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Book Cover
E-book
Author Jarrín, Alvaro, 1980- author.

Title The biopolitics of beauty : cosmetic citizenship and affective capital in Brazil / Alvaro Jarrín
Published Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017]
©2017

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Description 1 online resource
Contents The eugenesis of beauty -- Plastic governmentality -- The circulation of beauty -- Hope, affect, mobility -- The raciology of beauty -- Cosmetic citizens
Summary "The Biopolitics of Beauty examines how beauty became an aim of national health in Brazil. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Brazilian hospitals, the author explains how plastic surgeons and patients navigate the public health system to transform beauty into a basic health right. The book historically traces the national concern with beauty to Brazilian eugenics, which established beauty as an index of the nation's racial improvement. From here, Jarrín explains how plastic surgeons became the main proponents of a raciology of beauty, using it to gain the backing of the Brazilian state. Beauty can be understood as an immaterial form of value that Jarrín calls "affective capital," which maps onto and intensifies the social hierarchies of Brazilian society. Patients experience beauty as central to national belonging and to gendered aspirations of upward mobility, and they become entangled in biopolitical rationalities that complicate their ability to consent to the risks of surgery. The Biopolitics of Beauty not only examines the biopolical regime that made beauty a desirable national project, but also the subtle ways in which beauty is laden with affective value within everyday social practices, thus becoming the terrain upon which race, class, and gender hierarchies are reproduced and contested in Brazil."--Provided by publisher
Analysis anthropologist
anthropology
beauty culture
beauty standards
beauty
brazil
brazilian culture
brazilian
central america
class issues
ethnographic
ethnography
eugenics
fieldwork
health and wellness
healthcare rights
healthcare system
hospital
medical patients
physical appearance
plastic surgeons
plastic surgery
public health
race issues
race
racism
social hierarchy
social studies
south america
surgery
upward mobility
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Surgery, Plastic -- Social aspects -- Brazil
Biopolitics -- Brazil
Public health -- Social aspects -- Brazil
Plastic surgeons -- Social aspects -- Brazil
Beauty, Personal -- Social aspects -- Brazil
Surgery, Plastic.
Surgery, Plastic
Plastic Surgery Procedures
MEDICAL -- Surgery -- General.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- General.
Surgery, Plastic
Beauty, Personal -- Social aspects
Biopolitics
Public health -- Social aspects
Surgery, Plastic -- Social aspects
SUBJECT Brazil
Subject Brazil
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780520967212
0520967216