Katya Wesolowski
Lecturing Fellow of Cultural Anthropology

As an anthropologist and dancer, I am interested in the interrelationship between bodies, cultural practices and politics.  My research focuses on Brazil and the African Diaspora; expressive culture and globalization; the intersection of play, sport and dance; learning communities, social inequalities and identities.  I am also concerned with the methodological and pedagogical challenges of researching, writing and teaching about creativity, embodied knowledge and ethnography.  My current work centers on the Afro-Brazilian game/dance/fight of capoeira, which I have also practiced and taught for over twenty years.  Recent publications include “Professionalizing Capoeira: the politics of play in Twenty-first-Century Brazil”,“From ‘Moral Disease’ to ‘National Sport’: Race, Nation and Capoeira in Brazil,” and forthcoming, “Imagining Brazil in Africa: capoeira’s transatlantic roots and routes" and "Baile Funk and Kuduro: embodied (dis)articulations of national belonging in Brazil and Angola."

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Contact Information

  • Box 90019, Durham, NC 27708-0025
  • Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708

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