| Summary: | This article presents an analysis of the representation of Brazilian migrants in two narratives by writer Regina Rheda: the novel Pau-de-arara classe turística (1996) and the short story "O santuário" (2002). Taking as a point of departure Saskia Sassen's work on global labor circuits at the turn of the twenty-first century, I argue that Rheda represents the Brazilian migrants in question as "citizens of nowhere." Her characters acquire this status as economic crises resulting from a neoliberal agenda transform work relations between the South and the North of the globe, limiting their access to basic citizen rights in their own country. At the same time, their condition as undocumented workers in the countries to where they migrate relegates them to exploitation and, therefore, stresses the precariousness of their situation as citizens.
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