Beauty is constantly lived and incorporated as a meaningful social category in Brazil and intersects with racialised and gendered ways of belonging to the Brazilian nation. In this article, I deploy ethnographic material to show how middle-class women self-identifying as black embody and experience beauty and how, through practices and discourses centred on physical appearance, they both reinforce and challenge broader social and racial inequalities in Brazil.
Banet-Weiser, Sarah (1999) The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity, Berkeley: University of California Press.
2.
Banks, Ingrid (2000) Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness, New York: New York University Press.
3.
Bordo, Susan (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, Berkeley: University of California Press.
4.
Burdick, John (2005) ‘Why is the Black Evangelical Movement Growing in Brazil?'. Journal of Latin American Studies37: 311–332.
5.
ButlerKim D. (1998) Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
6.
CahillAnn J. (2003) ‘Feminist Pleasure and Feminist Beautification’. Hypatia18(4): 42–64.
7.
Caldwell, Kia Lilly (2007) Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
8.
CandelarioGinetta E.B. (2007) Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
9.
Casanova, Erynn Masi de (2011) Making Up the Difference: Women, Beauty, and Direct Selling in Ecuador, Austin: University of Austin Press.
10.
Colebrook, Claire (2006) ‘Introduction: Special Issue on Beauty and Feminist Theory’. Feminist Theory7(2): 131–142.
11.
Coleman, Rebecca and MónicaG., Moreno Figueroa (2010) ‘Past and Future Perfect? Beauty, Affect and Hope’. Journal for Cultural Research14(4): 357–373.
12.
De Azevedo, Thales ([1953] 1996) As Elites de Cor Numa Cidade Brasileira, Salvador: Editoria da Universidade Federal da Bahia.
13.
DeglerCarl N. (1971) Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in the United States and Brazil, New York: Macmillan.
Dos Santos, Jocélio Teles (2005) O Poder da Cultura e a Cultura no Poder, Salvador, Bahia: Edufba.
16.
Dos Santos, Sônia Beatriz (2008) ‘Brazilian Black Women’s NGOs and their Struggles in the Area of Sexual and Reproductive Health: Experiences, Resistance and Politics’. PhD Thesis, University of Texas, USA.
17.
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt (1899) The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.
18.
DuBois, William Edward Burghardt ([1903] 1990) The Souls of Black Folk, New York: Vintage Books.
19.
Edmonds, Alexander (2010) Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
20.
Figueiredo, Angela (2003) ‘A Classe Média Negra não vai ao Paraíso: Trajetórias, Perfis e Negritude entre os Empresários Negros’. PhD Thesis, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
21.
Freyre, Gilberto ([1946] 1964) The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Gimlin, Debra (2002) Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture, Berkeley: University of California Press.
24.
Goldstein, Donna (1999) ‘“Interracial” Sex and Racial Democracy in Brazil: Twin Concepts?'. American Anthropologist101(3): 563–578.
25.
Gomes, Nilma Lino (2006) Sem Perder a Raiz: Corpo e Cabelo como Símbolos da Identidade Negra, Belo Horizonte: Autentica.
26.
Gordon, Doreen (2009) ‘Blackness and Social Mobility in Salvador, Brazil’. PhD Thesis, University of Manchester, UK.
27.
HanchardMichael G. (1994) Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945–1988, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
28.
Harris, Marvin (1970) ‘Referential Ambiguity in the Calculus of the Brazilian Racial Identity’. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology26(1): 1–14.
29.
HutchinsonHarry W.(1952) ‘Race Relations in a Rural Community of the Bahian Recôncavo’. In: CharlesWagley (eds) Race and Class in Rural Brazil: A UNESCO Study, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 16–46.
Jarrín, Alvaro (2010) ‘Cosmetic Citizenship: Beauty, Affect and Inequality in Southeastern Brazil’. PhD Thesis, Duke University, USA.
32.
Kymlicka, Will (1995) Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
33.
Lima, Márcia (1995) ‘Trajectória Educacional e Realização Sócio-econômica das Mulheres Negras’. Estudos Feministas2: 489–495.
34.
LovellPeggy(1999) ‘Women and Racial Inequality at Work in Brazil’. In: MichaelHanchard (eds) Racial Politics in Contemporary Brazil, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 138–153.
35.
Machado-Borges, Thaïs (2008) ‘O Antes e Depois: Feminilidade, Classe e Raça na Revista Plástica e Beleza’. Luso-Brazilian Review45(1): 146–163.
36.
Machado-Borges, Thaïs (2009) ‘Producing Beauty in Brazil: Vanity, Visibility and Social Inequality’. Vibrant, 6(1): 208–237. Available at: http://www.vibrant.org.br/downloads/v6n1_borges.pdf (accessed 15 January 2013).
37.
Malysse, Stéphane Rémy (2002) ‘“Extensões do Feminino”: Megahair, Baianidade e Preconceito Capilar’. Studium, 11. Available at: http://www.studium.iar.unicamp.br/11/4.html (accessed 15 January 2013).
38.
McCallum, Cecilia (2005) ‘Racialized Bodies, Naturalized Classes: Moving through the City of Salvador da Bahia’. American Ethnologist32(1): 100–117.
39.
McRobbie, Angela (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London: SAGE.
NogueiraOracy(1985) ‘Preconceito Racial de Marca e Preconceito Racial de Origem’. In: OracyNogueira (eds) Tanto Preto quanto Branco: Estudos de Relações Raciais, São Paulo: T.A. Queiroz, pp. 19–94.
42.
Pattillo-McCoy, Mary (1999) Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
43.
PinhoPatricia(2006) ‘Afro-Aesthetics in Brazil’. In: SarahNuttall (eds) Beautiful/Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 266–289.
44.
Reichmann, Rebecca (1999) Race in Contemporary Brazil: From Indifference to Inequality, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
45.
Sanjek, Roger (1971) ‘Brazilian Racial Terms: Some Aspects of Meanings and Learning’. American Anthropologist (N.S.)73(5): 1126–1143.
46.
Sansone, Livio (2003) Blackness without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
47.
Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz (1993) The Spectacle of the Races: Scientists, Institutions, and the Race Question in Brazil 1870–1930, New York: Hill and Wang.
48.
SheriffRobin E. (2001) Dreaming Equality: Colour, Race, and Racism in Urban Brazil, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
49.
SkidmoreThomas E. (1999) Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
50.
Sutton, Barbara (2010) Bodies in Crisis: Culture, Violence and Women’s Resistance in Neoliberal Argentina, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
51.
TellesEdward E. (2004) Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
52.
TwineFrance W. (1998) Racism in a Racial Democracy, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
53.
Wade, Peter (1997) Race and Ethnicity in Latin America, London: Pluto Press.
54.
Wolf, Naomi (1991) The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women, New York: William Morrow and Company.
