“Like men”: Archetypes male archetypes and female presence in capoeira groups of Madrid

Abstract

This paper analyzes some of the conclusions of the ethnography carried on between 2007 and 2010 with the capoeira groups of Madrid. In general terms, the research’s main concern inquired if the existence of these collectives in the city spread out cultural and social elements of the capoeira in its homeland, thus connecting localities in Brazil and Spain. This question, nevertheless, became more complex as the fieldwork with the capoeiristas lightened some situations and experiences that overlapped the initial expectations. In this sense, the gender relations and definitions tended to assume a corporal dimension on these groups everyday lives, being strongly related to a masculine prototypical corporality. The relation between woman corporality and masculine archetypes in the capoeira groups studied in Madrid was one of the elements that simultaneously referred to and changed the capoeira communitarian life in Brazil.