Paper short abstract:

This article focuses on the intersection of health and beauty in highly sought-after cosmetic surgical procedures in Tehran.

Paper long abstract:

This article focuses on the intersection of health and beauty in highly sought-after cosmetic surgical procedures in Tehran. With the recent modes of self-presentation through the media emphasising on the "perfected" selves, bodies are seen in "need" of repair and correction. Cosmetic surgery, in this sense, is not only pursued to create beauty, but also to "cure" the defected body. Arrays of body shapes and facial features are strictly marked by names, seen as correctible and demarcated through objective indicators. Health in this respect is understood beyond its standard meaning (e.g. WHO definition), rather it encapsulates conformity to the global idealised beauty.

Drawing on the interviews I conducted with cosmetic surgeons and "patients" in Tehran, in this study, I have demonstrated how the distinctions between health (and reconstructive surgeries) and aesthetics (and cosmetic surgeries) have blurred. In this regard, natural trajectory of bodies is seen in need of continuous monitoring and perpetual care and cure.

Drawing on Butler's work on performativity, in this article I will argue how health and its praxis are constructed through repeated citational acts; in other words, health is not a state of well-being, but a never-reaching process which is practiced through cosmetic surgery based on the postmodern idealisation of health.