Paper short abstract:

Skin whitening can be understood as a strategic resource for coping with social tensions arising from colorism. Based on fieldwork carried out in Equatorial Guinea, this paper addresses the issue of skin bleaching in this African country and the clashing social values which this practice implies.

Paper long abstract:

The body modification practice of skin whitening can be understood as a strategic resource for coping with social tensions arising from colorism, the ideology that gives privilege to light-skinned people of color over their dark skin counterparts (Hunter 2007). Since decades ago, skin whitening has been a very widespread practice in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly among women. The market provides a wide variety of cosmetics that are used for this purpose, very often with clearly detrimental consequences for the body. In this paper, which is centered in Equatoguinean society, I will present some data on the "maquillaje" (makeup), the popular denomination for the skin depigmentation practice in Equatorial Guinea. In this kind of practice both visions and values related to the dimension of gender as well as those that have to do with the notion of social presentation of the body and corporeal capital converge. If on the one hand the "maquillaje" is understood as one of the new body technologies that offers modernity, on the other, within the same Equatorialguinean society, there is also a little but growing tendency towards a critical view of such practices because of the damages they cause to the body as well as the racist connotations of colorism. This paper is based on data collected in various fieldwork trips carried out recently in Equatorial Guinea.

Bib.

Hunter, M. L. 2007. "The persistent problem of colorism: Skin tone, status, and inequality". Sociology Compass 1: 237-254.