The belts are set out: The batizado as a symbolic welcome to capoeira culture

Delamont, Sara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5683-2311 and Stephens, Neil 2021. The belts are set out: The batizado as a symbolic welcome to capoeira culture. Ethnography 22 (3) , pp. 351-371. 10.1177/14661381211035762

Preview

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

In contemporary capoeira groups, newcomers are symbolically ‘baptised’ into the community at a public ceremony called their Batizado (literally baptism) held during a festival. Novices play a game with a guest expert, get their first belt and thereafter they are members of their teacher’s group. Drawing on a long term, two-handed ethnography of diasporic capoeira contemporanea in the UK, including observation of 53 such festivals, their ceremonial features are analysed. At all the stages of the ‘welcome’, before, during and after the batizado, the topic of gender in capoeira contemporanea is explored. In the last 40 years, women have become enthusiastic participants and are core members of the groups we have studied. The article compares the sociological (symbolic interactionist) and anthropological approaches to ceremonies and rituals such as the capoeira batizado, drawing on Glaser, Strauss and Katz compared to van Gennep, Turner and MacAloon.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	1466-1381
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 January 2022
Last Modified:	24 May 2023 18:23
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/146748

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item