Cultural Resistance and Security from Below: Power and Escape through Capoeira

177 Pages·2020·1.546 MB·English

by  Zoë Marriage

Cultural Resistance and Security
from Below
This book uses the Afro- Brazilian art of capoeira to examine how security has
been pursued from below and what significance this has for security analysis and
policy. Illegal at the beginning of the twentieth century, capoeira is now a cul-
tural institution and export that is protected by the Brazilian state and recog-
nised by UNESCO, with capoeira players protecting and promoting their
interests through the practice and development of their art. The book brings
the musical and corporeal narrative from capoeira into conversation with
debates on security; these have typically been dominated by northern, white,
military voices, and as a result, the perspective of the weaker player is routinely
overlooked in security literature and policy making.
Bringing the perspective of the weaker party, Cultural Resistance and Security
from Below examines the distribution of security from two angles. First, it
presents the history of the interaction between capoeira players and the Brazil-
ian society and state that resulted in political and legal acceptance of capoeira.
Second, it explores how the practice of capoeira generates knowledge of identi-
ties, explanations and values, and how this knowledge empowers communities
of players and is communicated to society more broadly. The book then turns to
consider how capoeira resists within Brazil’s contemporary context of insecurity,
and what significance the knowledge and power, along with capoeira’s core
move of escape, have to security analysis and policy. The book concludes by
taking the lessons from capoeira to inform understanding of other cultural activ-
ities and ways of life as potential sites and forms of resistance.
Conceptually and methodologically original, this book will be of interest to
scholars and students in the fields of security studies, development studies, polit-
ical science and international studies. It will also be of interest to those scholars
interested in the changing interaction between politics and the arts.
Zoë Marriage is a Reader in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS
University of London, UK.
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Cultural Resistance and Security from Below
Power and Escape through Capoeira
Zoë Marriage
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-S tudies-in- Development-and- Society/book- series/SE0317
Cultural Resistance and
Security from Below
Power and Escape through Capoeira
Zoë Marriage
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Zoë Marriage
The right of Zoë Marriage to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-02493-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-39928-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
1 ‘I left Congo and passed by Angola’ 1
2 Capoeira: from marginalisation to cultural icon 6
3 Security: blind- spots, rejection and failure to conform 25
4 Game of life 43
5 Black Bahian labourers of the early twentieth century: the
who, where and when 60
6 Tricks and magic: the how and why 76
7 How has security been distributed through capoeira? 94
8 What is the significance of capoeira to insecurity in
contemporary Brazil? 112
9 What are the implications for security analysis and
policy? 130
10 Structural violence and cultural resistance 150
Glossary 159
Index 160
Acknowledgements
Capoeira takes place in community, and I am grateful to all who have taught
me, trained or played with me. I have grown as a capoeira player through the
process of research, thinking and writing. The same can be said of security theo-
rising. I am privileged to work in an environment that fosters discussion and
debate at SOAS University of London. Capoeira and security are two arts that
have particular – and very different genealogies: broadly speaking, of black men
from the labouring class and white men from the military. I have endeavoured
to bring their discourses together.
In the world of capoeira, I am grateful to several teachers in Bahia, particu-
larly Mestre Nenel, Mestre Cobra Mansa, Mestre Valmir, Contra Mestre Aloan,
CM Dija and CM Aranha. In the UK, I have had the pleasure of getting to
know on their travels Mestre Claudio, Mestra Gege, Contra Mestre Toicinho,
Professora Natureza and Contra Mestre Castor. We are fortunate to have a
lively and ecumenical capoeira scene in London. For the training, rodas and
friendship I extend my thanks to the entire community, but particularly to our
teacher Professora Paulinha, Chapeu, Tim, Jo and Frances and the other
members of our group, Capoeira Bemvindo.
At SOAS, there are too many to name, but for constant collegiality, special
thanks go to the teaching team on the MSc Violence, Conflict and Develop-
ment Programme, Tania Kaiser, Christopher Cramer, Laura Hammond and
Jonathan Goodhand. I am grateful, too, to the colleagues who have taught with
me on Security, particularly Bilge Sahin, Karen Iversen and Hassan Ould
Moctar, and to others at SOAS for helping this research along, especially
Alfredo Saad Filho, Angela Impey and Nina Watson. I am grateful for the
support of my Head of Department, Mike Jennings, and for the tireless energy of
our colleagues in the department office, Andy Chavez, Christine Djumpah,
Anoodth Naushan, Lepina Begum and Louise Poole whose professionalism has
made the academic process smoother. I am immensely grateful to the students
who have committed so whole-h earted to the Security module that I convene
and have challenged me to re- think and revise through their various perspec-
tives and analyses. I have taught hundreds of seminars during the course of
writing this book and as each seminar takes on the twists and turns of a capoeira
game, I have been shaped and informed by discussions. Thank you also to Chloe
Acknowledgements vii
Zadeh for insights into ethnomusicology, Claudia Seymour for keeping me
thinking about Congo and Stephen Chan for karate and capoeira in the
corridor.
In the intellectual community beyond SOAS I extend special thanks to
Roger Mac Ginty and Mark Duffield who have provided invaluable feedback
and discussion of many of the ideas in this book. I would also like to thank two
anonymous referees for their considered guidance in the early stages of this
manuscript.
Personally, I am as always thankful to my family. Among my friends, par-
ticular mention goes to the Thomases, Ruth, Emma and Rowan, Miranda,
Anand and Caro, and to the family de Sousa who have in their different ways
shaped my capoeira journey. Thanks are due each time to Helen Chadwick for
her constant engagement and inspiration for the creative process. All books are
journeys, and this journey has been well- accompanied. It started in Salvador in
2012 and was completed playing capoeira on the beach in Ceará with Paulinha,
to whom I dedicate this book.

1 ‘I left Congo and passed by
Angola’
The lyric ‘I left Congo and passed by Angola’ is the only reference I have found
to an African country other than Angola in capoeira music. Looking out over
the beautiful Atlantic seafront of Praia da Paciencia in Salvador, Bahia in
north- eastern Brazil, I was struck by the question: how did I get here? The tran-
quillity of the beach, the imposing skyline of the tourist developments, and the
incessant stream of glistening white cars along the coast road were a far cry from
the Democratic Republic of Congo (henceforth Congo), where my research on
security had focused for the last ten years.
There are various reasons for my choice to research the Afro- Brazilian art of
capoeira and, while there are differences in the sites, the reasons for the change
of focus derived from my experiences in Congo. For this reason, Congo remains
a touchstone for reflection throughout this book. I had chosen to study Congo
as a country where forms of insecurity are extreme; violence from military and
militia predation combines with destitution and a crippling lack of services or
protection. One of the concerns that came out of my work in Congo was that
the ‘dominant account and explanation of historical and contemporary events
are being written by the UN and northern donors, not by the Congolese’ (Mar-
riage 2013, 132). Not writing one’s own account means that priorities and the
significance of events and people are determined by others; Congolese per-
spective and interests are being excluded not only from history but from the
formulation of security, which is dominated by International Relations scholars
and development policy makers. Inequality of knowledge production has domi-
nated Congolese- European relations and largely obscured the traumatic experi-
ences of the slave trade, the invasive nature of colonialism and the promotion
of regressive power structures through aid.
A second motivation for moving my research interests from Congo to capoe-
ira was that I had noted a fascination in the development industry with stories
of failure: failed states, failed peace processes, failure to reach the Millennium
Development Goals, and failure captured by development indicators. These def-
initions of failure prompt corresponding corrective interventions through neo-
liberal development and security policy. On account of the patterns of power
that direct the way that knowledge is produced, these phenomena – concen-
trated on the African continent, and played out through the politics and