Deracialisation or Body Fashion? Cosmetic Surgery and Body Modification in Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although all forms of body fashion, from ancient to modern, entail a degree of manipulation, the styles found among Japanese youth are often construed by older Japanese and outside critics as nothing more than contamination from Euro–American beauty ideology. Yet we are missing something if the only interpretation we imagine is failed imitation of foreign bodies. Japan’s own thriving media and popular culture industries are potent sources for youth body styles and fashions. This article points to ways that beauty experimentation should be viewed as much more than a simplistic type of deracialisation. Young people playfully critique notions of gender and racial homogeneity through their body modification and cosmetic surgery projects. These new body forms represent an undermining of the ethnic homogeneity their parents endorsed and reified. They relate to notions about individualism which in turn are tied to easily available beauty technologies. In addition, different zones and features of the body may have different cultural histories. Body traits that will be explored (eye shape, eye colour, hair colour, skin tanning) are discussed in terms of their own complex histories and associated beauty ideologies.