Dear All,
This might be of interest to some on the list.
Please circulate and apologies for cross-posting.
All my best
C.
CALL FOR PAPERS
BODIES IN TRANSITION - POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
EASA Medical Anthropology Network
2017 Biannual Conference Network Meeting
5-7 July, Lisbon, Portugal
Local organization: Portuguese Anthropological Association (APA)
Venue: University of Lisbon, Institute of Social Sciences (Av. Prof. Aníbal
Bettencourt, 9)
http://medanthlisbon2017.apantropologia.org/presentation/
http://medanthlisbon2017.apantropologia.org/p35/
*Ref.: P35 Title: Plastic Bodies: Transnational Circuits of
Self-Improvement Projects.*
*Coordinator:*
1. Chiara Pussetti
(ICS-UL) [e-mail] <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
*Co-coordinator(s):*
2. Carole Myers
(University of Manchester) [e-mail] <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
3. n.a. [e-mail] <n.a.>
*Short abstract:*
This panel seeks to investigate the employment of cosmetic enhancement
technologies to promote individuals' self-image to increase their
opportunities of professional success and social climbing. We invite
researchers to submit ethnographic papers that discuss beauty as a cultural
and economic construction, and as a means of social distinction and
mobility.
*Long abstract: *Throughout the world, more and more people are spending
time and money investing aesthetically in themselves, using contemporary
technologies such as skin bleaching, plastic surgery and hair straightening
to modify their physical appearance. This panel seeks to investigate the
employment of cosmetic enhancement technologies to promote individuals'
self-image to increase their opportunities of professional success and
social climbing. The individual body has become a major focus for
consumption and spending and the main site for investment of resources:
self-optimization, attractiveness and competitiveness are the watchwords.
Taking care of our bodies - in order to produce more socially valued selves
through fitness, fashion, cosmetics, or surgery - has become the cultural
equivalent of improving our economic and social capital. Understanding
beauty as a social, cultural, and economic construction, and emphasizing
the process of achieving beauty as a means of social distinction, this
panel engages in a series of questions. Does beauty matter economically,
socially and politically? How do individuals transform their bodies to
respond to the pressures, anxieties and aspirations of work and intimate
life? Does beauty allow increased social mobility, across a multitude of
borders? How do bodily improvement projects change in relation with
individuals' specific identities such as social class, ethnicity, religion,
gender and sexual identities, age, marital status, professional status?
Financial crisis and economic uncertainty as well as socioeconomic
developments have a deep impact on the structure of society, but what
impact have they had on the body? In what ways have ethnically or racially
charged beauty ideals functioned as instruments of social oppression, on
the one hand, or for the empowerment of individuals, on the other? To what
degree can we observe a globalization and standardization of beauty ideals
and practices?
Chiara Pussetti
PhD University of Turim (Italy)
Researcher ICS/UL
University of Lisbon
Institute of Social Sciences
ORCID: 0000-0002-2146-3587<orcid.org/0000-0002-2146-3587>
Perfil Scholar<http://scholar.google.pt/citations?hl=pt-PT&user=hHFw0GQAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citft=1&citft=2&email_for_op=chiaragemma.pussetti%40gmail.com&cstart=20&pagesize=20>
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