. First, absolute novices have to focus on learning the basic moves, and cannot be expected to notice malícia, far less learn to deploy it. Second, as students are exposed to capoeira over a longer period, they will begin to learn about malícia. Third, the way to build up an appreciation of malícia is to teach false movements: that is feigning a kick in one direction and then attacking in another. (Stephens & Delamont 2009: 545) As one becomes accustomed to the moves, one learns to use them fluidly in conjuncture with another player, and thus begins to understand how to survive better in both the roda and in Brazilian society. Boneco demonstrated this direct link in the next lesson after the first interview in which I had quizzed him about malícia. As I played with him, he faked a move, neatly tripped me up with a rastera12 and then, to my surprise, mimicked stabbing me, stating: “that, that is street malícia”. He was, in a sense, implying that, were I malícioso, a true malandro, I would have seen his trick, his malícia. Thus, to say someone has malícia or malandragem is to say that the distinction between the self and the other (capoeira) is seamless; one has become the rogue of both jogos.
12
A low, sweeping kick designed to trip the opponent.
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Community
Capoeira não tem raça
Capoeira has no race
Capoeira não tem côr
Capoeira has no colour
Ô,ô,ô,ô
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Capoeira é amor
Capoeira is love
The learning process of capoeira is informed by the culture that the capoeirista finds himself in, namely the capoeira community which surrounds him. In order to further a discussion on the role and relationship that capoeira has both within and with Brazil, it is important to turn from the individual to the communal. It is capoeira as an entity of cultural expression, of resistance, rather than the sum of its individual members, which creates the disjuncture of representation between it and brasilidade. Here, Ortner (1995) is key ; whilst acknowledging the importance of Scott’s theory on resistance, Ortner claims Scott focuses too much on the resistance of an individual, and neglects the larger structures that allow, determine and prevent their actions. Instead, she points out: “….agency is not an entity that exists apart from cultural construction… [e]very culture, every subculture… constructs its own forms of agency, its own modes of enacting the process of reflecting on the self and the world and of acting simultaneously within and upon what one finds there” (Ortner 1995: 186). Hence, although the study of the individual through a learnt embodied habitus is crucial to an understanding of capoeira, there is another key aspect: that of a powerful community builder which provides a sphere beyond society - a close-knit environment of alternative values and traditions which teaches respect, fairness and non-violence
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(Höfling 2006). As O’Connor states “to regard capoeira merely as a martial art… is to miss the main point of the game: the creation and solidification of community” (O’Connor 1997: 321). Bourdieu (1990) argued that sports constitute a ‘field’. These are autonomous, independent “spheres of play” within society (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 17). Each societal field has its own emphasis and understanding of societal, cultural and economic capital. This explains why capoeira resists commodification practices, because it places more emphasis on cultural capital than economic capital. For example, capoeira constitutes a site of alternative cultural capital, where having a black skin, far from being an impediment, is seen as an advantage. The art thus serves as an affirmation of an African identity, allowing students to celebrate their heritage and increase self-esteem (Capoeira 1995). Yet capoeira is not exclusively Afro-Brazilian, being instead a multicultural society comprised of players from all racial backgrounds and classes. Höfling states capoeiristas “strive to create a counter-culture where socio-economic class, skin colour, nationality and gender, which are markers of otherness and sources of discrimination in the outside world, are not markers at all” (2006: 86). Many authors also note the importance of capoeira for women (Green 2009; Howell 2004; Robitaille 2010; Downey 2005). Here Green is of particular interest (2009). The author demonstrates how capoeira challenges gendered assumptions on the role of women and femininity in Brazil, showing that women experience increased self-esteem and an outlet for selfexpression. The roda is the site where this sexual, racial and class equality is manifested. Capoeira, unlike other sports does not pit only novices with novices, experts with experts, and women with women. It is a game whose outcome is determined by malícia and not by brute strength. This is shown by Fuggle: “[t]he capoeirista will seek to outwit his opponent in ways not available to him or her in the workplace due to the fixed hierarchy, politics and social codes in operation” (Fuggle 2008: 205). Therefore a situation where a woman or child beats a man in the roda occurs
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frequently, creating a sphere of equality both within the roda and in the immediate capoeira community, within which one’s worth - one’s capital - is not predetermined by race, class or gender, but by the ability to be malícioso, to have malandragem. There is a belief amongst capoeira practitioners that capoeira is an education, a “school of life” (Da Conceição n.d: 4), which teaches ‘the real history’, the history of a racial society, which is taught through the communal imaginary of this culture. I discussed this with Boneco, specifically focusing on the links between capoeira and Brazil: Even in Brazil it’s a capoeira family; a capoeira community. Again, just the fact we [Brazilians] are Brazilian doesn’t mean that everybody does capoeira, but nobody understands capoeira, no more than you do. So you get a community, where you can learn yourself. The real history, the hidden history - capoeira has the privilege to teach that, to [help us] understand ourselves13. This sense of shared history, shared knowledge of an alternative understanding of Brazil, oscillates people from different levels, offering a grande aproximaçao (a big nearness-isation) (Howell 2004) and creating, as Boneco states, a ‘capoeira family’, with bonds far stronger than usual teacherstudent relations (Green 2009). This stands in direct opposition to the racial democracy consensual model, emphasising both the discourse of the luta and conflicting elements which were diluted by the latter in the making of the modern nation state. For many practitioners, ‘capoeira history’ is the ‘real history’ of Brazil (Lewis 1992). Coupled with the societal equality promoted by participation, this history encourages cultural sensitivity; it has a levelling effect, primarily within the white middle-classes and self-empowered poor. The aforementioned grande aproximaçao is not only to be found in capoeira. Indeed, a recurrent critical tendency is to draw parallels with other forms of Afro-Brazilian socialisation, such as samba and carnaval (Lewis 1999; Pravaz 2008; Wesolowski 2007). For instance, Pravaz 13
Mestre Boneco 2014: Quote from audio-recorded interview.
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acknowledges the effects of branqueamento and appropriation by the state, claiming that these forums provide “options to Eurocentric Brazilian social relations by… offering social spaces whose organisation challenges racial and social barriers and provide a haven from racism and authoritarianism” (Pravaz 2008: 98). Likewise, parallels can be drawn to Burdick’s (1998) ethnography on the cult of the Blessed Escrava [slave] Anastacia. Anastacia is a saint-like figure in Brazil and is depicted as a beautiful black woman with blue eyes, and wearing an oppressive slave-mask. This cult commands a massive following, particularly among black women in Pentecostal communities. It creates, akin to capoeira, another sphere of alternative cultural capital, which challenges racial and aesthetic values, helping “black women value themselves physically, challenge dominant aesthetic values, cope with spousal abuse, and imagine the possibilities of racial healing based upon a fusion of real experience with utopian hope" (Burdick 1998: 148). This conceptualisation of a utopian community is crucial to an understanding of the importance of all the aforementioned communities which function to subvert, non-violently, the hierarchy of Nation State, through alternative imaginings. The interplay between these examples and the state can be best contextualised through Turners work on the ideological communitas (Turner 1977). Ideological communitas are social entities, which, through liminal activities, such as the jogo of capoeira or the worshipping of Anastacia, allow participants to become part of an intense community spirit. Within this communal sphere, individual identities detach from the hierarchical structure of society, creating a sense of unity, or community. This unity transcends the determined roles that exist beyond the communitas, such as those of Brazilian society external to the communitas of capoeira.
These subversions of state norms constitute forms of what Gledhill (2006) terms ‘apolitical resistances’. Gledhill notes that these movements have, paradoxically, increased in the face of the profound neoliberalism of everyday life in modern Brazil and Latin America, rather than decreased
23
(Gledhill 2006). He claims that these forms of resistance have risen due to exasperation with neoliberal governments and the limited success of grassroots politics in the wake of a neoliberal agenda, which has weakened public authority. As a response to this, people have turned to a myriad of different choices and ‘life styles’ in order to gain a route out of everyday violence. He notes that, whilst these developments seem to be ‘apolitical’ or may even reinforce market values, they may also “erode cultures of social deference and the ideologies on which the region’s hierarchies of class, race and gender were based” (Gledhill 2006: 336). Capoeira constitutes one of this myriad of choices available to the Brazilian citizen – a way in which to escape the luta and its constraints, through the building of functional intercultural communities.
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Conclusion: Capoeira as the Racial Democracy?
Capoeira é pra homen
Capoeira is for men
tambem para mulher
And also for women
Capoeira é do povo
Capoeira belongs to the people
não é de Ninguem
And does not belong to nobody else
In this dissertation I have sought to demonstrate the ambiguities in the relationship between capoeira and Brazil, showing that capoeira is a confrontation with, rather than a representation of brasilidade, the representation that its global image would have many people believe. I have shown this through a discussion of its history, of the relationship it has with the adoption of the racial democracy, of its embodied philosophy of the luta, and of its importance as an alternative community.
Through both its inclusivity and its teaching of an alternative philosophy and conception of Brazil, capoeira enables its practitioners to better understand the real nature of brasilidade and all that it entails. Capoeira allows players to submerse themselves in Brazil, and also to undermine it; it creates a sphere within which the player can analyse better the structural violence inherently implicit within the society, transcending the nation’s essentialist-based understandings of identity, culture and the nation. As affirmed by Boneco, capoeira is, first and foremost, capoeira culture, and yet it is one the largest representations of brasilidade worldwide. Capoeira, through its emphasis on equality and the celebration of Afro-Brazilian culture, is strikingly similar to Freyre’s imaginings of the harmonious racial democracy. However, this resemblance is only skin deep. The art form provides an alternative understanding of brasilidade, through the renegotiation and creation of an alternative racial democracy - a de-localised sphere in which the conceptualisation
25
of an egalitarian society, based on the roda, produces the tenets of the democracia racial that, in reality, so elude Brazil today.
Capoeira, simultaneously a representation of brasilidade in its purest form and yet its harshest critic, provides a philosophy of life which helps its players survive in the outside luta, and escape it in the jogo. Consequently, however, this serves to reinforce their Brazilian-ness, for, as long as Brazil remains for many a domain of everyday violence, so too will Brazilians have to cope with it. These paradoxes are unsurprising, as, capoeira has been veiled in ambiguity from its very conception. Indeed, it evades classification in every aspect through its inherent proteiformity. Capoeira is, in short, not brasilidade as conceptualised through the global imagination of Brazil, but, rather, Brazilian identity as it should be. It is the Brazil of both luta and equality, the true racial democracy, the Brazil which the nation state pertains to – and could – be.
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Appendix A
Branqueamento
-1. Racial ‘whitening’ – a common 19th-20th Latin American govgovernmental policy of encouraging European immigration to ‘wh’whiten’ the population -2. In context of dissertation, the removing of African traits from AfaAfro-Brazilian cultural expressions
Brasilidade
- Brazilian-ness, synonym of Brazilian national identity
Capoeirista
- A player of Capoeira
Democracia Racial
- Gilberto Freyre’s racial democracy
Ladainha
- A song/litany which starts the roda
Luta
- The capoeira philosophy, the struggle in an out of the ring
Jogo
- 1. Lit. ‘Game’: the game of capoeira - 2.Metaphorically used in capoeira for the inner and outer society – ,,,iithe jogo de dentro (inside game), and the jogo de fora (outside iiiiigame)
Malandragem
- ‘Being’ the rogue; the art of self-preservation in disadvantageous cconditions through the use of ones guile and physical skills
Malícia
- Lit. ‘malice’, in capoeira a positive trait - ‘trickery’, ‘deceit’. Along wwith malandragem, the defining traits of capoeira that help the ccapoeirista in the luta – the everyday struggle
Malícioso
- Someone who knows malícia, ‘cunning’
Mestiçagem
- Miscegenation, the mixing of the races. Known more commonly as c cognate term mestizaje (es). Central to Freyre’s concept of racial d ddemocracy
Mestre
- Lit. ‘master’. The teacher in capoeira, usually Brazilian. Very ffmalícioso!
Roda
- The capoeira ring. Formed by the audience and musicians around arssssssswithin which two capoeiristas perform the jogo
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