Reconfiguring Capoeira

Sergio González Varela is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Warsaw, Poland. He is a Habilitated doctor by the University of Warsaw. He holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of London (University College London). He was a visiting Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany in 2025, and a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in the academic year 2016-2017. He is the author of several publications, among them the books Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition in a Globalized World (2019), Power in Practice: The Pragmatic Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian Capoeira (2017), and, more recently, El Arte de Engañar: Ensayos de Antropología Social (2022) and Resistir: Hacia una Antropología de la Resiliencia (2025).

• Chapter 1: Introduction.-Chapter 2: The importance of Mestre Moraes and the Grupo de Capoeira Angola Pelourinho in the Global Consolidation of Capoeira.- Chapter 3: From Angola to Brazil and Back Again: Capoeira in the Flux and Reflux of the African Diaspora.- Chapter 4: Disinterest in Capoeira: Exploring Brazilian Descendants’ Relationship with Capoeira in West Africa.- Chapter 5: The Mission: A Case Study on Capoeira as an Instrument of Brazilian International Cooperation in the Lusophone African World.- Chapter 6: Mobility and the Development of Personal Philosophies of Capoeira.- Chapter 7: Becoming a Capoeira Mestre in London: Mestre Fantasma and the Relocation of Capoeira in Europe.- Chapter 8: What Does it Take to Become a Mexican Mestre? On the Acquisition of Legitimacy in Internationalized Capoeira Contexts.- Chapter 9: Berimbau’s ‘Use Value’ and ‘Exchange Value’: Production and Consumption as Symbols of Freedom in Contemporary Global Capoeira Angola.- Chapter 10: Thinking the Postcolonial Through Martial Arts: The Case of Afro-Brazilian Capoeira and its Presence in Russia.- Chapter 11: Feminism in Traditional Communities: The Case of Women in Capoeira Angola.- Chapter 12: “Capoeira, ela dá mas ela cobra”: A Foreign Researcher-Practitioner Reflects on Her Ethical Responsibilities to Capoeira Angola.