The Kalaripayattu and the Capoeira as masculine performances : from bodies of resistance to neoliberal tourism bodies
Abstract
This essay proposes to look at the emergence of two embodied martial arts from Brazil and India as tools of resistance against colonization on one hand while also comprising different kind of masculinities in postcolonial national narratives, on the other. The bodies of African slaves and Kalaripayattu martial artists became the spaces over which the contesting colonial powers met and then wrote their violent histories of dominance and power. These bodies, however, reacted violently through their disguised or secret martial moves, thus creating a counter-narrative with which to write back. Perceived as a threat, they were banned by their colonial masters; modern democratic Brazil and independent India later welcomed them back and ‘flaunted’ them to accommodate them in a deserving space of dignity within their respective national tourism industries.[1]However, today they risk being appropriated by neoliberal and global promoters of hyper-masculinity or by conservative right-wing ultra-nationalists. These people have continued to resist such moves as political and epistemological interests are increasingly challenged by the above mentioned forces.
Citation
Sen , S & Mukherjee , I 2017 , ' The Kalaripayattu and the Capoeira as masculine performances : from bodies of resistance to neoliberal tourism bodies ' , Between , vol. 7 , no. 13 , pp. 1-22 . https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/2654
Publication
Between
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2039-6597Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2017. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.