Scalpel slaves or cyborgs? : cosmetic surgery and embodied identity

This thesis explores individuals' experiences of cosmetic surgery in Melbourne. The research conducted with recipients of cosmetic surgery is a complex and ambiguous practice simultaneously encompassing pain and pleasure, agency and constraint, empowerment and conformity. By providing a more nuanced representation of people's experiences of such surgery, the thesis envisions a subjectivity that may better account for individuals' active and lived relationship to their bodies.