Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards

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 & Malaysia. She shows how surgeons generate & apply knowledge using racial categories & how this process is affected by transnational clinical & economic exchanges. Surgeons not only measure & organize but also elaborate upon racial differences in a globalized field of medicine. 

Focusing on the role of cosmetic surgeons as gatekeepers & producers of desired appearances, Refashioning Race argues that cosmetic surgeons literally reshape race--both on patients' bodies & at the broader level of culture.