Lógicas que orientam o consumo de cosméticos no quotidiano: Uma análise entre um grupo de vendedores e consumidoras de cosméticos em locais selecionados na cidade de Maputo

Abstract

The present research analyzes logics that guide the consumption of cosmetics among a group of consumers in the city of Maputo. From the literature I had access to, I identified three perspectives. The first argues that the consumption of cosmetics is a mechanism to achieve beauty among groups of women who belong to different social classes. The second argues that belonging to a class determines the type of cosmetics that women consume. And the third argues that the consumption of these products is a way of building and reconstructing the female identity in a group of middle-class women. The aforementioned perspectives, if, on the one hand, allow us to understand contexts in which the consumption of cosmetics varies according to the class, on the other hand, when assuming the concept of class as something homogeneous, it does not open space to understand the differences that exist between people within these classes and it remains to be understood yet the logics that guide the consumption of cosmetics in daily life. To understand these logics, I conducted an ethnographic research in selected points in the city of Maputo. Based on the material collected in the field, I show that the participants of this research build discourses of originality and piracy about the consumption of cosmetics in everyday life. In these speeches, they refer to consuming original products and distancing themselves from pirates, but in practice they consume said pirates even if inadvertently. In addition to these, they consume homemade cosmetics and on which they produce a silence. Still based on the ethnographic material, I show that in everyday life the logic that guides the consumption of cosmetics goes beyond these discourses, consuming cosmetics is a practice of treating the body by an image of femininity built in a competitive scenario. The present research allows us to understand the practice of consuming cosmetics in a context of competition for the search for an image of femininity, unlike the dominant studies that argue that the consumption of cosmetics varies according to class. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)