Narratives of Luta : the manoeuvres of migrant women workers in the Brazilian Northeast

This thesis is an ethnographic study of migrant women working in factories in the Brazilian Northeast. It explores the local ramifications of globalization in the everyday lives of migrant women. It is based on six months of fieldwork conducted in the industrializing town of Cascavel, a town reflecting regional and state patterns of rapid industrialization and intrastate migration led primarily by women. This thesis departs from the dominant view of women-as-victims that prevails in most of the scholarly literature on women in the global labour force, in order to present a deeper understanding of migrant women's experience. Thus, in this thesis, I emphasize women's narratives because I consider they provide the ground to reflect on the significance migration and work carry from their standpoint, avoiding any simplistic explanation of their lives. Overall, women's narratives reveal the improvements they have experienced in their lives in the transition from agriculture to factory work, as women have achieved a level of economic independence and decision-making that has no precedent in the history of the region. Yet their narratives also capture their everyday struggle (luta): migrant women make use of different defensive tactics and manoeuvrs to make a living, enhance their social position and achieve personal goals. In spite of their creative attempts, however, their situation remains precarious and they still face class and gender inequality. Thus, I argue that women's struggle ( luta) has paradoxical implications, improving their lives yet positioning them in a persistent state of battle

Gringo love : affect, power, and mobility in sex tourism, Northeast Brazil

This dissertation is a feminist ethnography of global sex tourism in Ponta Negra, a tourist area in the coastal city of Natal, Northeast of Brazil that has become the site of important forms of mobilization against sex tourism. It critically examines the ambiguous relationships of love and money between (white) western male tourists and (mixed-race or black) Brazilian women. The methods for the project (conducted 2007-2008) focused on in-depth interviews with Brazilian women, European men, and various stakeholders such as business owners, residents, Non-governmental organization (NGO) workers, feminist activists and state agents; the author also conducted participant-observation in bars and at beaches. She theoretically situates these global ‘sex tourism’ relationships within contemporary political economic structures, historical processes of inequality in Brazil, gendered patterns of mobility and affect, as well as sites of global desire. A major theme in this thesis concerns the politics of the rescue industry as articulated by Brazilian NGOs and through campaigns against sex tourism, which typically locate the problem of sex tourism in the individual (i.e. women as victims; foreign men as deviants). This approach fails to address the complex structural inequalities and global forces that shape the lives of these women, and negates several important aspects of Brazilian women’s and foreign men’s experiences. This research shows that both are invested in ambiguous intimacies that blur affect and interest in complex ways. The main argument in this thesis is that Brazilian women in Natal capitalize on the ambiguities of sex tourism and put their femininity to work in order to establish long-term, legitimate ties with foreigners in the hope of migrating to Europe and marrying up, something they find hard to imagine, much less experience, in Brazil. The appeal for foreigners further reveals a profound sense of dissatisfaction with their social locations. Thus, love with foreigners acts as both an escape and a catalyst to remake themselves as modern subjects in projects of mobility, whether social, spatial or economic.Arts, Faculty ofAnthropology, Department ofGraduat

‘Putting femininity to work’: Negotiating hypersexuality and respectability in sex tourism, Brazil

Feminist scholars have documented the ways in which racialized women make strategic use of their hypersexualized bodies in the global sex industry. In this article, I build on these claims to examine how this unfolds in the context of sex tourism, drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the city of Natal, Brazil. I propose that in Natal, young, racialized Brazilian women seek to establish both their hypersexuality and respectability through various processes of distinction, given the potential for mobility, migration, and marriage that comes with sex with foreigners. These women thus ‘put their femininity to work’, a form of embodied capital and one of the few resources they have at their disposal

Microglial cannabinoid type 1 receptor regulates brain inflammation in a sex-specific manner

Background: Neuroinflammation is a key feature shared by most, if not all, neuropathologies. It involves complex biological processes that act as a protective mechanism to fight against the injurious stimuli, but it can lead to tissue damage if self-perpetuating. In this context, microglia, the main cellular actor of neuroinflammation in the brain, are seen as a double-edged sword. By phagocyting neuronal debris, these cells can not only provide tissue repair but can also contribute to neuronal damage by releasing harmful substances, including inflammatory cytokines. The mechanisms guiding these apparent opposing actions are poorly known. The endocannabinoid system modulates the release of inflammatory factors such as cytokines and could represent a functional link between microglia and neuroinflammatory processes. According to transcriptomic databases and in vitro studies, microglia, the main source of cytokines in pathological conditions, express the cannabinoid type 1 receptor (CB1R). Methods: We thus developed a conditional mouse model of CB1R deletion specifically in microglia, which was subjected to an immune challenge (peripheral lipopolysaccharide injection). Results: Our results reveal that microglial CB1R differentially controls sickness behavior in males and females. Conclusion: These findings add to the comprehension of neuroinflammatory processes and might be of great interest for future studies aimed at developing therapeutic strategies for brain disorders with higher prevalence in men