Katherine Morton
Department: Geography
Project Summary
My thesis is largely concerned with the ways that the ageing body is managed and mediated through cosmetic technologies. I develop existing feminist approaches to consider the emotional and embodied experiences of ageing, extending understandings of gendered identity and the body. I also consider gendered identity in a spatial context, examining the spaces through which the ageing body is 'diagnosed' and 'treated', including salons, 'aesthetic clinics' and the home. I am interested in the ways that the appearance of ageing is medicalised in such settings, and the technologies used in attempts to delay, halt and even reverse the ageing process.
Empirically, I focus on the practices and consumption of cosmetic anti-ageing technologies, in particular non-invasive salon treatments and non-surgical cosmetic procedures. These include, for instance laser treatments, injectables and cellular skin regeneration technologies. Through embodied ethnography, in-depth interviews and contextual analysis this research explores the ways in which ‘anti-ageing’ bodies are imagined and experienced.
Supervisory Team
Professor Jo Little Dr John Wylie
Wider Research Interests
Health and Wellbeing; Feminist Geographies; Emotion; Embodiment; Hybridity, Cyborgs and Techno-natures; Biopolitics, Corporeal Risk and Governance; Body Image, the Media and Advertising; Visual Methodologies, Embodied Ethnography
