Beauty
Spring 2017 | Volume XVI, Number 3
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter →
by June Carolyn Erlick
In Memory
First Take
The Politics of Beauty
When one talks to people in Latin America about beauty, it is never simply about vanity, self-care or individual consumption. Beauty in Latin America always seems to have larger implications, inducing hopes for upward mobility, invoking national ideals of beauty, or…
Body Image and the Business of Beauty
Globalizing Latin American Beauty
Beauty seems to matter a lot in Latin America. Whenever I arrive in the region I am struck by the disproportionate number of attractive and stylish women and men who seem to be just walking around. I am always even more taken aback by airport bookstalls crammed with…
Beauty Weighs in Argentina
Argentines believe that “success” comes from luck and not as much from hard work and efforts, according to a recent survey conducted by the University of Palermo. This may work…
Should I Eat the Chocolate Cake?
English + Español
When people learn that I research the representation of food and weight in Latin American women’s literature, they frequently ask me two questions. The first question is how I became interested in such an untraditional topic…
The Culture of Skinniness
Rosario is 21 years old and a perfect size 6. A fifth-semester student in international business in Medellín, Colombia, she’s often thought of herself as fat. It all started when she was a…
Beauty in Times of Repression
Maya Queens at the Microphone
I wish I could have been there to watch the performance of Fidelina Tux Chub, a young and seemingly fearless contestant for indigenous queen— reina indígena—in the highland…
Mayan Queens
These pictures were taken Friday, July 29, 2011. The women pose for the pictures during the Rabin Ajau National Folkloric Festival in Cobán, Guatemala. Unlike traditional beauty…
Beauty in Places of Horror
Beauty is the last word that comes to mind when thinking about the state-run torture centers that proliferated under authoritarian regimes in Latin America during the 1970s and 80s. In…
Beasts and Beauty in Colombia
I encountered some of Colombia’s many contradictions during my first visit in 1985. Lush, tropical mountains arched across this South American nation, so very rich in resources and yet…
Masculinity and Beauty
Technologies of Gender
It was a Tuesday afternoon in early June 2005, and I was sitting with well-known cosmetic surgeon Dr. Julien Martinez (a pseudonym to protect participant confidentiality) in his spa…
Peruvian Beauty
During an official meeting the former president of Peru, Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), urged the youngsters gathered there to act as men, and said that “instead of spending their time…
Building Muscles in Rio’s Fitness Clubs
Bodybuilding has similarities to the rituals that could be found in religious practices or rites of passage. The construction of the body and of a masculine identity within gyms and…
Cholitas and Beyond
The Queen of Sheep
The Queen of Sheep Beauty Pageant is an offbeat Colombian beauty contest that parodies other common beauty pageants in the country revolving around local agricultural products or cattle animals. The contestants of this…
Peruvian Pishtacos
News stories of captured drug gangs are so common in Peru that viewers barely noted the television appearance of three prisoners in November 2009. Police had captured the “gang”…
Performing Race and Gender in the Andes
Right after attending my first llarqa aspiy celebration in November 2012, I jotted my description of this lively event in my fieldnotes: “We stood in a large circle…
Cholitas: The Revenge of a Generation
I’d been in La Paz for two weeks when I finally located the Hotel Torino, a big colonial hotel where Bolivia’s first cholita modeling school holds classes. Cholitas are the indigenous…
Black is Beautiful
Contesting Beauty
English + Español
In 2016, the official Miss Brazil beauty pageant competition witnessed an unprecedented moment, as six black Brazilian women from around the country advanced to…
Sensual Not Beautiful
While white actresses and models still dominate beauty and fashion magazines in Brazil, on my last few visits to Brazil, I’ve noticed that actresses of African descent such as…
Blackness and Beauty in Ecuador
The game was set: the national Ecuadoran soccer team against Switzerland in the initial round robin of the 2014 World Cup. And because of the transcendence of the match, the…
Building Bridges
Wolf Chase in Chaco
I shove my clipboard under my arm to roll up my sleeves and try not to wish I was wearing a t-shirt; we are in a momentary lapse from the mosquitos, but I’ve learned not to push my…
Book Talk
Beyond the City: Resource Extraction Urbanism in South America
If I had to think of keywords for this intriguing book, they would be “passionate” and “meticulous,” with a third word bringing these two together: “design.” I agreed to review this…
Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America
I started graduate school in September 1978, around the zenith of authoritarianism in Latin America. After the Argentine military coup in 1976, only three of twenty countries in the…
The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation and the Archives of Contradiction
This book by Harvard Professor Lorgia Garcia-Peña embarks on an ambitious exploration of the limits of Dominican identity seen through the prism of culture, geography and race…