Abstract
Based on interviews with Brazilian female migrants in Japan who are seeking work as makeup artists, I describe how the “Brazilian body” has been represented as an “occidental” body that is distinct from an “oriental” body. This process creates a new hierarchy that places Brazilian women above Japanese women, contrary to the economic hierarchy between the two countries and the hierarchy of social class which allocates Brazilians to the lower classes of Japanese society. This paper examines how the production of the “Brazilian body” – which is linked with consumption, social class, gender, and race – leads these Brazilian female migrants to attempt to invert the subordinate status they occupy in Japan and understand the effects of this production on their subjectivities.
Brazilian Migration; Japan; Consumption; Body; Makeup