Jane Zavisca Danielle Hedegard University of Arizona
The research addresses the question of how do differently situated social groups symbolically construct race and capoeira to mark boundaries, claim meanings, and gain material and cultural advantage? Capoeira academies in Salvador are an ideal setting to observe the construction of race. These academies attract international tourists in search of an "authentic" experience, and authenticity for tourists relates to race as the tourist economy of Salvador markets encounters with ?authentic? Afro-Brazilian cultural traditions such as dance, food, and capoeira. Through the tourist economy, people with divergent backgrounds and conceptions of race meet in an intensely interactive setting ? capoeira academies. These interactions will be ethnographically observed through intensive participant observation, supplemented by in-depth interviews with practitioners, in three academies. These academies all attract international tourists, but each draws on a different local socioeconomic base ? a low-income group comprised of mostly dark-skinned individuals with little access to the tourist center, a middle-class group of both light and dark-skinned individuals with access to the tourist center, and a low-income group of mostly dark-skinned individuals located within the tourist center. Observing tourists in interaction with different socioeconomic groups provides an opportunity to observe constructions of race as symbolic capital. It also allows us to better understand the process through which groups convert a symbolic resource ? race ? into cultural and material resources for local capoeira practitioners.
Broader Impact. The project contributes to ongoing sociological studies of social capital and how racial categories are created and forges new links between Brazilian and US researchers.
