From Brazil to Denmark
identity perceptions in the experienceof Brazilian migrant women
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-858525038800033208Keywords:
interculturality, immigration, female migration, identity, Global North-South RelationsAbstract
This article investigates how Brazilian women currently residing in Denmark construct meanings of identity and belonging within a context marked by assimilationist integration policies and contrasting national imaginaries. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study reveals that prior experiences of racialization in Brazil shape how these women interpret discrimination in the host country. Although some hold European citizenship and are fluent in the local language, markers such as physical appearance, accent, and nationality continue to act as symbolic boundaries of exclusion. Whiteness, understood as a silent norm of belonging, delegitimizes the presence of Brazilian women who do not conform to this ideal. The article demonstrates how “being Brazilian” becomes a racialized marker, activating stigmas of hypersexualization and subalternity. In response, women develop strategies of mediation, ranging from self-stereotyping to attempts at dissociating from imposed stigmas. The analysis emphasizes the role of identity memories forged in Brazil as active interpretive filters in the migration experience.
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