This paper reveals how young Japanese-Brazilian female migrants living and working in 'contact zones' construct and negotiate their identities where they are categorised and expected to carry out certain behaviours/performances. It does so by drawing on interviews of Japanese-Brazilian models working in Japan. After arriving in Japan, JapaneseBrazilian female migrants learn that being mestiça in Brazil can be valorised as 'haafu', and they aspire to work as haafu moderu ('fashion model') for Japanese print media. It will be shown that the labelling of Japanese-Brazilian fashion models as haafu functions as a mode of inclusion in Japanese society, but it also functions as a mode of exclusion if they fail to perform the haafu that mainstream Japanese expect.The year 2008 was the centennial anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil. On 2 March, the Brazilian community in Japan celebrated 100 years of the circle of Tamaki Watarai is Associate Professor of Brazilian Studies at Aichi Prefectural University, Japan, where she teaches Brazilian culture, Brazilian history and Portuguese. Her research focuses on the issues of racialisation of migrants, especially Japanese immigrants in Brazil and Brazilian migrants in Japan. She is currently conducting fieldwork in courses in makeup artistry offered in the Brazilian community in Japan to explore the way Brazilian female migrants are seeking to subvert the stereotypical Japanese image of Brazilian migrants as unskilled factory workers and to cultivate a modern sense of self. Correspondence to: Tamaki Watarai,
Resumo A partir da pesquisa de campo realizada com as imigrantes brasileiras no Japão que aspiram a trabalhar como maquiadoras, descrevo os processos em que “o corpo brasileiro” se apresenta como o “ocidental” em comparação com o “oriental”. Nesse processo, é criada uma nova hierarquia, que coloca as brasileiras em um patamar superior ao das japonesas, contrária à hierarquia econômica existente entre os dois países e a de classe social, na qual as brasileiras são menos favorecidas. Este artigo tenta captar como a produção desse “corpo brasileiro”, que se entrelaça com consumo, classe social, gênero e raça, cria entre essas imigrantes uma tentativa de inversão da posição subordinada ocupada por elas no Japão e compreender quais são os efeitos dessa produção em suas subjetividades.
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