What, precisely, is the nature of this important and valuable role for capoeira? And what can
capoeira teach us about communication, culture, and conflict? In my case study, I open up a space
in which capoeira can be investigated as co-cultural communication theory and practice. In the
process, I will be able to expand and evaluate the benefits of this theoretical perspective within
the study of communication. Also, its possibilities: “Through its descriptions of communication
adaptability, co-cultural theory reveals the spirit of human creativity and perseverance” (Orbe,
1998, p. 124). As an example of conflict-in-motion and communication-in-action, so, too, does
capoeira.
Analysis
The introduction of–and an introduction to–co-cultural communication theory
By the 1998 publication date of Mark Orbe’s Constructing co-cultural theory: An
explication of culture, power, and communication, our understanding of both culture and
communication made it a foregone conclusion that, “Culture and communication are inextricably
linked” (Orbe, 1998, p. 1). Yet our understanding of both culture and communication was still
limited in other significant ways. Specifically, “Most of the existing research efforts exploring
culture’s impact on communication processes have been criticized for focusing primarily on the
dominant perspective” (Orbe, 1998, p. 3). Orbe offered his communication-based theoretical
perspective–derived in experiential and everyday communication drawn from the perspectives of
underrepresented group members and based in “various existing conceptual frameworks related to
culture, power, and communication” (Orbe, 1998, p. 8) such as muted-group theory and
standpoint theory–as a way “to speak to the issues of traditionally underrepresented group
members as they function within societal structures governed by cultural groups that have, over
time, achieved dominant group status” (Orbe & Spellers, 2005, p. 174). In the decade since:
Convention