Thinking with Bevereley Skeggs - Stockholms universitet

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certain cosmetic surgical techniques. In 2003, 621,342 peopleunderwent some kind of plastic surgery in the country. 80 percent of these people were women (Folha de São Paulo 2004).Brazil was, at the end of the 1990s, the fourth largest consumer ofcosmetic products in the world. The percentage of women whounderwent caesarean sections in Brazil amounted to 36.4 per centin 1996 – one of the highest rates in the world. Brazil also rankshigh in the number of female sterilizations – 40.1 per cent in1996 (according to Daalsgard 2004).In what kind of social context are these practices takingplace?Brazil is among the ten largest economies on Earth. But it is alsoone of the countries <strong>with</strong> the most unequal income distributionin the world (Valle Silva 2003). It is a nation where 60 per centof the economically active population earns less than US$150 amonth (Bethell 2000).In Brazil, the richest 20 per cent of the population earnsapproximately 29 times as much as the poorest 20 per cent (Barroset al. 2001; World Bank 2001). The country has an upper classthat consists of about 10 per cent of the population. The middleclass accounts for only about 20 per cent, and roughly 30 per centof Brazilians live in abject poverty. According to the World Bank(2005), in Brazil, about 40 million people live on less than US$2a day and 14.6 million people live on less than US$1 a day.These economic inequalities are linked to racial inequalities.Of the richest 10 per cent, 83 per cent are white. In education,non-whites complete fewer years of study than whites. In 2001,16.4 per cent of whites had completed 12 years of education incomparison to 4.5 per cent of non-whites. The average income fornon-whites is a little less than half that of whites. Non-whites havea life expectancy 14 years shorter than that for whites, they havean infant mortality rate 30 per cent higher, and more than doublethe number of illiterates (IBGE 2002; PNUD 2005; Schneider1996). Yet, in spite of this numerical evidence that points to theexistence of racism in Brazil, the myth of racial democracy (i.e.,42
the harmonious mixture of Africans, Amerindians and Europeans)is still alive and often functions as a hallmark of Brazilianness(Fry 2000: 97; Nogueira 1985; Sansone 2003).What characterizes Brazilian society, according to many whohave attempted to portray it (Barbosa 1992; DaMatta 1978; DaMatta and Hess 1995; Velho and Alvito 1996; Vianna 1995), isthe co-existence of and continual tension between fundamentallyopposing principles and practices: wealth and poverty, egalitarianvalues and hierarchical traditions, racism and racial democracy.How do different women experience, embody and enact thegap, manifested in Brazilian society, between hierarchical norms(where you can acquire favours, rights and privileges because ofwho you are and who you know) and individualistic, egalitarianideals? There is an ongoing cultural and political debate in Brazilregarding the issues of citizenship and individual rights: howshould social inequality be confronted? Is the application of thedemocratic rule of law an impossible project? To what extent arewomen from different social classes able or willing to renegotiatetheir positions and see equality ‘beneath the surface?Produced Bodies – some field observationsIn Belo Horizonte, and in many parts of south-eastern Brazil,consumption focused on the body is sometimes referred to interms of production. In fact, there is an idiomatic expressionused in everyday conversations to indicate that a person is welldressedand beautiful – one can say that a person is ‘produzida’(produced) meaning dressed-up, styled, and nice. The expression‘se produzir’ (to produce oneself), to get oneself ready to go out,or to make oneself beautiful, because it so crudely describes aprocess of making and marking, a process of inscription of valueonto bodies (<strong>Skeggs</strong> 2004: 13), deserves special attention.Production, as, for instance, in the expression ‘produção danoiva’ literally translated to ‘bride production’ (as in a signI saw at the entrance of a fashionable beauty parlour in Belo43
Page 3 and 4: Thinking with Beverley Skeggseditor
Page 5: 792129394965758395104InnehållIntro
Page 8 and 9: anybody Professor Beverley Skeggs g
Page 10 and 11: 2007). Drawing on Hearn (2007), emo
Page 12 and 13: of masculinity, car design and tech
Page 14 and 15: Skoda as I am, my company car, and
Page 16 and 17: Dag: … an occasion when speeding
Page 18 and 19: driving. When driving a car, emotio
Page 21 and 22: Renewing Class Theory?Exploitation,
Page 23 and 24: To do this, Skeggs critically appro
Page 25 and 26: Culture and ExploitationThe central
Page 27 and 28: Perhaps the increased differentiati
Page 29 and 30: A Focus on Victims of Crimein Socia
Page 31 and 32: on social rights, public responsibi
Page 33 and 34: is embracing the core values of neo
Page 35 and 36: is replaced with moralism. This app
Page 37 and 38: Estrada, P. (2001), ‘Juvinile Vio
Page 39 and 40: The Production of BodiesThaïs Mach
Page 41: production of bodies and physical a
Page 45 and 46: show the time and effort put into t
Page 47 and 48: inspired me to extend my sample of
Page 49 and 50: Emotional Archives and BodyPolitics
Page 51 and 52: gave hope that it would be possible
Page 53 and 54: to sample words, wordings and phras
Page 55 and 56: her abilities’. Her doctors had h
Page 57 and 58: individual, but it also seems that
Page 59 and 60: with the changes that eventually ca
Page 61 and 62: egular leave to visit a ‘male fri
Page 63: Psychosurgery in Sweden 1944-1958 (
Page 66 and 67: Despite this new and growing intere
Page 68 and 69: Rachel’s life storyWhen consideri
Page 70 and 71: In Palestine and SwedenAfter the Se
Page 72 and 73: It is often explained that it is on
Page 75 and 76: Thoughts on Being a RespectableHomo
Page 77 and 78: This is also stressed in the OED’
Page 79 and 80: and what the latest European statis
Page 81 and 82: her contradictory ways of being, he
Page 83 and 84: In Dialogue with Devaluation:Young
Page 85 and 86: present in schools. As he shows, th
Page 87 and 88: Returning then to the often-posed q
Page 89 and 90: discussed as a socially positioned
Page 91 and 92: concerns his looks. His looks becom
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ReferencesAndersson, Åsa (2003), I
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A Feminist SustainableDevelopment:
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The intersectionality approach to p
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‘shiftings’, i.e. to go from th
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With the help of politics of emotio
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Wise, A. & Velayutham, S. (2006),
Page 105 and 106:
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Thinking with Bevereley Skeggs - Stockholms universitet

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