Immigrant bodies, ideal body. Racism and education in the construction of identity

Abstract

This article aims to provide elements for reflection on the migrant body seen against the current of the ideal body. Taking into consideration the state policies of identification of the population, as well as the growing individualism, the body is located in a significant place in the construction of identities. The body as a product of socialization is transformed into an object of care, of dietetic cult, of beauty and of practices that identify it to an identity and a specific place within the logics of order. But this too is the object of rejection and can quickly become a stigma when it does not comply with the «ideal canon» or does not conform to the prevailing «cultural forms». In the absence of education politics on cultural diversity, what proliferates are rather the prejudices from the permanent «difference» to the other «stranger». This is what usually happens with immigrants, and their children in the school context, visible not only because of their denomination of «immigrants» but also because of their body as a sign and mark of racial discrimination.