Capoeira and immobility: Strategies of resistance, and the challenges facing the sanitary emergency of COVID-19. [Capoeira e inmovilidad: estrategias de resistencia y los desafíos frente a la emergencia sanitaria del COVID-19]

Abstract

This article describes the main social effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had in the practice of the Afro-Brazilian martial art/ritual of Capoeira from an anthropological perspective. The problem centers on the immobility produced within groups as a consequence of the global sanitary emergency. It focuses on the social relations that leaders have developed with their disciples and academics. The methodology used stems from an analysis of the online interactions created at the beginning of 2020, in what anthropology calls virtual ethnography, with interviews with different Capoeira members and groups in Mexico and Brazil.  The research results argue that the effects of immobility have forced leaders to privilege the transmission of knowledge, which often is kept secret, through the Internet in forums and employing online lessons destined for a global audience. The conclusion states that leaders have started to spread their teachings through digital means as a resistance cultural mechanism due to the current situation. Coerced by the sanitary emergency, both practitioners and researchers of Capoeira have begun to experiment with new ways of creating social relations for the current context of immobility.