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Short bio
Alexander Edmonds is assistant professor of anthropology and director of the masters program in medical anthropology and sociology at the University of Amsterdam. He received a B.A. in philosophy and religion from Stanford and in 2003 a PhD in anthropology from Princeton.
Much of his research draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among elites and the urban poor in Brazil. His research interests include: medical anthropology, beauty and plastic surgery, ethnographic writing, critical theory, gender and sexuality, race, visual anthropology, mental illness, and the construction of psychological knowledge. His work has been supported by grants from the Social Social Research Council, the Princeton Center for Regional Studies, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the European Union. He also received a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Modern Studies at UCLA.
Research
In 2010 he published Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex and Plastic Surgery in Brazil. This book tells the remarkable story of how a developing nation with extremes of wealth and poverty became a global leader in plastic surgery. Key field sites were public hospitals offering cosmetic operations to the poor. Drawing on conversations with maids and their elite mistresses, divorced housewives, black celebrities, favela residents, and transvestite prostitutes, it explores what beauty means and does for different consumers. It tracks how plastic surgery became therapeutically compelling in Brazil, and analyzes the ethical implications of medical enhancement.
Related work examines the emerging field of "aesthetic medicine" and the significance of beauty in consumer capitalism.
As a visual anthropologist, Edmonds conducts media ethnography and uses photography and digital video. Based on fieldwork with black activists, advertising agencies, and television studios he has analyzed how racial identities are changing in post-dictatorship Brazil.
His work in medical anthropology includes critical studies of international development and the use of ethnographic methods to understand health problems. He currently holds a multi-partner grant on adolescent and reproductive health in poor communities in Latin America, with funding from the EU 7th Framework Program.
Edmonds is beginning a new research project on clinical psychology and mental health in the military.
Publications: books
2010. Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex and Plastic Surgery in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press.
Winner of the 2011 Diana Forsythe Prize for the best book on the anthropology of work, science, and technology, including biomedicine.
Honorable mention, 2011 Sharon Stephens Prize, best first book, awarded by the American Ethnological Society.
Book website
Academic publications (selected)
2011. 'Almost Invisible Scars': Medical Tourism to Brazil. Signs 36 (2), Winter.
2012 (In press). Body Image in Non-Western Societies. The Encyclopaedia of Body Image and Human Appearance. T. Cash (ed.) Elsevier.
2010. Commentary on Anne Ackermann's photography (in German). In Alexandra Socher (ed.) Leben, Lieben, Leiden: Frauenbilder junger Künstlerinnen. Celle, Germany: Kerber Artbooks.
2009. Learning to Love Yourself: Esthetics, Health and Therapeutics in Brazilian Plastic Surgery. Ethnos 74:4(465-489).
2009. ’Engineering the Erotic’: Aesthetic Medicine and Modernization in Brazil. In C. Heyes and M. Jones (eds.) Cosmetic Surgery: A Feminist Primer, p. 153-169. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
2009. Beauty, Health, and Risk in Brazilian Plastic Surgery. Medische Antropologie 20(2): 21-38.
2008. Beauty and Health: Anthropological Perspectives. Medische Antropologie 20(1).
2007. 'The Poor Have the Right to be Beautiful’: Cosmetic Surgery in Neoliberal Brazil. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13: 363-381.
2007. “”Triumphant Miscegenation’”: Reflections on Race and Beauty in Brazil.” Journal of Intercultural Communication 28(1): 83-97.
2002. “No Universo da Beleza:Notas de Campo sobre a Cirurgia Plastica no Rio deJaneiro.” In M. Goldenberg, ed., 2002. Nus & Vestidos. Rio de Janeiro: Record
The poor have the right to be beautiful: Cosmetic surgery in neoliberal Brazil.
Popular media publications
2012. "The lessons of France's PIP scandal." Op-ed. Los Angeles Times, January 4.
Reprinted in New York Newsday and the Vancouver Sun.
2011. A 'necessary vanity.' Essay published in the Stone series on philosophy, The New York Times, August 13.
Reprinted in French in the Courrier International, November 17.
Excerpted as "Surgery as therapy." The New York Times, Sunday Review section, August 14.
2002. Novos Mercados, Novos Corpos: Antropólogo Norte-Americano Analisa os Motivos que Levam o Brasil a Ser Líder em Cirurgias Plásticas. Op-ed article, Gazeta Mercantil, Caderno: 5, November 22, São Paulo, Brazil.
"Lessons from France's PIP scandal," Los Angeles Times
"A necessary vanity," The New York Times
"La beauté pour tous!" Courrier International
In the media
2012. Interview on German radio station, Dradio Wissen, "Die Schönheitschirurgie boomt in Brasilien,." January 10.
2011. Featured in the "Voetnoot" column, Arnon Grunberg, de Volkskrant, August 27.
2011. " Brazilië: onder het mes voor maatschappelijk succes." Interview Radio Nederlands, November 17. Translated into Spanish, Portuguese, English and Chinese
2011. Interview on "Thinking Allowed," BBC Radio 4, February 9.
Interview on BBC radio program, "Thinking allowed."
Interview in Portuguese, Radio Nederlands
Interview on German radio, DRadio Wissen
Teaching and thesis supervision
Edmonds has taught courses in medical anthropology, cultural globalization, ethnographic filmmaking, Brazilian society, and mental health and emotion. He supervises PhD and masters theses on a range of topics, including: pregnancy in Spain, hormonal therapy in Chile, romantic love in Finland, gated communities in Argentina, eagle hunting in Mongolia, and gifted adults in the Netherlands.