A cor já não ajuda, você vai direito! : Um estudo de representações sociais acerca dos efeitos da mobilidade social da mulher negra na contemporaneidade

Abstract

This doctorate thesis arises from the perception that a new version of the history of black women in Brazil is being written by new social and educational practices, providing these women a new status in professional, identity and personal aspects that were previously unattainable. Thus, through a major investment in formal education, these individuals are being able to relinquish the role allocated for them, such as housekeeping services, according to the social, political and economic context, and becoming increasingly more present in the social space of the Brazilian middle class. This research is based on the Social Representations Theory along with Denise Jodelet's processual approach, and has the objective to describe, analyze and debate the social representation related to the social mobility of black women on the contemporaneity built by them via social practices from their daily routines. Twenty black women from the Brazilian middle class have partaken the research, and data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed via content analysis technique, along with thematic-categorical systemization. Through the interviews it was identified that during this process of social mobility they had to face social dynamics of maintenance of their social mobility stagnation and invisibility, which are still present and in effect even after they reached the middle class. The practice of a social role that is alternative to what was previously predestined for them, despite putting them in an emotionally vulnerable state, provides a sense of power and social visibility which are essential for the construction of a positive identity for black people, established mainly through representativeness