(Un)Disciplining Bodies: Capoeira, Embodiment, and Foucauldian Counterconduct in a Boys and Girls Club

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1

Abstract

This study adopts perspectives of Foucauldian counter-conduct and embodiment theory to understand practices of children at a West Texas Boys and Girls Club (B&GC). Specifically, we explore how children used their bodies in the context of a university-sponsored capoeira (Brazilian martial arts) program. We analyzed field notes and video clips of children’s movements using co-interpretive data sessions. Despite efforts to guide children’s learning bodies, we found that instruction seemed to work best when we gave up what we believed children had to learn. Instead, children seemed to appreciate some degree of agency and used their bodies in improvisational, un-prescriptive, unpredictable ways. We consider implications for the amount of control teachers/instructors should exercise over bodies, as well as embodied learning generally.

Authors

• Joshua M Cruz, Texas Tech University

• Ni Clark, Texas Tech University

• Lauren Griffith, Texas Tech University

• Stephanie Allen, Texas Tech University

• Mia Clapp, Texas Tech University

• Ideraoluwa Lawal, Texas Tech University