Suchergebnisse

The majority of the popular martial arts in Britain are of South East Asian origin. One exception is the Brazilian dance and martial art capoeira, which has grown in popularity in the UK over the past twenty years at the same time as it has become a global phenomenon. Brazilian teachers have spread across the globe to create what the article calls diasporic capoeira.The ethnographic research reported here focuses on how Brazilian capoeira teachers in the UK create and sustain a habitus for their students using a contrastive rhetoric. Teachers in the UK routinely stress the similarities and differences between the habitus of capoeira in Brazil and its habitus in the UK. Variations in the habitus of capoeira in the UK, at the individual and the institutional level are explored drawing upon the ethnographic data on capoeira groups, teachers and students.

We review some of the recent trends that have made the collection and exploration of narratives especially prominent among the social sciences. While we acknowledge the significance of narratives in many aspects of social life, we sound a note of caution concerning the popularity of 'narratives', and 'testimony', not least among 'qualitative' researchers. We suggest that too many authors are complicit in the general culture of 'the interview society', and are too ready to celebrate narratives and biographical accounts, rather than subjecting them to systematic analysis. In the same way, we suggest that the contemporary fashion for 'autoethnography' too often leads to unreflective uses of personal accounts.