Abstract

MIRANDA, Sheila Ferreira. O "feio e o belo": reflexões sobre os efeitos de uma ideologia do corpo. Psicol. Am. Lat. [online]. 2011, n.22, pp.1-8. ISSN 1870-350X.

This paper discusses the effects of the imperative of beauty upon the identity context of African descendants in Brazil. From the series of significance in daily life attached to hairstyling and body interventions, and to various contributions by the media, we argue that the reiteration of the hegemonic aesthetic discourse is mostly a matter of political nature, which has as immediate effect the establishment of a Eurocentric aesthetic ideal through the abjection of the black body. However, such process, referred to as ideology of the body, has in its roots the flaw required for its very contestation: the need for a constant reiteration delimits the fragility of the imperative of beauty, implying possibilities of insubordination and rearticulation of an identity domain hitherto made invisible . Thus, the domain of ethnic halls rises up as a locus in which Africandescendent beauty can be reinscribed, laying foundation so that such bodies, hitherto abject, may emerge as a new construction of beauty.

Keywords : abjection; African descendants; corporeity; aesthetics; identities.

        · abstract in Portuguese | Spanish     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )