Findings

to group the codes into categories, and some connections between them started to appear (Bardin, 1977; Creswell, 2014). This iterative, back-and-forth, reading process kept uncovering patterns within and between informants and data sets, forming the corpus of analysis.

Brazil. In most of these cases, the Brazilian arrives with no legal documents to live abroad. Romantic relationships with foreigners are also seen as a way to manage to get out. In most of these cases, the foreigners (whether capoeiristas or not) also go to Brazil for scholar or work exchanges – or even for “capoeira tourism” – and start a relationship with the Brazilian capoeirista. To maintain it when their time in Brazil is over, marriage is proposed. Brazilian capoeiristas are aware that they have to catch the attention of foreigners, or even the confidence of their master, in order to have an opportunity to leave. This motivates them to train even harder:

If we saw someone white watching the roda we started to jump, to do the acrobatics, like crazies. All trying to leave. (INT09)

So, we trained to try to escape from that situation, from poverty. Once you are abroad, you will make money and come back. [I thought] I’m going to train a lot to get to Europe, too. Like a hook, you would be taken by someone in the group, a foreigner or a girl who fell in love. So, you hoped that this could get you out of Brazil. I will train a lot and I will be good in the capoeira roda, a foreigner will see me and will like me, or someone in the group will bring friends who are already in Europe, and [this] will build the bridge for me to go.

(INT11)

Once they arrived in their destination countries, their establishment counts on the support of their previous contacts, either Brazilians or foreigners. This help is fundamental during the earlier phase, when they need a place to sleep, as well as help to understand the host culture and deal with the unknown language. But further, to integrate the immigrant into the new life, the role of the local network is determinant.

Help in finding public spaces, formalizing the teaching through associations, renting places for the classes, selling shows, or simply finding students for the classes: there is always the need for the active participation of a local citizen (either a student, a wife, or the families of the wife who get involved to make it work).

Even with this help, the difficulties reported are many, ranging from loneliness and nostalgia to climate and language. The cultural divergences are hard to overcome.

They miss chatting with people; they miss the sunny days and blue sky; they even miss Brazilian food. They understand that mastering the language is fundamental to try to integrate a little more, but it takes time until they manage to do so. Often, they do not master the English language, but instead communicate with their “body language”

(INT10).

I was practically alone in the city. I did not know anyone. The city with almost a million inhabitants and you won’t know anyone if you don’t speak the

language. And there really strikes that longing for Brazil, longing for the mother, and the family. (INT06)

This “blues” feeling happens at the same time they realize that earning money is not as easy as they thought it would be. To gather enough students is hard in the beginning; it is hard to get into the system and manage to find places where they can teach. They need legal papers to start applying for such opportunities. Not rarely, they have to dislocate themselves over huge distances to teach in different cities. Their income is directly correlated to the number of students they teach.

The initial frustration is suppressed by the instant recognition and prestige they feel when they are among Europeans. There, they are the “Others”, the exotic, almost-mystical ones who have a unique and desired knowledge. This is a completely new feeling to them, since in Brazil they are “regular” people. And this becomes even more explicit concerning their ethnic appearance:

I suffered more prejudice in Brazil than here. I was more accepted by one side of European society because I am black and I do capoeira, than white doing capoeira (...). [for Europeans] The Brazilians have to be black, have “bad”, curly hair. And when the capoeirista is white, he is mistaken as one of them [the Europeans]. (INT10)

It is both a feeling of differentiation (“I am the Other”) and equality (“I am accepted”) that they have never experienced before: “Here they respect me for being a master and for being equal to everyone else. Here I have enhanced my self-esteem”

(INT12). This results in a backwards effect. Having prestige in Europe make people back home feel proud of them, enhancing their self-esteem. Despite their initial difficulties, Europe still represents “being in the centre of the world” (INT07) to them and since they have their berimbaus with them, “something to do is always going to come up” (INT12).

Holding capoeira knowledge in Brazilians’ custody seems important to maintain their prestige abroad, and therefore, they are not willing to do adjustments in the capoeira they teach. Teaching in the same way they have learned seem to be the best way for them to keep their legitimacy. Capoeira has, though, a very broad definition, and everyone is commonly referred to as a “no rules” cultural expression.

Of course, there are specific rituals, traditions and etiquette, but capoeira can be

expressed in so many ways that it is hard to define what, exactly would be “authentic”

capoeira. Due to its diversity, capoeira absorbs new features without disfiguring itself.

Still, the Brazilian masters admit the first adjustment capoeira received, when it arrived Europe, regarded its positioning: the focus on its dance feature. Beyond Brazil, capoeira is better known as the Brazilian fight dance. This was the way to differentiate it from the other martial arts that were also coming to Europe. “To the French people, capoeira is dance” (INT05). The fighting aspect also had to be suppressed a little bit also in order to attract the students, as well as to avoid legal problems.

The hard game – the fight – can generate process and indemnity. If I play with you, if I am hard, if I hurt you, the consequence will be mine. Because the law is there, and it works. (INT11)

Although it contradicts the very African slave origin of capoeira, the interviewees justify that the softer game (closer to a dance) it is also part of capoeira.

The diversity in capoeira is a matter of lineages and styles, not nationalities. It is unanimous that capoeira is the same capoeira everywhere: “I believe the capoeirista will not be a foreigner anywhere” (INT08).

As a consequence of capoeira being the same, so is the capoeira player. They acknowledge that there is no distinction at all among capoeiristas regarding their nationalities. For them, what makes a good capoeirista is training and dedication. And this is where Brazilian students would differ from European ones: in the path of learning. They consider Europeans, especially Germans, to have what they called “the learning culture” (INT07 and INT16). Since early childhood, the Europeans have been used to deep study and questioning everything. It is natural for them to go deeper into a subject, search, read, listen, and transform everything they absorb into the practice.

“They learn, they chase knowledge, while Brazilians are passive about it” (INT05).

They invest in trips to Brazil to learn more about it. In fact, they ended up knowing Brazil better than many Brazilians, who lack the money to travel. They learn how to speak Portuguese to better understand it. That is why these masters and instructors believe that they can play and sing “a thousand times better” than most of the Brazilian capoeiristas (INT07).

This active attitude in the learning process can generate conflict in the relationship between the master and foreign students. The constant questioning of these students is sometimes interpreted as challenging the master’s authority:

Here in Germany, it is very normal to ask why the teacher why he is doing what he does. It is not enough for many to see movement and to just repeat it [as it is the common way to teach in Brazil]. People want the movement to be explained at the same time. And when you ask, from the classic Brazilian capoeira perspective, of the Brazilian teacher, this could be interpreted as a criticism of his authority. (INT16)

As capoeira was formerly street culture, it was not taught in studios, it did not have a lesson, everyone learned this way: looking at others and trying to repeat. (INT15)

[The Brazilian student] does not question the same way the Germans question, [or] the French, who question all the time. That was one thing I had to learn not to be nervous about. (INT 12)

One reasonable explanation for this misunderstanding is the social difference between the Brazilian immigrants and the European students. Most of the Brazilians are from the lower social classes, with no advanced formal education. In fact, three of the Brazilians interviewed used to live on the streets when they were children in Brazil.

Only one managed to finish a graduation course. Most of their European classes, however, were done inside the universities. In the observation field, a Dutch counter-master (the second-highest graduation level in capoeira) understood that this divergence in the social background also explains the meaning of capoeira among Brazilians and foreigners:

Under the “foot” of the berimbau everybody is the same, but of course I feel a difference with the Brazilian capoeirista, but for a social and not a cultural reason. The poor favelado plays with a fury and a force, a different reason.

We, white Europeans, start playing for aesthetics and joy. (OBS 02)

Another explanation for this misunderstanding is how these different students deal with hierarchy. Masters in Brazil assume a paternal role that goes beyond the roda de capoeira. They feel responsible in all aspects of their students’ lives, and they want to be sure that, through capoeira, they will keep focused as citizens. It is important to note that great part of the Brazilian practitioners start capoeira in social projects, and not in paid classes in studios. There, the relationship of master and student is of “much respect and a little bit of fear” (INT 08). The students have almost a blind respect for their masters. But in Germany, for example, authority is highly questioned:

There are people who respect this [hierarchy], and there are many people who don’t accept it. I have students here who think that everyone should be treated equally. They are students involved in social movements, and they think that hierarchy is crap that should not exist. (INT10)

Nationality seems to no longer assign a “certificate of authenticity” as it did in the earlier days of capoeira internationalization. All these decades of capoeira abroad have formed a new generation of high-ranked and validated foreign capoeiristas who start to have their own students, and in some extreme cases, to found their own capoeira groups, with no attachment to Brazilian groups. As advantages, they neutralize those potential misunderstandings: they literally and metaphorically speak the same language. They are better prepared to deal with cultural differences, both technically and in the interaction with students. This new generation handles it in a

“more professional” way, particularly in how they focus their higher education on courses that will help them in that regard, such as sports, social pedagogy, physical therapy, and music:

There is a new generation of capoeiristas who now know how to translate the art in a way the foreigners are understanding. The older masters found it difficult to pass, they did not speak the foreign language, they did not know the foreign culture. They tried to do something very Brazilian that they sometimes work but sometimes not. Now it is getting easier to consume capoeira. (INT02)

Most of the interviewees recognized this and they testified that there are

“foreigners that give classes better than a lot of Brazilians” (INT03). But what about the cultural part of it – the Brazilian-ness in capoeira, which will attract the consumers to the activity? They believe that they can learn it. Both Brazilian and the foreign instructors were unanimous that in order to start teaching, the foreigner has to immerse himself in Brazilian culture – and they do it. They find mechanisms to perpetuate the orality and spontaneity of the tradition, even while incorporating professionalized and didactic teaching techniques. As some of the German respondents stated:

I just received my teacher graduation. I have to know these things. I couldn’t be a teacher if I did not know these cultural things. You can’t have a high degree without having gone at least once to Brazil. (INT14)

You have to have already lived in Brazil, because I do not think it will be possible for a German who has never been there to give an authentic capoeira class. (INT16)

I can’t imagine myself teaching capoeira without speaking Portuguese, or without having been to Brazil. It all has to make sense to you, and I just found the sense in Brazil” (INT15)

Thus, we were able to identify some symbols of capoeira’s cultural capital among the foreign capoeiristas, which will construct the “expected authenticity”. The more the capital one has, the more authenticated he or she is, and the more recognition one gets among the fellow capoeiristas – whether Brazilians or not. These sources of capital include:

1) Trips to Brazil and capoeira classes or rodas in Brazil. A visit to Brazil, even for tourism and vacation, elevates the status of the practitioner within the group. If, for some reason – exchange, sabbatical, work – the capoeirista lived in Brazil, more legitimacy is afforded. Making capoeira tours, knowing the typical places in capoeira history, visiting the headquarters of the groups – and especially of one’s own group – as well as participating in classes and traditional street rodas in Brazil are means to increase one’s capoeira cultural capital.

2) Portuguese language proficiency. The better the capoeirista manages to communicate in Portuguese, the more involvement and dedication he/she has shown when diving into the culture of capoeira. The knowledge of the Portuguese language breaks down the barriers to a greater degree with the Brazilian masters and instructors, who in most cases, do not master a language besides their native one. Much of the knowledge of capoeira is tacit, passed down orally from the masters to their students. Students who speak Portuguese are called upon in the events and classes to translate from Portuguese to German, and this gives them a privileged and prominent place.

3) Ownership of special Brazilian brands. Capoeira was originally played barefoot, but currently some capoeiristas choose to play in sneakers. There is no specific model for the practice on the market; however, some capoeiristas adopt an old volleyball model of a Brazilian brand, Rainha. Foreign capoeiristas acquire this product when they go to Brazil. This was fully presented in the capoeira events, especially by the foreign instructors (Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Brazilian sneakers brand: Rainha

Source: The authors, retrieved from the Observation Field Diary, June 2018.

4) T-shirt collection. Capoeira events are organized by each group and normally happen once a year. In addition to representing an important moment for the capoeiristas of the group – since the change of belts, symbol of the evolution of the students, is a ritual that happens at that time – the events attract capoeiristas from several groups. The registration fee at an event includes the participation in the special guests’ classes and in rodas, and a commemorative T-shirt. All the events T-shirts have a pattern: they display the name of the group, the name of the event (if it is the case), the year, and sometimes the city of the encounter.

Back in their home groups, it is common to see students training in the T-shirts acquired at these events. This collection of T-shirts demonstrates how much a capoeirista circulates in the capoeira community (Figure 2).

Figure 2 – Festival T-shirt collection

Source: The authors, examples of one respondent collection.

5) Instruments possession. Besides the unique berimbau, other instruments are used in capoeira, such as drums, tambourine, and agogô. The possession of one’s own berimbau is a sign of the commitment of the student with his formation of capoeirista. As previously mentioned, a capoeirista is not limited to

being a good player; he must also master music. The origin and history of the purchased berimbau is also a differentiating element. Special care is also taken with the transport covers, which are customized by their owners as another element of identification

6) Special classes or workshops with renowned masters. The community of capoeira is full of world-renowned masters, some of them precursors of contemporary regional capoeira who are still alive. Taking a special class or attending a workshop with them brings status to the capoeirista. This may explain the race for pictures and selfies with the masters that happens at the end of each event. This collection of photos works as proof of the capoeiristas’

curriculum.

Although capoeira and capoeiristas – both instructors and students – are understood to be the same everywhere, there is a concern with the proliferation of a mass and commercial capoeira that ceases to keep and appreciate capoeira’s cultural values. It is also common sense, that the connection to Brazil may fade away a bit in the process, but not entirely. There are some aspects of Brazilian-ness, such as the joy, the fun, the “street smarts” in playing, and the group hosting, that are deeply rooted in capoeira.

Brazilians who have immigrated are thankful for capoeira, but are frustrated by Brazil’s treatment and lack of support of its own cultural product, both institutionally and marketwise. However, they hope that the international consumption will add status and recognition back home as well. “It is done. Capoeira is of the world, it will no longer be from Brazil. Only then, it will start its way back, and capoeira will finally get recognition in Brazil” (INT07).