Capoeira as Graceful Resistance

***I am happy to announce that our first substantive essay for 2018 will be a guest post by Lauren Miller Griffith.  While this is Prof. Griffith’s first appearance on Kung Fu Tea she is already  leaving her mark on the wider Martial Arts Studies community.  Her recent book, In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of the Afro-Brazilian Capoeira Tradition(Berghahn Books, 2016) will be of great interest to anyone who employs ethnography, or participant observation, as a research method.  It is also a wonderful addition to the growing literature on capoeira.  Her current post tackles a critical question, namely, to what degree might participation in a martial arts community influence someone’s social and political views? How does this process typically unfold?  As a political scientist I have always found these questions to be very interesting, and I think that after reading her thought provoking essay you will as…