Celina de Sá on Diaspora without Displacement: The Coloniality and Promise of Capoeira in Senegal

Dr. Celina de Sá is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. Originally from the SF Bay Area, she received her PhD with distinction at the University of Pennsylvania in Africana Studies and Anthropology. Outside of her professional life, she is also a capoeirista and training to be a flamenco dancer.

 

In today’s conversation, we discuss her latest monograph Diaspora Without Displacement: The Coloniality and Promise of Capoeira in Senegal, (published by Duke University Press July 2025) where she analyzes  a capoeira network across West Africa, de Sá shows how urban West Africans use capoeira to explore the relationship between Blackness, diaspora, and African heritage.

What is Conversations in Atlantic Theory?

These conversations explore the cultural, political, and philosophical traditions of the Atlantic world, ranging from European critical theory to the black Atlantic to sites of indigenous resistance and self-articulation, as well as the complex geography of thinking between traditions, inside traditions, and from positions of insurgency, critique, and counternarrative.