Is beauty just skin deep? The social significance of beauty work in Korea

The perceived benefits and dangers of beauty cultures and technologies of the body often draw ambivalent responses from both media and academia alike. (South) Korea in particular has been an object of keen interest by the global media over the past decade due to many Korean people's perceived 'obsession' with beauty and appearance, and more invasive practices such as cosmetic surgery. In this talk I will seek to illustrate some less talked about aspects of Korean beauty cultures and show instances where beauty work can be seen as agentic social practice.

In doing so, I will critique current narratives of beauty cultures for their excessive focus on structural and cultural aspects of Korean society, and which many claim inevitably push Korean beauty cultures toward dystopian conformity. Through examples from how beauty work is utilised by different groups of people, I will illustrate how by generalising a whole population as all body paradoxically reduces individuals in Korean society into disembodied subjects.

SPEAKER:

Associate Professor Jo Elfving-Hwang is the Director of the Korea Research Centre of Western Australia and Dean Global, Korea, at the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor Global. She is also Associate Professor of Korean Society and Culture at the School of Media Creative Arts and Social inquiry at Curtin University. Her research focuses on the body in Korean culture and society, and she leads the Centre's thematic initiative focusing on "Bodies". Her previous work has examined how beauty work and cosmetic surgery in Korea relate to embodied and material expressions of performing social class and status, race and celebrity beauty work as a form of somatic entrepreneurship. Recently Jo's work has examined social meanings attached to beauty work as the body ages and how middle aged men relate to technologies of the body in every day corporate contexts. Her monograph drawing on the findings of project is titled Beauty Matters: the Body in Korean Culture and Society.