Image
When
1 – 2 p.m., Feb. 7, 2025
Where
Center for Latin American Studies, Spring 2025 Charlas con Café – a weekly space to hear lectures from a wide variety of experts and discuss topics relevant to the Latin American region, Fridays from 1-2 pm (unless otherwise specified). Coffee & snacks at 12:30pm!
Fita tanning includes the application of thin strips of electrical tape to create an individualized bikini that will give women “a marquinha perfeita” (perfect little tan lines) – lines that are sharp, straight, and delightfully symmetrical. In Brazil, a country hyperfocused on color and racial mixture, tanning shows how low-income nonwhite women layer racial ideologies onto their bodies and into their aesthetic practices – shaking up ideas about race, skin color and whiteness. Through the meticulous care, bodily alteration, and self-improvement prominently displayed on their skin, nonwhite Brazilian tanners lay claim to racial respectability and discipline.
Jennifer Roth-Gordon is Associate Professor in the School of Anthropology. Her first book, Race and the Brazilian Body: Blackness, Whiteness, and Everyday Language in Rio de Janeiro, contributes to the fields of critical race and critical whiteness studies. She is currently writing her second book, Precious White Lives: Middle-Class Parenting, Anti-Blackness, and Racial Violence in Rio de Janeiro. This talk presents a forthcoming paper in American Anthropologist, co-authored with Erika Robb Larkins (San Diego State University) based on their research on race and extreme heat.