Ambiguous hairs: beauty, purchasing power and “race” in urban Brazil

Abstract

The subjects of the present narrative – women surrounding the family nucleus of a carioca funk artist – are apprehended from their ability in the manipulation of meanings and social representations. Through an ethnography around the issue of constructing and deconstructing beauty in a universe shaped by an urban musical movement and more prevalent within the carioca popular strata, the article sees the appearance as an element which emerges as a potential facilitator for the circulation across the city. From the taste shared by subjects earning incomes sensibly differentiated, the article shows the building of a corporal aesthetics with the potential to increase the mobility across the urban space and to destabilize the historic association which links poverty and color of skin in Brazil.

Aesthetics; Consumption; Taste; Materiality; Carioca funk