WELLNESS IN WHITENESS This book analyses the social and ethical implications of the globalization of emerging skin-whitening and anti-ageing biotechnology. Using an intersectional theoretical framework and a content analysis methodology drawn from cultural studies, the sociology of knowledge, the history of colonial medicine and critical race theory, it examines technical reports, as well as print and online advertisements from pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies for skin-whitening products. With close attention to the promises of ‘ageless beauty’, ‘brightened’, youthful skin and solutions to ‘pigmentation problems’ for non-white women, the author reveals the dynamics of racialization and biomedicalization at work. A study of a significant sector of the globalized health and wellness industries – which requires the active participation of consumers in the biomedicalization of their own bodies – Wellness in Whiteness will appeal to social scientists with interests in gender, race and ethnicity, biotechnology and embodiment. Amina Mire is Assistant Professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University, Canada. Her research interests are in the history of women and technology, STEM and gender, bioethics, medical anthropology, medical humanities and the biomedicalization of ageing. Routledge Research in Gender and Society Mexican American Women, Dress and Gender Pachucas, Chicanas, Cholas Amaia Ibarraran-Bigalondo Trauma, Women’s Mental Health, and Social Justice Pitfalls and Possibilities Emma Tseris Wellness in Whiteness Biomedicalization and the Promotion of Whiteness and Youth among Women Amina Mire Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India A Study of Social Justice, Identity and Agency in Assam Saba Hussain White Masculinity in Contemporary Australia The Good Ol’ Aussie Bloke Andrea Waling Motherhood in Contemporary International Perspective Continuity and Change Edited by Fabienne Portier-Le Cocq For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/sociology/ series/SE0271 WELLNESS IN WHITENESS Biomedicalization and the Promotion of Whiteness and Youth among Women Amina Mire First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Amina Mire The right of Amina Mire to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mire, Amina, author. Title: Wellness in whiteness : biomedicalisation and the promotion of whiteness and youth among women / Amina Mire. Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge research in gender and society ; 78 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed. Identifiers: LCCN 2018056341 (print) | LCCN 2019016883 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351234146 (ebk) | ISBN 9781351234139 (web pdf) | ISBN 9781351234115 (mobi) | ISBN 9781351234122 (epub) | ISBN 9780815377436 (hbk) | ISBN 9780815377443 (pbk) Subjects: LCSH: Body image. | Body image in women. | Beauty, Personal. | Whites—Race identity. | Aging—Prevention. Classification: LCC BF697.5.B63 (ebook) | LCC BF697.5.B63 M57 2019 (print) | DDC 155.3/33—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018056341 ISBN: 978-0-8153-7743-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-8153-7744-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-23414-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC I would like to dedicate this book to my late mother, Xalima Sheik Aweys. My mother was an amazing woman. I have learned so much from her, such as to love and not hate; to work hard and always dream big. CONTENTS 1 Situating skin-whitening biotechnology 1 2 Pigmentation pathologies and regenerative whiteness 8 3 ‘Face north and smile’: biomedicalization of ageing and ‘science-based’ whiteness therapy 22 4 Racializing consumption: skin-whitening and the global look 54 5 Entrepreneurial innovation in skin-whitening biotechnology: ethical and social implications 77 Index 106 1 SITUATING SKIN-WHITENING BIOTECHNOLOGY The primary aim of this book is to introduce key ideas, concepts and analyses in order to reveal the social and ethical implications of the globalization of the emerg- ing skin-whitening biotechnology. These biotechnologies promise women ‘ageless beauty’ and youthful appearance by removing visible signs of ageing and by shield- ing women’s bodies from the harmful effects of ageing, environmental pollutants and undesirable lifestyles. This work also examines how skin-whitening biotech- nology represents a major contemporary global market that promises brightened and youthful-looking skin to women who can afford the asking price. Conse- quently, this work aims to delineate and reveal how whitening biotechnology is implicated in the dynamics of racialization and biomedicalization of women’s bod- ies and skin. In this work, skin-whitening biotechnology is defined as an enabling site which facilitates the commercialization of a plethora of biotechnologies with skin-whitening properties and with profound biomedicalization and racialization implications. Using an intersectional theoretical framework and a content analysis methodology drawn from cultural studies, the sociology of knowledge, the history of colonial medicine and critical race theory, this work examines technical reports and advertisements for skin-whitening products (online and in print) by pharma- ceutical and cosmetics companies to analyse racialization and biomedicalization implications of skin-whitening biotechnology. These biotechnologies have two major marketing strategies. First, skin-whitening biotechnologies are increasingly marketed to white women to remove visible signs of ageing and to shield their bodies and skin from the harmful effects of environ- mental pollution and undesirable lifestyles. When marketing under the purview of anti-ageing, skin-whitening biotechnologies reinforce discursive construction of the visible signs of ageing, such as age spots, sunburns and ‘hyper-pigmentation’ as pathological problems. One of the aims of this work is to critically investigate the extent to which the aggressive promotion of skin-whitening biotechnologies 2 Situating skin-whitening biotechnology with anti-ageing claims represents a heightened level of the biomedicalization of women’s bodies. Biomedicalization of women’s bodies results from the claims that skin-whitening biotechnology can reverse ageing by purifying and restoring the ageing bodies and skin of women. Petersen and Seear (2009, p. 269) defined the biomedicalization of ageing as a reductionist conceptualization of complex and multi-dimensional ageing processes based on the interaction between ‘bio-physical, socio-cultural and psycho-social factors’ to a medical problem amenable to tech- nological intervention. Biomedical construction of ageing enables the discursive articulation, produc- tion, dissemination and validation of knowledge about anti-ageing as a legitimate domain in the service of intervening and reversing the disease of ageing (Calasanti, 2007; Cheek, 2008; Mykytyn, 2009; Spindler & Streubel, 2009). Furthermore, bio- medicalization of ageing shapes social policies and broader public attitudes toward ageing as a ‘social problem’ (Cheek, 2008; Petersen & Seear, 2009). The sharp rise of healthcare costs and retreat of the welfare state facilitates a privatized do-it-yourself (DIY) healthcare lifestyle which reinforces inequities. In this context, aggressive marketing of anti-ageing consumerism is not a matter of bottom-up or top-down, but is instead implicated ‘in global webs of science and capitalism’, racializing and biomedicalization strategies (Gerlach, Hamilton, Sullivan, & Walton, 2011, p. 10). For these reasons, careful examination of the social and ethical implications of skin- whitening biotechnology, both with respect to its use in the anti-ageing wellness industry and the globalization of skin-whitening, requires critical intervention by interrogating how the discursive construction of ageing as a disease and pigmented skin as unhealthy and aesthetically undesirable entails discursive demarcation and material exclusion of the poor and other marginalized bodies as potential sites of racialized, biomedicalized and gendered vulnerabilities. This book will address these urgent concerns. The steady rise of skin-whitening biotechnology as a ‘restorative therapeutic intervention’ of white women’s bodies and skin represents a site of biomedicali- zation of women’s bodies. One of the aims of this book is to reveal the extent to which contemporary promotion of skin-whitening biotechnology reconfigures and rearticulates colonial medicine, which associated whiteness with recuperative wellness (Anderson, 2003; Berger, 1997; Blaut, 1992; Crosby, 2004). One of the primary contributions of this book is to demonstrate how the biomedicalization