Overview

The technological capacity to transform biology - repairing, reshaping and replacing body parts, chemicals and functions – is now part of our lives. Humanity is confronted with a variety of affordable and non-invasive 'enhancement technologies': anti-ageing medicine, aesthetic surgery, cognitive and sexual enhancers, lifestyle drugs, prosthetics and hormone supplements. This collection focuses on why people find these practices so seductive and provides ethnographic insights into people’s motives and aspirations as they embrace or reject enhancement technologies, which are closely entangled with negotiations over gender, class, age, nationality and ethnicity.

Full Product Details

Author:   Alvaro Jarrín ,  Chiara Pussetti
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781805393375

ISBN 10:   1805393375
Pages:   290
Publication Date:   05 July 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: The Uncanny Aesthetics of Repairing, Reshaping, and Replacing Human Bodies Alvaro Jarrín and.Chiara Pussetti PART I: REPAIR Chapter 1. Ideologies of Repair in Erectile Dysfunction Treatment and “Men’s Health” Medicine Emily Wentzell Chapter 2. Repairing Sexual Ageing: Italian GPs’ Discourses in the Viagra Era Raffaella Ferrero Camoletto Chapter 3. Repairing the Body and Improving the Nation: Corrective Plastic Surgeries for Protruding Ears in Brazil Marcelle Schimitt Chapter 4. The Itinerant Beauty Brigade: Repairing Social Fractures Through the “Apapacho Estético” Eva Carpigo PART II: RESHAPING Chapter 5. Shaping the European Body: The Cosmetic Construction of Whiteness Chiara Pussetti Chapter 6. Reshaping Masculinities and the Beauty Industry in Colombia Alejandro Arango-Londoño Chapter 7. Reshaping and Hacking Gendered Bodies: Gay Bears and Pro-Independence Catalan Militants Begonya Enguix Grau Chapter 8. Remaking (Post)human Bodies in the Anthropocene: Bioart Practices Christine Beaudoin PART III: REPLACEMENT Chapter 9. Can You See the Real Me? Cyborg, Supercrip or Simply a Lover of Sport P. David Howe and Carla Filomena Silva Chapter 10. Unfixing Blindness: Retinal Implants and Negotiations of Ability in Postsocialist Russia Svetlana Borodina Chapter 11. Learning Through Apps: The Replacement of Offline Cis-female Bodies with Digital Pregnancies and Menstruations Daniela Tonelli Manica, Marina Fisher Nucci and Gabriela Cabral Paletta Chapter 12. Remaking Desires and Femininities: Testosterone “Replacement” for Treating Women’s Sexuality in Brazil Fabíola Rohden Afterword: Beyond the Flesh Lenore Manderson Index

Reviews

“This is a brilliant collection of essays about recent trends on body modifications and bodily performances… this is a great example of how anthropology can move on, addressing new issues while keeping grounded on the overarching questions of free-will and social determinations, resources and inequalities.” • Cristiana Bastos, University of Lisbon “The book presents a timely and serious interdisciplinary analysis of contemporary body modification practices located in diverse cultural contexts. A range of topics/practices are covered and the importance of an intersectional frame is emphasized throughout. It constitutes an original contribution to a field dominated by health-focused and psychological accounts.” • Brendan Gough, Leeds Beckett University

Author Information

Alvaro Jarrín is Associate Professor of Anthropology at College of the Holy Cross. He is the author of The Biopolitics of Beauty: Cosmetic Citizenship and Affective Capital in Brazil (University of California Press, 2017).

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