Objective.

This article aims to reflect on the results of a socio-educational study whose purpose was to understand the social construction of students’ bodies and emotions and their relationships with the production of violence, keeping in mind that coexistence is framed in a network of social bonds whose emotional matrix is encoded and decoded within the bodies.

Method.

In-depth interviews with a semi-structured guide were used.Data analysis included inductive-deductive procedures.

Results.

The analysis of the young people’s testimonies, wrought with material and symbolic conditions of urban marginality, allows for the interpretation of certain corporal features that work as signs of humiliation and self-humiliation, particularly the skin. Racism of the body is expressed in the modes of school interaction where some groups believe themselves superior and subsume others who they consider to be of lesser social value.

Conclusion.

Faced with the feeling of exclusion and the denial of subjectivity, certain behaviors associated with violence towards others or practices of self-destruction may be triggered. The skin is the repository of this social pain that may be translated into bodily self-injury.

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