Abstract
Individualization has gained importance in contemporary sociology as an expression of changes experienced in countries with a consolidated Welfare State. This issue evinced changes in gender and generation relationships. In the Brazilian context, it was received with suspicion of its validity for understanding women’s experiences from the lower classes. This study questions the thesis that individualization would supposedly be unique to the middle classes, which would presuppose an economic determination to explain the phenomenon. Based on a qualitative research with a purposive sampling and using the double hermeneutics based on the theory of Anthony Giddens, we built a dense description based on the narratives of two Black and poor women who resided in Salvador to analyze this phenomenon based on four issues that are central to female individualization: schooling, paid work, conjugality, and reproduction. Our analyses show that, even in the face of ambiguities between individuality and the structural and cultural inequalities in Brazil, individualization, being a structural process, is present among Black and poor women in Brazil.
Keywords:
Thick description; Generation; Intersectionalities; Family; Salvador