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Body, politics and emotion: feminism, aesthetics and consumption among black women

Abstract

This article reflects on how some recent forms of political engagement of black women establish relations between body, aesthetics and emotion as central aspects of their learning process and identity affirmation. By taking the city of São Paulo as a scenario, this ethnographic research demonstrates, by exploring on-line and off-line sociability networks, the role played by the sharing of dramatic narratives of racial discrimination as central collective experiences in the reformulation of a set of sentiments. I argue that these practices produce a novel perspective on both the body and the notion of beauty through aesthetic languages that, in their turn, promote new dynamics of consumption at the same time that they expand the meanings of black feminisms. I propose to examine the constitution of a plural political subject, aligned with the contemporary media, which articulates market and engagement to a political economy of the emotions stimulating new forms of subjectivity.

Keywords:
black feminisms; aesthetics; consumption; emotions

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