How to be Brazilian there and European here

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to highlight, through the travel trajectories and representations of Brazilian transvestites, the ways in which they call themselves and legitimize themselves, with emphasis on the circulation between countries, identifying in them a Brazilianness, as well as a Europeanity as a mark of who can absorb new characteristics in their identity configuration. I identify that the trajectories are linked to notions such as transvestite habitus, as a phenomenon that has accompanied them since when they began their bodily modifications and experiences with other transvestites in Brazil. In both places, Recife and Madrid, images of Brazil appear that sometimes agree with the models already established historically, sometimes they disagree with what is sold by them when they are back in their country, where new behaviors appear from a new world discovered by them and glimpsed by so many who have not yet been able to access: Europe. Thus, the advantages and disadvantages of being Brazilian in Spain appear mainly when one realizes that the violence experienced in Brazil is one of the stimulating factors for them to be circulating between countries, since risk situations are avoided.