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Paper short abstract:

In this text Ipresent some thoughts about the Maison du Brésil. Myobjective is to research this temporary residency for researchers through themeanings that characterize it as a Brazilian territory in Paris and through thevery belonging to the category elite as a peculiarity of its residents.

Paper long abstract:

The Maison du Brésil is one of the 40 residences that make part of thearchitectural set of Paris's Cité Internationale Universitaire. Some of these residencies (around 23) have a "national character" and are responsible for hosting graduate students and researchers during a temporaryperiod that can vary from a few weeks to the time necessary for the obtentionof a full doctorate degree in Paris. The CIUP was conceived in the 1920's, beingmeant by its main idealizer, André Honorat, as an international space forintegration of the intellectual elites in formation in French soil. At that moment, it served to thedouble need of improvement of conditions of student housing in the period,situated at the Quartier Latin, and the development of an internationalist spirit towards keeping world peace,which was shaken by the First World War.

Maison du Brésil is called for yours temporary inhabitants a space to live the "brazilian culture in Paris. I wish to analyze the international circulation of students and researchers that live there and have an educational experience of multiple dimensions as experiences of deterritorialization ofidentities and its consequences in a housing space which is at the same timepublic and private. Based on documental analysis andethnographic fieldwork I present some aspects of the history and the everydaylife of the Maison du Brésil and Paris' Cité Internationale Universitaire. Also I intend to show how the meanings of Brazilianness are used as support for the identity crisis lived by the membersof a supposed Brazilian elite in Paris.

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