Chapter 2: Intersectional Subjectivities: Narratives of Brazilian Immigrant Women in Portugal

Drawing on data from a qualitative study with a group of Brazilian immigrant women in Portugal, this chapter aims to discuss the processes through which subjectification is produced and negotiated.

Using intersectionality as theoretical framework (Crenshaw, 1991) and adopting a poststructuralist, social constructionist and critical feminist conception of subjectification, I intend to understand and problematize how some Brazilian immigrant women in Portugal build their subjective worlds in relation with significant others.

I assume that gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, among other social categories, as well as the status of immigrant, contributes to women’s subjectification, being this process a set of social and cultural interpellations (McDowell, 2008).