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Scales of Care and Responsibility: debating the surgically globalised body

Atkinson, S.

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Abstract

This paper initiates debate for geographers on the nature of care in relation to the self explored through the practices of aesthetic surgery. Central to debates on the meanings and relations of aesthetic surgery are a set of problematics related to the scales of care and responsibility. These are captured in the distinctions between caring for or caring about and between self-care or care of the self. Aesthetic surgery is a particularly ambivalent ‘extreme care’, which for many is always the expression of consent to an aesthetic hegemony or the exercise of disciplinary power. The paper draws out some of the spatial paradoxes involved in care related to the self in aesthetic surgery and proposes some routes forward. The framework of landscapes of care that enhances a temporal dimension and the concept of reworking the social relations of hegemony may help mediate the inherent tensions of scales of care and responsibility. Specifically, this combination may offer a way to allow for a limited, or bounded, care of the self without negating the networks of power within which the practices of self-care are enacted.

Citation

Atkinson, S. (2011). Scales of Care and Responsibility: debating the surgically globalised body. Social and Cultural Geography, 12(6), 623-637. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2011.601263

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Aug 1, 2011
Deposit Date Jan 7, 2011
Publicly Available Date Jul 17, 2012
Journal Social and Cultural Geography
Print ISSN 1464-9365
Electronic ISSN 1470-1197
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 12
Issue 6
Pages 623-637
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2011.601263
Keywords Care, Self, Surgery, Hegemony, Discourse, Landscapes.

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