Reinventing the Wheel: Capoeira as a Care Device in a Psychosocial Care Center for Alcohol and Other Drugs

Abstract

This study describes some results of a research project for a Master’s degree that aimed to find the impact of practicing capoeira as a care and health promotion device for people who make hazardous use of psychoactive substances. This research followed the guidelines of the cartographical method and followed the process of the capoeira group that took place weekly in a Psychosocial Care Center — Alcohol and Other Drugs (Caps AD II) —, which belongs to the Psychosocial Care Network in the municipality of São Paulo, from 2019 to 2020. Participants were users who were keen on such practice. Records were made using images and field diaries. The practice of capoeira as an Afro-Brazilian experience promoted health and provided care in spaces that value encounters and sharing of knowledge-doings-feelings — including the collective, the social, the political, the economic, and the cultural — of unique importance and significance. The practice of capoeira within health services becomes an important device for social, political, and affective expression and positioning and as a space for bringing together singularities by the mandinga and mischief that make up this “great roda” (gathering).