Connecting to “regain self-esteem”. A Portugal-based tontine for transnational beauty treatments

This article presents data from an exploratory ethnography conducted within a tontine society based in Portugal, aimed at enabling Portuguese-speaking women to finance cosmetic and reproductive treatments through a collective and solidarity-based savings system. Like other tontine models, this one highlights the exchange and retribution mechanisms within a female social group relatively deprived of financial capital. This tontine proposes a model of collective capitalisation implemented by a company which therefore draws its profits from the application of interest rates. Moreover, it does not recruit its members from networks of acquaintances, affinity, or kinship, but through social networks. We will see that participation in the tontine society is accompanied by a discourse by the women that mobilises, in particular, the notion of ‘rescuing self-esteem’ as a justification for the desire for bodily transformation, and the notions of mutual aid, support and the expression of affects as a fundamental link between the participants in the network.