Why read In Search of Legitimacy?

Book cover of In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Tradition

Book description

Every year, countless young adults from affluent, Western nations travel to Brazil to train in capoeira, the dance/martial art form that is one of the most visible strands of the Afro-Brazilian cultural tradition. In Search of Legitimacy explores why "first world" men and women leave behind their jobs, families, and…

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Why read it?

1 author picked In Search of Legitimacy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Sara Delamont

Author

Griffith’s book is a study of capoeira teachers and students in the USA, how American capoeira students experience trips to Brazil to take classes in its homeland, and how their ‘pilgrimages’ are experienced.

Understanding capoeira outside Brazil is important for making sense of capoeira in Brazil and all over the world today. Griffith’s book, focused not in the global cities of San Francisco or New York where it was first established, but in an all-American city with few cosmopolitan characteristics, and few Brazilian residents, captures the world of the ‘typical’ capoeira teacher in exile and his or her students.

From Sara's list on the African-Brazilian martial art capoeira.