Representations of the capoeira body: a dialogue with Foucault and African oral traditions

Abstract

This article seeks to discuss the capoeira-body as a practice that reveals the tensions between discipline and autonomy, articulating African oral tradition and the work of Michel Foucault. To establish this relationship, the study investigates how the body is conceived in Foucauldian analyses, ranging from the individual body to biopolitics, and how the body, through art, is understood within African oral traditions. It concludes that the capoeira-body subverts the logic of dominant power, transforming itself into a space of resistance and Afro-diasporic knowledge, where memory, performance, and orality are articulated to construct a Black subjectivity that challenges control and normalization. Through ginga and jogo, capoeira re-signifies the Black body historically subjected to domination and discipline, turning it into an agent of autonomy and cultural affirmation. Thus, recognizing the capoeira-body as a repository of knowledge and resistance is also to reaffirm identity itself within the Afro-Brazilian cultural context.