Capoeira And Candomble: Conformity And Resistance in Brazil [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Floyd Merrell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2005

Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves in Brazil, and Candombl‚ is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. The two are closely interconnected. Capoeira and Candombl‚ have for centuries made up a coherent form of Brazilian life, despite having been suppressed by the dominant cultures. Now they are not only widely recognized in Brazil, but have become popular in North America and Europe as a new blend of sports, dance, and holistic approach to many facets of life. For Western audiences, Capoeira performance and Candombl‚ services are fun to watch and participate in, but difficult to understand. Both have apparently familiar elements, but this seeming conformity with the dominant cultures was for 400 years a strategy of resistance by Brazilian slaves. The author offers his own reflections about Capoeira and Candombl‚, combining personal experiences with anecdotes, historical facts, and research as well as religious and philosophical interpretations, both Western and non-Western. The result is informative and entertaining, a description and analysis that allows readers to get a feeling, understanding, and even experience of the spirit of Capoeira and Candombl‚.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

FLOYD MERRELL, who is a professor of linguistics at Purdue University and the author of over 20 books, spends part of each year in Salvador (Bahia) in Brazil, where he practices and lives what he describes in this book.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 317 pages
• Publisher: Markus Wiener Pub; illustrated edition edition (July 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155876349X
• ISBN-13: 978-1558763494
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,311,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Playing in the "bodymindspirit", August 26, 2005

By 

Nancy L. Watterson "Capoeira fan & folklorist" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity And Resistance In Brazil (Paperback)

Merrell's book offers a fresh perspective on the tradition of capoeira, particularly with his emphasis on the influences of candomble. Merrell builds upon and references Mestre Acordeon's often-cited insights (of "playing in the dark," "playing in water," "playing in the light," "playing with the crystal ball," and "playing in the mind"), attempting to explain to readers the feel and power of "playing in the bodymindspirit." For those who like pondering ways of being (i.e, notions of "becoming," of ambiguity, and of the processual)--and I do--this work is truly enjoyable. While this book may be a bit weighty or academically abstract and philosophical for some capoeiristas' tastes, Merrrell's work fills an important niche in 8-10 top books in English written on the subject. As but one example of his scholarly flights of imagination, see his handling of Exu, trickster by default, and the complexities of moving beyond "either/or" and "both/and" thinking to a third way of thinking, or "thirdness." Expect coverage of complex topics, a bit of "jargon" (appropriate for a scholarly work well-informed by years of research in Latin American history)--and you'll be rewarded with a book that makes you go "hmmmmmm." Axe ASCAB

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Capoeira and Candomble, January 2, 2005

By 

Markus Wiener - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Capoeira and Candomblé: Conformity And Resistance In Brazil (Paperback)

Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves, and Candomblé is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. And while there are numerous books on Candomblé and kindred Afro-American religions, none of them effectively combines Candomblé and Capoeira. Actually, Capoeira and Candomblé are closely tied to one another. Together, they make up a coherent form of life in Brazil within the current process of globalization about which there has been much ballyhoo, eulogies, and condemnation.

This study involves the author's practice of and reflections on the arts of Capoeira and Candomblé; it culminates in the idea of an "other logic," an alternative culture "logic," about which much lip service is being paid in academic circles, with little to no concrete details.

This book, consequently, is one of a kind insofar as it bears on the interdependency of two Afro-Brazilian practices while grounding them in a theoretical framework and at the same time interrelating them with topics of great concern in the initial years of a new millennium: post-colonial and diaspora studies.