Why should social scientists and cultural scholars pay attention to aesthetic medical procedures? In this episode, Alka Menon (Yale University) and Anne-Mette Hermans (Tilburg University) take us beneath the surface of Botox, rhinoplasties, and Brazilian Butt Lifts to reveal what these increasingly normalised procedures can tell us about social inequality today.
With host Sanne Pieters, they explore how doctors and surgeons shape more than just faces. By deciding which appearances are acceptable, these practitioners navigate the boundaries between medicine and aesthetics, morality and beauty, economics and ethics, and in doing so play a key role in (re)defining racial categories and hierarchal beauty ideals. Our guests tackle some seemingly contradictory puzzles with no easy answers. Why do practitioners insist that “true beauty comes from within”? And how should we understand the normalisation of aesthetic procedures when those who undergo them still face persistent stigma?
This episode shows that cosmetic surgery is about much more than just appearance: it holds up a mirror to the social inequalities that exist in society.
Alka V. Menon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University. She studies the relationship between medicine, technology, and society, with a focus on race and racism. Her book, Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards shows how forces working at different scales stabilize the continuing use of racial categories in medicine.
Anne-Mette Hermans is an Assistant Professor at Tranzo, Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on (consumerist) notions of malleable bodies and cosmetic procedures in particular. Moreover, she co-established the interdisciplinary Expertisegroep Cosmetische Ingrepen, which executes several research projects related to the cosmetic surgery and beauty industry in the Netherlands.
Sanne Pieters is a PhD Researcher of cultural sociology at KU Leuven in Belgium. Her research interests include the relation between physical beauty and social inequalities, hegemonic and hybrid gender identities and bodywork as pedagogical practice.
Readings:
Hermans, A.-M. (2021). Discourses of perfection: Representing cosmetic procedures and beauty products in UK lifestyle magazines. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003001973
Hermans, A.-M., & Nash, R. (2025). Cosmetic gatekeepers: Negotiations of beauty and (re)shaping bodies by medical aesthetic practitioners. Social Science & Medicine, 380, 118165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118165
Menon, A. V. (2023). Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards (1st ed). University of California Press.
Menon, A. V. (2017). Reconstructing race and gender in American cosmetic surgery. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(4), 597–616. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1206590
Bonell, S., Barlow, F. K., & Griffiths, S. (2021). The cosmetic surgery paradox: Toward a contemporary understanding of cosmetic surgery popularisation and attitudes. Body Image, 38, 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2021.04.010
Haraway, Donna (1990). "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.
Podcast editors: Luuc Brans, Sanne Pieters, Kobe De Keere & Geert Veuskens. This podcast is co-financed from the BINQ project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant No. 101052649. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. This podcast is also kindly supported by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam.
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Why should social scientists and cultural scholars pay attention to aesthetic medical procedures? In this episode, Alka Menon (Yale University) and Anne-Mette Hermans (Tilburg University) take us beneath the surface of Botox, rhinoplasties, and Brazilian Butt Lifts to reveal what these increasingly normalised procedures can tell us about social inequality today.
With host Sanne Pieters, they explore how doctors and surgeons shape more than just faces. By deciding which appearances are acceptable, these practitioners navigate the boundaries between medicine and aesthetics, morality and beauty, economics and ethics, and in doing so play a key role in (re)defining racial categories and hierarchal beauty ideals. Our guests tackle some seemingly contradictory puzzles with no easy answers. Why do practitioners insist that “true beauty comes from within”? And how should we understand the normalisation of aesthetic procedures when those who undergo them still face persistent stigma?
This episode shows that cosmetic surgery is about much more than just appearance: it holds up a mirror to the social inequalities that exist in society.
Alka V. Menon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University. She studies the relationship between medicine, technology, and society, with a focus on race and racism. Her book, Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards shows how forces working at different scales stabilize the continuing use of racial categories in medicine.
Anne-Mette Hermans is an Assistant Professor at Tranzo, Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on (consumerist) notions of malleable bodies and cosmetic procedures in particular. Moreover, she co-established the interdisciplinary Expertisegroep Cosmetische Ingrepen, which executes several research projects related to the cosmetic surgery and beauty industry in the Netherlands.
Sanne Pieters is a PhD Researcher of cultural sociology at KU Leuven in Belgium. Her research interests include the relation between physical beauty and social inequalities, hegemonic and hybrid gender identities and bodywork as pedagogical practice.
Readings:
Hermans, A.-M. (2021). Discourses of perfection: Representing cosmetic procedures and beauty products in UK lifestyle magazines. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003001973
Hermans, A.-M., & Nash, R. (2025). Cosmetic gatekeepers: Negotiations of beauty and (re)shaping bodies by medical aesthetic practitioners. Social Science & Medicine, 380, 118165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118165
Menon, A. V. (2023). Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards (1st ed). University of California Press.
Menon, A. V. (2017). Reconstructing race and gender in American cosmetic surgery. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(4), 597–616. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1206590
Bonell, S., Barlow, F. K., & Griffiths, S. (2021). The cosmetic surgery paradox: Toward a contemporary understanding of cosmetic surgery popularisation and attitudes. Body Image, 38, 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2021.04.010
Haraway, Donna (1990). "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.
Podcast editors: Luuc Brans, Sanne Pieters, Kobe De Keere & Geert Veuskens. This podcast is co-financed from the BINQ project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant No. 101052649. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. This podcast is also kindly supported by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam.
In this first episode of the special Culture & Inequality x IMISCOE The Migration Podcast trilogy, we discuss the linkages between migration and music. For centuries, music has been a powerful source of individual and social well-being, something which studies from psychology to sociology to medicine continue to demonstrate. As people migrated, music migrated with them – causing the rapid and continuing spread of hundreds of music genres in countries across the globe. Since digitalization, music has become more mobile than ever before, as people can connect with their favorite music as long as they have an internet connection. This leads us to ask: How do migrants in the 21st century use music during processes of migration? To talk about this, Julian Schaap (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) has invited Daniela Jaramillo Dent (Universidad de Huelva, Spain and Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) and Marco Martiniello (Université de Liège, Belgium).
This a special crossover episode between the Migration Podcast and the Culture and Inequality Podcast. The first in a series of three, this episode investigates how Music and Social Media matter in Migration (and vice-versa). Head over to The Migration Podcast to learn more about migration: https://www.imiscoe.org/news-and-blog/podcast?msclkid=47f01fb5d06a11ec8cee483d0b0b504f
Culture & Inequality Podcast
Why should social scientists and cultural scholars pay attention to aesthetic medical procedures? In this episode, Alka Menon (Yale University) and Anne-Mette Hermans (Tilburg University) take us beneath the surface of Botox, rhinoplasties, and Brazilian Butt Lifts to reveal what these increasingly normalised procedures can tell us about social inequality today.
With host Sanne Pieters, they explore how doctors and surgeons shape more than just faces. By deciding which appearances are acceptable, these practitioners navigate the boundaries between medicine and aesthetics, morality and beauty, economics and ethics, and in doing so play a key role in (re)defining racial categories and hierarchal beauty ideals. Our guests tackle some seemingly contradictory puzzles with no easy answers. Why do practitioners insist that “true beauty comes from within”? And how should we understand the normalisation of aesthetic procedures when those who undergo them still face persistent stigma?
This episode shows that cosmetic surgery is about much more than just appearance: it holds up a mirror to the social inequalities that exist in society.
Alka V. Menon is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University. She studies the relationship between medicine, technology, and society, with a focus on race and racism. Her book, Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards shows how forces working at different scales stabilize the continuing use of racial categories in medicine.
Anne-Mette Hermans is an Assistant Professor at Tranzo, Tilburg University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on (consumerist) notions of malleable bodies and cosmetic procedures in particular. Moreover, she co-established the interdisciplinary Expertisegroep Cosmetische Ingrepen, which executes several research projects related to the cosmetic surgery and beauty industry in the Netherlands.
Sanne Pieters is a PhD Researcher of cultural sociology at KU Leuven in Belgium. Her research interests include the relation between physical beauty and social inequalities, hegemonic and hybrid gender identities and bodywork as pedagogical practice.
Readings:
Hermans, A.-M. (2021). Discourses of perfection: Representing cosmetic procedures and beauty products in UK lifestyle magazines. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003001973
Hermans, A.-M., & Nash, R. (2025). Cosmetic gatekeepers: Negotiations of beauty and (re)shaping bodies by medical aesthetic practitioners. Social Science & Medicine, 380, 118165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118165
Menon, A. V. (2023). Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards (1st ed). University of California Press.
Menon, A. V. (2017). Reconstructing race and gender in American cosmetic surgery. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(4), 597–616. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2016.1206590
Bonell, S., Barlow, F. K., & Griffiths, S. (2021). The cosmetic surgery paradox: Toward a contemporary understanding of cosmetic surgery popularisation and attitudes. Body Image, 38, 230–240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2021.04.010
Haraway, Donna (1990). "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge.
Podcast editors: Luuc Brans, Sanne Pieters, Kobe De Keere & Geert Veuskens. This podcast is co-financed from the BINQ project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant No. 101052649. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. This podcast is also kindly supported by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam.
