Three Faces of Beauty

Ossman Susan Ossman

Description

Three Faces of Beauty offers a unique approach to understanding globalization and cultural change based on a comparative, ethnographic study of a nearly universal institution: the beauty salon. Susan Ossman traces the images and words of the beauty industry as they developed historically between Paris, Cairo, and Casablanca and then vividly demonstrates how such images are embodied today in salons located in each city.By examining how images from fashion magazines, film, and advertising are enacted in beauty salons, Ossman demonstrates how embodiment is able to display and rework certain hierarchies. While offering the possibility of freedom from the tethers of status, nation, religion, and nature, beauty is created by these very categories and values, Ossman shows. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, she documents the various rituals of welcome, choice-making, pricing practices, and spatial arrangements in multiple salons . She also reveals ways in which patrons in all three cities imagine and co-opt looks they believe are fashionable in the other cities. By observing salons as scenes of instruction, Ossman reveals that beautiful bodies evolve within the intertwining contexts of media, modernity, location, time, postcolonialism, and male expectation.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Marruecos
• Egipto
• Popular culture
• Egypt
• Globalization
• Biological anthropology
• Morocco

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 28 février 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822383635
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

T H R E E FA C E S O F B E A U T Y

T H R E E FA C E S O F B E A U T Y

c a s a b l a n c a , pa r i s , c a i r o

Susan Ossman

d u k e u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s

Durham & London

2002

∫2002 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of

America on acid-free paper$

Designed by Rebecca Giménez

Typeset in Adobe Minion by

Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-

in-Publication Data appear on the

last printed page of this book.

C O N T E N T S

Translations and Transcriptions vii n

Acknowledgments ix n

Introduction 1 n

1. Anywhere Bodies and Faraway Eyes 5 n

2. Background Bodies 31 n

3. Society, Salons, and Significance 64 n

4. Styling Distinctions 97 n

5. Forms and Passages 133 n

6. Beauty’s Edge 154 n

Notes 163 n

Glossary of Terms 189 n

Selected Bibliography 191 n

Index 197 n

T R A N S L A T I O N S A N D T R A N S C R I P T I O N S

Theinterviews,texts,andprogramscitedinthisbookwereoriginally heard,read,orwatchedinModernStandard,Classical,orMoroccanand EgyptiandialectsofArabic,orFrench.Althoughmostofthesehavebeen translatedintoEnglish,insomeinstancestranslationissoinadequate,or theword,whateveritslanguageoforigin,hasbecomesowidelyusedinall oftheselanguages,thatIwascompelledtoaskthereadertolearnthe term.Thus,forexample,Iusethefeminineparisiennemrofsthouiinsgtdi theEnglishParisianerocllycoaiehstetterareitotebneeweri√ceenizgnded twofiguresthatwouldotherwisebearthesamename.Aparisienneisa particularkindofwoman,whereasaParisianisaninhabitantofParis. TheArabichijabdaoce,viirngdni,csaitinsgavarietyofhemisirllausyed liberallythroughoutthetext.Theroothjbidacnioitcetor,nseastepofens butincommonusageinCasablanca,Cairo,andParis,thehijab(often translatedasveilMofliusmbecolsoasa)hsonsiervusioarvforekramaem belief. FortranscriptionsfromArabic,myfirstchoicehasbeentoadoptthe versionscurrentlyusedintexts,signs,orlabelsprintedinCasablancaand Cairo.Whenseveraltranscriptionsappearinpublishedworksindi√erent languages,IhavechosenthatclosesttoEnglishusageexceptfornamesof people;inthiscase,Iemploythetranscriptionthattheindividualsin questionchoseinthecontextIevoke.Thus,forexample,IwriteCéza NabaraouyratherthanSezaNabaraouy,forthisishowsheherselfsigned articlesinL’Egyptienne.IuseEnglishplace-nameswhenpossible.Idonot indicateemphatics.Theaynappearsas‘‘¿d,’’neserper’’g˙‘‘an,ynga˙hetts ‘‘kh’’indicatesthesoundsimilartothe‘‘ch’’intheGermanpronunciation of‘‘Bach.’’

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

This project took form from 1993 to 1996 while I was working in Rabat as the director of The Rabat center of the institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain (irmc). Further work in Cairo was made possible and pleasurable by Jean-Noël Ferrié, who kindly invited me to participate in a research program financed by the Agnelli Foundation at the Centre d’etude et de documentation économiques et juridiques. In Paris, a ‘‘Me- dia and Society’’ grant from the Centre national de recherche scientifique allowed me to conduct the final phases of research. These funds allowed me to hire three research assistants, Fedwa Lamzal in Casablanca, Aïcha Chilalli in Cairo, and Ma™gorzata Domoga™a in Paris, who o√ered practi- cal help and stimulating ideas on the project. I am grateful to them, and to Amazigh Kateb, who kindly allowed me to reprint his song ‘‘Ombre-elle’’ as well as checking my English translation. I would especially like to thank Rabia Bekkar, Waddick Doyle, Yves Winkin, Yves and Cécile Gonzales-Quijano, Abderrahmane Lakhsassi, Catherine Lheureux, Kathleen Chevalier, Celeste Schenck, Souad Radi, Paul Rabinow, Todd Gitlin, Larbi Chouikha, Susan Miller, Susan Slyomo- vics and my parents, Edward and Camille Ossman, for their support throughout the research and writing process. Ken Wissoker’s persistent encouragement was essential in getting me to finally write this piece, as were Mark Kuroczko’s and Shana Cohen’s perusals of initial versions of parts of it. James Faubion’s and Deborah Kapchan’s sensitive readings of the project and then of the manuscript taught me many things, some of which now appear in the pages to come. Katie Courtland’s astute crit- icisms helped me to shape the manuscript’s final form. Completion has