Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards
University of California Press (2023)
Cosmetic surgery was once associated with a one-size-fits-all approach, modifying patients to conform to a single standard of beauty. As this surgery has become more accessible worldwide, changing beauty trends have led to a proliferation of beauty standards for members of different racial groups. Alka V. Menon enters the world of cosmetic surgeons, journeying from a sprawling convention center in Kyoto to boutique clinics in the multicultural countries of the United States and Malaysia. She shows how surgeons generate and apply knowledge using racial categories and how this process is affected by transnational clinical and economic exchanges. Surgeons not only measure and organize but also elaborate upon racial differences in a globalized field of medicine. Focusing on the role of cosmetic surgeons as gatekeepers and producers of desired appearances, Refashioning Race argues that cosmetic surgeons literally reshape race—both on patients’ bodies and at the broader level of culture.
Visit the publisher’s website (here) to review the table of contents, and recommend your library buy it.
Awards
American Sociological Association Body and Embodiment Book Award, 2024
Finalist for the Society for the Social Studies of Science Ludwik Fleck Award, 2024
Reviews
American Journal of Sociology, David J. Hutson
Gender & Society, Ruth Holliday
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Jun Zhou
Contemporary Sociology, Anson Au
Social Forces, Erynn Masi de Casanova
Contexts, A.K.R. Skarpelis
International Sociology,Tuğçe Ellialtı-Köse
Symbolic Interaction, Jiayi Tian
The Sociological Review Magazine,
ASA Culture Section newsletter, Joselyn Quiroz
Brown Girl Bookshelf @nehaxstitch
Interviews and Podcasts
New Books Network Podcast with Miranda Melcher
Q&A with Zheng Fu, ASA Science, Knowledge, and Technology (SKAT) Section newsletter
Q&A with ALOK on Instagram (@alokvmenon)
Media
The Zoe Report, “The Nose Job that Defies Western Ideals of beauty”
Yale News, “Beauty standards: How cosmetic surgeons are ‘refashioning’ race”