Abstract

This dissertation develops a comparative analysis of Afro-Brazilians and African Americans, seeking to understand the processes of embodiment, meaning and social order in the constitution of the African Diaspora. The study singles out two sociocultural categories, "Ginga" and "Cool," among, respectively, Afro-Brazilians living in Mangueira and African-Americans living in Harlem, . Both of these categories have been related to bodily practices in the African Diaspora and are responsible for defining styles, rhythms of life, and the management of everyday routines: "Ginga" is tied to Capoeira, the international Afro-Brazilian martial art form, and "Cool" is tied to Jazz, the international African-American musical form. The research showed me that in both processes of categorization there is a double production of meaning. Cool is articulated to Anglo-American culture in a different way than it is to African-Americans; Ginga is articulated to Afro-Brazilians in a different way than it is to Euro-Brazilians. This conjuncture allows me to say that, through microphysical events, these categories have been recreated, reinvented, hybridized and transformed into national and political emblems. Given these arguments I want to demonstrate how the idea of embodied thought, as a ground to the study of categorization, may be applied to the study of socio-cultural categories such as "Cool" and "Ginga". This exercise of cultural reconstruction reveals the prototypes of everyday life among African descents in the US and Brazil, but also among Americans and Brazilians in general. These cultures are very different in regard to their prepositional levels and their own contexts, however the use, regularity and domains that make both "Ginga" and "Cool" possible in two different languages---English and Portuguese---show us certain levels of similitude that may allow us to see the universal contingency that builds them, despite their differences, as members of a family of resemblance: namely, the African Diaspora embodied prototypes and schemata