Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience

Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves in Brazil, and Candomblé is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. The two are closely interconnected. Capoeira and Candomblé have for centuries made up a coherent form of Brazilian life, despite having been suppressed by the dominant cultures. But times have changed: nowadays Capoeira is popular with all classes in Brazil, and has spread to North America and Europe.

For Western audiences, Capoeira performance and Candomblé services are fun to watch and participate in, but difficult to understand. Both have apparently familiar elements, but this seeming conformity with the dominant cultures was for four hundred years a strategy of resistance by Brazilian slaves. The author offers his own reflections about Capoeira and Candomblé, combining personal experiences with anecdotes, historical facts, and research as well as religious and philosophical interpretations, both Western and non-Western. The result is informative and entertaining, a description and analysis that allows readers to get a feeling, understanding, and even experience of the spirit of Capoeira and Candomblé.

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Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience

Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves in Brazil, and Candomblé is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. The two are closely interconnected. Capoeira and Candomblé have for centuries made up a coherent form of Brazilian life, despite having been suppressed by the dominant cultures. But times have changed: nowadays Capoeira is popular with all classes in Brazil, and has spread to North America and Europe.

For Western audiences, Capoeira performance and Candomblé services are fun to watch and participate in, but difficult to understand. Both have apparently familiar elements, but this seeming conformity with the dominant cultures was for four hundred years a strategy of resistance by Brazilian slaves. The author offers his own reflections about Capoeira and Candomblé, combining personal experiences with anecdotes, historical facts, and research as well as religious and philosophical interpretations, both Western and non-Western. The result is informative and entertaining, a description and analysis that allows readers to get a feeling, understanding, and even experience of the spirit of Capoeira and Candomblé.

69.95 In Stock
Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience

Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience

by Floyd Merrell
Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience

Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity and Resistance through Afro-Brazilian Experience

by Floyd Merrell

Hardcover(Markus Wiener Publs ed.)

$69.95 
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Overview

Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves in Brazil, and Candomblé is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. The two are closely interconnected. Capoeira and Candomblé have for centuries made up a coherent form of Brazilian life, despite having been suppressed by the dominant cultures. But times have changed: nowadays Capoeira is popular with all classes in Brazil, and has spread to North America and Europe.

For Western audiences, Capoeira performance and Candomblé services are fun to watch and participate in, but difficult to understand. Both have apparently familiar elements, but this seeming conformity with the dominant cultures was for four hundred years a strategy of resistance by Brazilian slaves. The author offers his own reflections about Capoeira and Candomblé, combining personal experiences with anecdotes, historical facts, and research as well as religious and philosophical interpretations, both Western and non-Western. The result is informative and entertaining, a description and analysis that allows readers to get a feeling, understanding, and even experience of the spirit of Capoeira and Candomblé.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781558763494
Publisher: Wiener, Markus Publishers, Incorporated
Publication date: 02/24/2020
Edition description: Markus Wiener Publs ed.
Pages: 330
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

FLOYD MERRELL, Purdue University, spends part of each year in Salvador (Bahia) in Brazil, where he practices and lives what he describes in Capoeira and Candomblé. He is the author of over twenty books, including Living Learning, Learning Living: Signs, East and West.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part I

Capoeira: Playfully Practicing Philosophy

Chapter One

A Brief History of The Art

Chapter Two: Capoeira Becoming

Chapter Three: How The Art is Becoming

Chapter Four: How The Becoming Is Processual

Chapter Five: Nonlinear and Sinuous is the Road

Postscript to Chapter Five

Part II

Candomblé: Living Philosophy, Philosophical Living

Chapter Six

Rhythms and Rituals of Resistance

Chapter Seven

Hegemonic Pressure

Chapter Eight

Does Syncretism Give an Adequate Account?

Chapter Nine

More Complex than Meets the Eye

Chapter Ten

Process: Perpetual Change within Stability

Chapter Eleven

The Dichotomies Become More Pliable

Part II

Those Other Logics Within Cultural Processes

Chapter Twelve

Qualifying the Process: An Impossible Task?

Chapter Thirteen

Attempting to Refine the Figure Further

Chapter Fourteen

Still in Search of Process

Part IV

Capoeira and Candomblés as Cultural Logics

Chapter Fifteen

Brazilian Haziness

Chapter Sixteen

Capoeira, Again

Chapter Seventeen

Candomblé, One More Time

Afterthoughts

Appendix A

Appendix B

References

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