New Publication: Hair:y_less Masculinities. A Cartography

Cosmetic surgery is booming – and no longer just among women: Both surgical procedures and minimal invasive cosmetic treatments are on the rise among men worldwide. For many men, when early signs of balding appears or when the beard does not grow as desired, this becomes a heavy burden to carry. After all, a youthful, vital, and masculine appearance can be of decisive importance in both professional and private life.

Challenging the prevalent human-centered worldview under a critical post-humanist programmatic, the authors scrutinize ways in which hair constructs gender regimes, especially regimes of masculinities. In this book, hair follicles take center stage as peculiar actors shaping and being shaped by socio-cultural norms and techno-medical processes aiming at hair’s elimination, accelerating its growth and its taming.

In order to stimulate an accessible and dialogue-oriented communication with the wider public, this Science Communication book gathers, documents and presents the visual data that accumulated throughout the 2-year fieldwork, involving photographs of operation theaters, sketches of medical professionals and patients within hair transplantation and laser hair removal processes. From these drawings and photographs emerges the cartography of ‘Hair:y_less Masculinities’, wherein hair resists the techno-medical imaginaries through its Eigensinn, despite the natureculture metaphors that readily construct it as highly malleable and passive.

Find the full open access publication here.