Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the complex interplay between body, culture and technology in contemporary India with a focus on the sexual politics that underlies cosmetic body transformations and if women's decisions to undergo them can be read as symbolic acts of resistance against perceived oppression.

Paper long abstract:

In a visually oriented culture that is obsessed with physical beauty and slenderness, obese/overweight bodies are negatively constituted as the Other, as undesirable and ugly. Beauty with its ever-increasing networks of technology and communication in the wake of consumer capitalism, offers innumerable "choices" for individuals to transform their bodies as per the ideal beauty norms to the extent that today in place of the material body we now have a "cultural plastic."

In post-colonial countries like India, women occupy an ambivalent position between tradition and modernity; they must not only produce themselves as beautiful bodies in conformity to western standards but must also be rooted in traditional, patriarchal notions of womanhood. The experiences of oppression are double-edged for postcolonial women: while being implicated in positions of disadvantage they are further oppressed by dominant beauty norms.

This paper deals with the embodied ways in which women through the use of technological and surgical body modifications (gyms, liposuction, weight-loss surgeries) attempt to strategically alter their oppressive conditions in both private and public domains. As women's experiences are historically and socially specific, this paper will focus on their subjective interpretations for analysis. The paper deals with two primary aspects: a) correlation between symbolic violence and women's decisions to undergo surgeries b) whether these decisions can be interpreted as symbolic acts of compliance or resistance against unequal power structures.