Capoeira as a weapon of defense for the Black masses and a material expression of the Brazilian class struggle from the 19th to the 20th century.

Abstract

This article analyzes capoeira as an instrument of self-defense, resistance, and political organization for the Black population in Brazil between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It examines how structural racism, combined with dependent capitalism, perpetuated the marginalization of Black bodies after the abolition of slavery. It addresses the criminalization of capoeira as part of the bourgeois project of social discipline. It highlights marginalized neighborhoods, streets, and ports as spaces of sociability and collective formation. Capoeira is presented as a practice that articulates bodily, territorial, and class consciousness. Furthermore, it analyzes the process of institutionalization and domestication of capoeira by the State in the 20th century. It shows how Black culture was appropriated to construct a conciliatory national discourse. It argues that, despite state co-optation, capoeira has preserved elements of symbolic resistance. It concludes by highlighting its current relevance as a living expression of the contradictions of Brazilian capitalism.