Up on the Roof: The Embodied Habitus of Diasporic Capoeira

Abstract

The majority of the popular martial arts in Britain are of South East Asian origin. One exception is the Brazilian dance and martial art capoeira, which has grown in popularity in the UK over the past twenty years at the same time as it has become a global phenomenon. Brazilian teachers have spread across the globe to create what the article calls diasporic capoeira.The ethnographic research reported here focuses on how Brazilian capoeira teachers in the UK create and sustain a habitus for their students using a contrastive rhetoric. Teachers in the UK routinely stress the similarities and differences between the habitus of capoeira in Brazil and its habitus in the UK. Variations in the habitus of capoeira in the UK, at the individual and the institutional level are explored drawing upon the ethnographic data on capoeira groups, teachers and students.