num_pages: 256
description: Winner Body and Embodiment Award presented by the American Sociological AssociationImagine yourself without a facethe taskseems impossible. The face is a core feature of our physical identity. Our faceis how others identify us and how we think of our self. Yet human faces arealso functionally essential as mechanisms for communication and as a means ofeating breathing and seeing. For these reasons facial disfigurement canendanger our fundamental notions of self and identity or even be life threateningat worse. Precisely because it is so difficult to conceal our faces thedisfigured face compromises appearance status and perhaps our very way ofbeing in the world.In Saving Face sociologist Heather LaineTalley examines the cultural meaning and social significance of interventionsaimed at repairing faces defined as disfigured. Using ethnographyparticipant-observation content analysis interviews and autoethnographyTalley explores four sites in which a range of faces are  facetransplantation facial feminization surgery the reality show Extreme Makeover and the international charitableorganization Operation Smile. Throughout she considers how efforts focused onrepair sometimes intensify the stigma associated with disfigurement. Drawingupon experiences volunteering at a camp for children with severe burns Talley alsoconsiders alternative interventions and everyday practices that both challengestigma and help those seen as disfigured negotiate outsider status.Talley delves into the promise andlimits of facial surgery continually examining how we might understandappearance as a facet of privilege and a dimension of inequality. Ultimatelyshe argues that facial work is not simply a conglomeration of reconstructivetechniques aimed at the human face but rather that appearance interventionsare increasingly treated as lifesaving work. Especially at a time whenaesthetic technologies carrying greater risk are emerging and whendiscrimination based on appearance is rampant this important book challengesus to think critically about how we see the human face.
language: None
title: Saving Face: Disfigurement and the Politics of Appearance
publisher: New York University Press