From fair & lovely to banho de lua: Skin whitening and its implications in the multiethnic and multicolored surinamese society

Abstract

Skin whitening has evolved into a worldwide phenomenon and assumed to be related to historical, cultural, and socioeconomic factors. In the following study, the national context of Suriname is linked with the global system of power. Information was obtained about the reasons for using bleaching cosmetics. Differences were found between ethnic groups in Suriname in the frequencies of using bleaching cosmetics and their perceptions of skin color. This is considered to be the key to understanding the perceptions of color and related identities in the intraethnic as well as the interethnic relations at the levels of both the national and global society