Capoeiras: gênero e hierarquias em jogo

Abstract

The dissertation aims to analyze how gender meanings cross the symbolic system of capoeira since, although it was noticed an increase in the number of practicing women in high ranks in the last 10 years, this number is still incipient. The paper assesses gender relations from the ethnography of a group of capoeira in the city of Campinas/SP, confronted with information from the researcher's personal background, as a practitioner. The gender was seen as a marker of difference that, in discourses on corporeality, triggers the differentiation. However, in the level of competition for prestige, which occurs in the wheel, the element that operates as the ordering of the practitioners status is the ability and, therefore, the differentiation can be moved from the dimension of gender identity to the dimension of the value system of capoeira. The displacement of differentiation occurs when women step into or intend to enter the realm of wrestling, necessary to achieve a prestigious position. Thus, the paper seeks to explore both current concerns about body and sexual difference that subsidize the differentiation based on gender, as possibilities of destabilizing this distinction.