Buying Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery in China
WEN Hua
Abstract
Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain “beauty capital” to increase opportunities for social and career success. Building on rich ethnographic data, this book presents the perspectives of women who have undergone cosmetic surgery, illuminating the aspirations behind their choices. The author explores how turbulent economic, socio-cultural and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety tha ... More
Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain “beauty capital” to increase opportunities for social and career success. Building on rich ethnographic data, this book presents the perspectives of women who have undergone cosmetic surgery, illuminating the aspirations behind their choices. The author explores how turbulent economic, socio-cultural and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety that is experienced by women both mentally and physically. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in gender studies, China studies, anthropology and sociology of the body, and cultural studies.
Keywords:
“artificial beauty”,
beauty capital,
beauty economy,
body image,
cosmetic surgery,
consumer culture,
gender,
globalization,
post-Mao China,
state power
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9789888139811 |
| Published to Hong Kong Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.5790/hongkong/9789888139811.001.0001 |
