A linguagem do “corpo encapoeirado” frente às diferenças de gênero e “raça”

Abstract

This Course Completion Work, resulting from a Scientific Initiation research, developed at the Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy of the Federal University of Uberlândia (FAEFI/UFU), and which has the support of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq/PIBIC) is inserted in contemporary problematizations about gender, “race” and body practices. More specifically, it intends to provoke discussions about spaces occupied by women, specifically black women, in the experience of black women in Capoeira Angola. The objective was to understand the reasons that lead adult black women to practice Capoeira Angola and how the social marker of “race” permeates the relationships between them and their practices, in a Capoeira Angola group from a city in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais. It was also intended to identify how practitioners perceive the relationship between gender and “race” in the practice of Capoeira Angola. Qualitative research guided the study and the empirical data compiled here were generated from sessions and structured interviews with 7 women belonging to the collective in question located in the interior of Minas Gerais. As a result, an understanding of the differences in skin tones (black, brown and white) was noted, but also the doubt of fitting within these “racialized” categories. We also noticed that the collaborators are aware of attempts to erase their stories and the social and structural concession of power to oppressive people and institutions. In this way, the concept “encapoeirado body” was originated by Master and Researcher Ivanildes Sena, dealing with the different dialogues of bodies, having then its main role to question the standardized representation. Capoeira Angola was and is a space to “give color” (and that color is black!), favoring the construction of spaces of resistance against racism and the erasing process of the history of African and Afro-Brazilian peoples. Secondly, they point out that the history of Capoeira is crossed by social values that, in a way, legitimize the protagonism of men in power. To visualize the presence of women in these spaces, talking about themselves and for themselves, is fundamental to fight and deconstruct sexist practices and values that permeate the various spaces of our society, among them, those destined to corporal and/or sports practices, such as Capoeira Angola.