Brief encounters: Assembling cosmetic surgery tourism

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a large-scale, multi-disciplinary, mixed methods project which exploresempirically and theoretically the rapidly growing but poorly understood (and barely regulated) phe-nomenon of cosmetic surgery tourism (CST). We explore CST by drawing on theories of fows, networksand assemblages, aiming to produce a fuller and more nuanced account of -- and accounting for -- CST. This enables us to conceptualise CSTas an interplayof places, people, things, ideas and practices. Through specfic instances of assembling cosmetic surgery that we encountered in the field, and that we illustrated with material from interviews with patients, facilitators and surgeons, our analysis advances understandings and theorisations of medical mobilities, globalisation and assemblage thinking.