Beauty

Beauty is an aesthetic value that is tied to embodied practices, affects, and the senses. Whereas philosophers have long discussed beauty as disembodied aesthetics, and scientists have searched for bodily features that are considered universally beautiful, social and cultural anthropologists have emphasised the social and ritual aspects of beauty. They have shown that beauty is defined differently across time and space, often being tied to cultural assumptions of what is considered morally proper and good. Ideals and standards of beauty are subject to change because they are interlinked with economic and religious ideas and practices, as well as social hierarchies, oppression, and resistance along the lines of race, class, age, and gender. The anthropological study of beauty requires a relational understanding of how it is constituted in specific contexts and how it comes to matter in everyday life. In recent years, anthropologists have also contributed to our understanding of how the enormous growth and extent of an increasingly global beauty and cosmetics industry have affected bodies, imaginations, and everyday aesthetic choices across the globe.