Black Agency and the Transnationalization of Capoeira

The Case of Jamaica

Abstract

Taking Jamaica as a case study, this article discusses the transnationalization of capoeira, using as a parameter of comparison the arrival of the practice in Europe and the United States. Arguing that the agents of capoeira’s transnationalization, were its own stakeholders, the paper questions the idea of black culture’s “appropriation” by “high society”, the State or the “bourgeoisie”. Starting from the analysis of the trajectory of a German capoeirista, Dennis Eckart, the article also presents evidence that capoeira, like some other elements of Afro-Brazilian culture, were transformed from being symbols of ethnicity into symbols of Brazilianness, as a result of black agency, among other factors.