Reconstruction of the face with botox and filler injections

OpenAlex İngilizce

This article deals with the women’s narratives of “natural” and “unnatural” appearance and the possible meanings in which these narratives indicate regarding the use of botox and filler technologies and applications, which are among the today’s “youth” work interventions. This study, which was based on a field research and the participant observation technique, was carried out at the X Aesthetic Center in Ankara/Turkey between the years of 2021-2022. The data were obtained from in-depth interviews with the doctor who performed the botox and filler procedure and from the female participants in different range of ages who have these applications. In this study, which is based on the meanings attributed by the participants to the “natural” and “unnatural” appearance, and which takes the concept of “natural” as problematic, the discourse of “naturalness” is discussed in connection with the literature on nature, culture, body and technology. In the light of these discussions, we will focus on where and how we should position the bodily regimes of the participants involved in botox and filler procedures, and on the boundaries between the “natural” and “unnatural” body which will be tried to be blurred. In oder to do so, it will be argued that Donna J. Haraway’s cyborg figure, i.e. “machine-organism hybrids”, can be adapted to the field of botox and filler applications.