Negócios de si, projetos de nós: masculinidade e empreendedorismo entre jovens barbeiros periféricos

Abstract

This research seeks to examine the gender practices of young men from urban peripheral areas who own barbershops and identify themselves as entrepreneurs. Conducted between 2022 and 2024 in Vila Bom Jesus, Porto Alegre, the study draws on focus groups and life-history interviews. It presents the trajectories of Alex, Martim, and Matheus, with the aim of understanding the intersections between professional pathways and the incorporation of gender. Becoming a barber emerges as an aspiration among local adolescents, associated with freedom, belonging to a group of “non-involved” youth in relation to crime, and the construction of a peripheral identity. In their daily routines, barbershop owners accumulate multiple tasks—management, finances, and marketing—leading to long working hours and hierarchical relations with established “owners.” Achieving autonomy depends on mobilizing the social capital available in the territory and building support networks among young men. The occupation fosters communicative, affective, and aesthetic skills, while also valuing peripheral culture and challenging hegemonic models of masculinity. Entrepreneurship in barbershops is configured not only as an individual business venture but also as a collective project, sustained by ties with clients, family members, wives, and apprentices. The findings further highlight the centrality of the provider figure seeking to secure his “own space,” while also pointing to cracks in the gender order through practices of care among men and through the pursuit of greater flexibility to enact a more active fatherhood.