Ethico-aethetics: stylising the self to transform subjectivity

In his later work, Foucault (Reference Foucault1990a, Reference Foucault1990b) takes up the problem of ethical self-formation to problematise the dominant Western mode of ethics where the principle target is a ‘hermeneutics of the subject’ that produces essentialist conceptions of the subject. Through historical analyses of ancient Greek and Roman texts, Foucault's analyses explored ‘how one ought to form oneself as an ethical subject’ and ‘the practices that enable him to transform his own mode of being’ (Foucault Reference Foucault1990b: 26, 30). He defined these practices of self as ‘the procedures, which no doubt exist in every civilization, offered or prescribed to individuals in order to determine their identity, maintain it, transform it in terms of a certain number of ends’ (Foucault Reference Foucault and Rabinow1994f: 87). These practices were associated with a ‘matrix of practical reason’ (Foucault Reference Foucault and Rabinow1994g: 225) which Foucault (Reference Foucault, Burchell, Gordon and Miller1991: 79) suggests ‘inscribe themselves in practices’ and are ‘folded in’ (Deleuze Reference Deleuze1986) during processes of self-formation. These processes entail self-reflection, self-examination, self-decipherment, self-transformation and so on and constitute a reflexive relation of self to self. The matrix of reason that Foucault (Reference Foucault1990a, Reference Foucault1990b, Reference Foucault, Bernauer and Rasmussen1994a, Reference Foucault and Rabinow1994c) locates in ancient Greek and Roman texts constitutes an aesthetic mode of ethics anchored in a stylistics of existence. This ethos was dominated by the principle of ‘care of self’ which meant continually ‘working on’ or ‘being concerned with’ the self (Foucault Reference Foucault and Rabinow1994d). This work on the self was not an obligation imposed on the individual but rather associated with an active freedom. To engage in ‘care of the self’ was therefore to reflect upon oneself and freely cultivate oneself as an ethical subject by engaging in practices of self-care (Foucault Reference Foucault and Rabinow1994b).

Given that ‘care of the self’ entailed critical reflection, Rabinow (Reference Rabinow2003: 10) observes that it ‘was also a form of critique, a critique of the self that entailed perpetual self examination’. Such a critique entails reflection upon how we are disciplined with respect to our identities and courses of action in order to test the limits of these forms of subjectivity and relations of power (Gabardi Reference Gabardi2001). The practice of critique is thus, ‘a means of contesting the identities constructed by experts, abstract systems and dominant groups’ (Dean Reference Dean, Barry, Osborne and Rose1996: 214). Lloyd (Reference Lloyd and Hekman1996: 250, original emphasis) argues that ‘self-fashioning, when allied to critique, can produce sites of contestation over the meanings and contours of identity, and over the ways in which certain practices are mobilized’. That sites of contestation over meaning can be generated by critique is in line with Foucault's conception of resistance and his proclamation that ‘discourse is the power which is to be seized’ (Foucault Reference Foucault and Young1981: 211). Moreover, Lloyd is suggesting that through critical engagement, the rationality associated with practices of self can be negotiated or influenced. This latitude of movement, or slippage of meaning, is a strategic means for transforming the present.

Foucault briefly mentions the significance of this ethic of the self for understanding ‘older’. He writes:

What Foucault is suggesting is that the benefits of having taken care of oneself throughout life are realised in old age. Through the continual practice of taking care of the self, Foucault (Reference Foucault and Rabinow1994c: 110) suggests that it is possible to attain ‘an ideal old age; an old age we produce, as it were, which we practice’. Given this conceptualisation of an ideal old age, Foucault suggests:

Whilst Foucault was writing about ancient Greek and Roman ethics, these ideas offer great potential for how we might begin to re-view ‘older’ in contemporary contexts to overcome the dominant negative connotations that emerge from discourses of ageing. His contention that practices of self-care enable critical self-constitution is mobilised in this paper to suggest that older people who engage in cosmetic surgery do so in pursuit of an ethical stylisation of the experience of ‘older’.

Cosmetic surgery: a practice for stylising an ‘older’ self

In popular media and some academic discourses, ‘older’ people who engage in cosmetic surgery are almost singularly considered to be ‘denying ageing’. In much of the ageing studies literature, cosmetic surgery is understood as a means for resisting or denying being ‘older’. Here ‘older’ is positioned at the centre of an ethical problematisation in which self-care practices are considered constitutive of an identity of ‘staying young, choosing not to grow old’ (Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000: 60). Higgs et al. (Reference Higgs, Leontowitsch, Stevenson and Rees Jones2009: 699) state, for example, that ‘anti-ageing medicine’ including cosmetic surgery comprises practices of self-care that ‘seek to overcome the ageing process or mask the signs of ageing’. These self-care practices generate ethical anxiety because they are considered to produce an appearance of ‘non-agedness that further reinforces the undesirability and fear of old age’ (Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000: 81). Such a reading positions cosmetic surgery as ethically problematic in that it is seen to reinforce and reproduce ageist beliefs and thus becomes understood as an ageist practice itself (Bayer Reference Bayer2005; Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000; Hey Reference Hey2006; Hurd Clarke and Griffin Reference Hurd Clarke and Griffin2007; Hurd Clarke, Repta and Griffin Reference Hurd Clarke, Repta and Griffin2007).

The problem with anti-ageing interpretations are that they are premised upon essentialist conceptions of ‘ageing’ and ‘problematically construct a natural, essential, authentic body’ (Pitts-Taylor Reference Pitts-Taylor2009: 121). In terms of the ‘older’ body, to borrow from Twigg (Reference Twigg2004: 60), ‘[e]ssentializing discourses in relation to the body need to be replaced by ones that recognize its nature as a social text, something that is both formed and given meaning within culture’. Conceptualisations of the body as a surface or plane of signification can generally be traced to Foucault who describes the body as ‘the inscribed surface of events … totally imprinted by history’ (Foucault Reference Foucault and Rabinow1984: 83). What he suggests is that the materiality and comportment of the body are shaped and given meaning through practices of discursive inscription. Through these practices, power is invested in the ‘text’ of the body and operates to shape the way in which it is ‘read’. Given this theorisation of the body, the ‘path to aging “naturally” is highly problematic’ since ‘If there is no natural body, then there is no natural way to age’ (Twigg Reference Twigg2004: 63). If there is no natural way to age, then interpretations of cosmetic surgery as ‘anti-ageing’ are destabilised and questions are raised about what it means to look a particular age and attempts to look ‘younger’. It becomes evident then, that cultural constructions of ‘age’ are imprinted on the body through a normative schema. Constituting the body as a canvas for inscription, the practice of cosmetic surgery opens up into possibilities for ‘alternative modes of being and norms’ (Gabardi Reference Gabardi2001: 72) relating to the corporeal experience of ‘older’. In relation to ‘anti-ageing’ practices, Cardona (Reference Cardona2007: 224) suggests that corporeal enhancement technologies propose ‘new standards of normality, success, and moral virtue’ that provide ‘new benchmarks of what a person should look and act like at certain age’. In other words, designing ‘older’ rather than denying ageing (Garnham Reference Garnham2013).

As a practice of body modification, cosmetic surgery is significant because the body is the nexus or site where ‘forces of cultural reproduction, social structuation, and reflexivity’ intersect to constitute the ‘self’ (Gabardi Reference Gabardi2001: 88). As feminist scholars have argued, cosmetic surgery is therefore implicated in processes of becoming a subject and possible forms of subjectivity in Western society and culture (Fraser Reference Fraser, Heyes and Jones2009; Heyes Reference Heyes2007; Jones Reference Jones2008; Pitts-Taylor Reference Pitts-Taylor2007). Read through Foucault's conceptualisation of care of self, whilst cosmetic surgery may inscribe and reinscribe normative forms of subjectivity, its practice might also be understood in terms of transforming the self. Adopting this position draws analytic attention to the ways in which agency, freedom and resistance are performed through the body using cosmetic surgery to stylise appearance, mode of being and experience of life in ways that challenge the oppressive and negative rendering of ‘older’.

Research design

The research used to generate empirical data employed a case study approach. The significance of case studies, in relation to the methodological commitments of this paper, is beautifully captured by Heyes who writes:

This paper suggests that cosmetic surgery is a specific local intervention in which transformative agency is possible. Cosmetic surgery therefore provides a case study or, to follow Rabinow (Reference Rabinow2003), an ‘exemplar’ through which to analyse points of rupture and contradiction in the ethical self-stylisation of ‘older’ subjectivities. This approach is ‘Foucauldian’ in the sense that many of Foucault's analyses of the subject were investigated by means of a case study or case history (Cousins and Hussain Reference Cousins and Hussain1984). For example, Foucault's analyses of the ethical subject during particular historical periods were grounded in the study of sexuality as a privileged case (Florence Reference Florence and Faubion1994).

The boundaries that constitute ‘older’ people needed to be actively imposed to direct data generation. In Australia, like other developed nations, increasing longevity is driving the development of new categories and cultural understandings of age and a redefinition of existing categories. We are seeing, for example, the emergence of terms such as the ‘young-old’ and the ‘old-old’ to demarcate new demographic boundaries (Borowski and McDonald Reference Borowski, McDonald, Borowski, Encel and Ozanne2007). These new categories disrupt the normative lifespan and reveal the arbitrary limitations imposed by vertical containment in the horizontal structuring of society. The age group between 65 and 75 years is a historically ‘new’ demographic category sometimes termed the ‘young-old’ (e.g. Wenger Reference Wenger, Holstein and Gubrium2003). The ‘young-old’ are considered to be a ‘third age’ in the lifecourse which is associated with the generation of new and modified cultural meaning (Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000; Higgs Reference Higgs1999; Twigg Reference Twigg2004). The age group 65–75 years was therefore selected to provide an ‘information-rich’ (Patton Reference Patton2002) demographic group for exploring new and modified cultural meanings and practices of self that constitute the experience of ‘older’.

The lines that demarcate cosmetic surgery from other surgical and cosmetic procedures are at times unclear. However, in this study, cosmetic surgery was defined as a consumer-initiated procedure to improve appearance which is understood by same to constitute ‘cosmetic surgery’.

Ethical clearance was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of South Australia and methods were embedded in the research design to ensure informed consent, voluntary participation and confidentiality. All names reported in this paper are pseudonyms. First names (e.g. James, Charlotte) designate ‘older’ people who have undergone cosmetic surgery whilst surnames (e.g. Dr Smith, Ms Taylor) designate practitioners in the cosmetic surgery industry who have experience working with ‘older’ patients.

Purposeful sampling strategies were used to deliberately select data sources that are information-rich (Patton Reference Patton2002). A combination of cold calling and snowball sampling strategies (Patton Reference Patton2002) were used to locate cosmetic surgeons who had experience with patients aged 65–75 years. Cosmetic surgeons also passed on information about the study to their patients who then contacted me if they wished to participate.

The sample consisted of 11 participants who had undergone cosmetic surgery whilst aged 65–75 years (Table 1) and ten participants who were cosmetic surgery practitioners with experience of ‘older’ patients (Table 2). Participants in the ‘older’ group ranged from 66 to 75 years. The majority (eight) were female which reflects the gender imbalance amongst cosmetic surgery consumers. A diverse range of cosmetic procedures, including surgical and medical procedures, were represented in the sample with some participants having undergone multiple procedures. In the practitioner group there were an even number of males and females. Four participants worked in the industry of plastic surgery as practice staff, five were cosmetic surgeons or physicians, and one was a beauty therapist.

Table 1. Participants: ‘older’ people who have undergone cosmetic surgery

Table 2. Participants: cosmetic surgery practitioners

A semi-structured approach was taken to conducting the interviews (Kvale Reference Kvale1996; Patton Reference Patton2002). Questions were generated from the topics: discourses that constitute understandings of cosmetic surgery practice, discourses that constitute subject positions in relation to ‘older’ and discourses that constitute subject positions in relation to older people who practise cosmetic surgery. Simultaneous data generation and analysis were carried out until data saturation was reached (Morse Reference Morse1995).

The process of analysis began with descriptive and thematic stages according to the phases outlined by Braun and Clarke (Reference Braun and Clarke2006). Thematic analysis was used to organise the data sets and identify patterns of regularity that might suggest the operation of discourse. The theoretical analysis undertaken in this study derives from both meditation on discourse and engagement with participant perspectives. However, the data sets do not form sites of analysis and nor do the participant's narratives form ‘representative’ perspectives or individual case studies. Moreover, this paper does not engage with a politics of ‘voice’. Rather, the texts are sampled and problematised in terms of their articulation of prevailing discourses that inscribe the practice of cosmetic surgery undertaken by older people. The labour of meditation through which this problematisation was enacted entails practices of thinking and writing as methods of analysis (Deacon Reference Deacon2000; Richardson and St. Pierre Reference Richardson, St. Pierre, Denzin and Lincoln2005). Therefore, the analysis does not exist independent from this writing and is ‘performed’ in what is to follow. The analysis weaves discursive commentary with close data analysis and presentation in which connections are forged between theory and texts to explore how ‘older’ people engage cosmetic surgery as a practice of self-care to stylise an ‘older’ identity that exceeds limitations imposed by discourses of ‘ageing’.

The ethical principle of ‘ageing gracefully’

The notion of ‘ageing gracefully’ operates as an ethical principle that suggests ‘older’ people should accept ‘natural’ bodily ageing with a certain aesthetic style and grace. In our interview, when I asked James about the increasing numbers of ‘older’ people having cosmetic surgery he responded, ‘Why they do that I don't know, why they can't be content to grow old gracefully and leave it at that I don't know’. When prompted to define what he meant by growing ‘old gracefully’ James replied, ‘Just let things take their course – naturally’. Asked to elaborate, James stated:

This association between ‘ageing gracefully’ and the ‘natural’ body is established in the literature (Fairhurst Reference Fairhurst, Nettleton and Watson1998; Twigg Reference Twigg2007). Surgical intervention to modify the ‘older’ body is therefore generally considered anathema to this notion (Hurd Clarke and Griffin Reference Hurd Clarke and Griffin2007). The discursive influence of the ‘natural’ body was evident in the data in terms of statements concerning the desired appearance of the post-surgical modified body. Fears of appearing ‘plastic’ or residual evidence of surgical intervention and thus being unable to ‘pass’ as natural were the outworking of this powerful influence.

When I asked Dr Smith what she thought growing old gracefully means she responded:

Dr Smith suggests that those people who aspire to ‘ageing gracefully’ and being ‘beautiful and serene’ do not realise Sophia Loren has had ‘work done’. Her assertion ‘I mean that's not exactly the real world is it?’ suggests that ‘ageing gracefully’ entails body work rather than passive acceptance of ‘natural’ ageing. Ms Robinson explicitly associates ‘ageing gracefully’ with active engagement in practices to take care of the body:

Similarly, Ms Taylor and Dr Wilson both suggest that ‘older’ people who ‘look good’ have engaged in practices to ‘take care of themselves’:

The aesthetic style associated with ‘ageing gracefully’ may therefore entail taking care of the self through practices that cultivate the body rather than passive acceptance of ‘natural’ bodily ageing.

When I asked Dr Smith how she thought society at large views older people wanting to have cosmetic surgery she replied ‘disgusting’. When asked to elaborate she replied, ‘because we're hypocrites. And because fun and life and alcohol and sex and beauty and drugs are all only for young people. And I think it's an extension of that’. I asked whether she was suggesting that this was a form of ageism and she stated:

In terms of appearance and consumerism, Chris suggests that:

What this suggests is that it is not cosmetic surgery practice that is necessarily ageist but cultural topes such as ‘graceful ageing’ when this is taken to mean that, unlike other age groups, ‘older’ people should be proud of their ‘natural’ bodies and those who continue to engage in practices of self-care are shamed and denigrated.

The cultural politics suggested by ‘ageing naturally’ promotes acceptance and display of the ‘naturally aged’ body and through the ethical principle of ‘ageing gracefully’, the essentialist discourse of the ‘natural’ body operates as a limitation on the ethical stylisation of ‘older’. Within this framework, engaging in practices such as cosmetic surgery are framed in terms of denial of ageing or attempts to look ‘younger’. What this means is that ‘standards of the ‘natural’ are seemingly functioning to establish normative limits of the acceptable’ (Weiss and Kukla Reference Weiss, Kukla, Heyes and Jones2009: 124). The essentialism inherent to such an approach will fail to transform the system that positions ‘older’ bodies as undesirable. Rather, what is needed is a problematisation of ‘youth’ in aesthetics to imagine aesthetically desiring and desirable ‘older’ bodies. Hurd Clarke and Korotchenko's (2013) recent work on hair colour and the use of dyes in later life, for instance, reveals that the stylisation of hair colour is associated with aesthetic values that constitute white hair and particular varieties of grey hair as aesthetically desirable. In addition, this research showed that the practice of colouring ones hair was associated with the stylisation of a desirable ‘older’ identity. To develop this theme, this paper will now address, in depth and at face value, the contention that ‘older’ people engage with cosmetic surgery to stylise their embodied experience of ‘older’.

Resistance of an ‘elderly’ identity: aesthetic stylisation of the ‘older’ self

The suggestion that ‘older’ is constituted through aesthetic stylisation particularly emerged in my interviews with ‘older’ participants in the context of clothing style. Angela referred to the undesirability of dressing ‘too young’ in her statement that ‘obviously you can't go like mutton dressed as lamb with little tights and little skimpy tops. That would be ridiculous wouldn't it?’ However, others talked about the undesirability of dressing ‘too old’. Emily, for instance, says ‘I've got a friend who's 72 and she dresses older than what I do. She dresses like a grandmother’. When I asked her what she meant by this she responded:

Here Emily suggests that dressing ‘old’ is to wear old-fashioned, dark, drab clothing as opposed to the nice casual modern clothes that she chooses for herself. Mandy specifically relates the cosmetic procedures she underwent, including tummy tuck, liposuction and breast reduction, to clothing choice. She states:

Similarly, Chris suggests that, ‘Older people who end up with stomachs and fat bums and stuff like that, they don't like the way they look, so in that way they'd like to trim down so they can fit better clothes’. Moreover, Chris explicitly links ‘old’ with clothing when he states ‘Once you get above that [a size 14], you go from stylish clothing to old persons clothing. By that I mean the stretch jeans’. As this data illustrates, ‘old’ is constituted through aesthetic stylisation in ways that are considered ‘drab’, ‘frumpy’ and generally ‘unstylish’.

Gilleard and Higgs (Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000: 143) assert that ‘people do not want to look old and unattractive’. However, this is more than just an aesthetic preference. When I asked Heather why she thought people in their sixties and seventies were deciding to have cosmetic surgery she responded:

She went on to talk about customer service in shops and a social experiment conducted by the BBC where they:

She concluded that ‘if you're not fuckable – desirable – then they're not even going to talk to you so that's why’. For Heather personally, appearance is important because she states, ‘I still want to be taken seriously as a person so I do not want to look old and drab. What I said to you before about being overlooked as an older person’. More than aesthetics, an ‘old and drab’ appearance works to socially and culturally position individuals as ‘elderly’:

An old and unattractive appearance is therefore not only aesthetically displeasing but entails undesirable social and cultural differentiation in terms of an ‘elderly identity’. This speaks to ‘a relational self where intersubjectivity becomes central – a self that acknowledges and is constituted by difference and the Other’ (Besley and Peters Reference Besley and Peters2007: 20).

Dr Wilson captures this notion and suggests that being positioned as ‘Other’, in this case ‘elderly’, is like being in the ‘wrong costume’ when he states:

Many of the ‘older’ participants interviewed explicitly positioned themselves as ‘not old’. However, this does not necessarily mean that they are denying or resisting chronological age or that they are ‘old’. Rather, these statements can be interpreted as a desire to exceed the boundaries that seek to constrain them, regulate their conduct and determine the nature of their interpersonal relations. As Gilleard and Higgs (Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000) assert, ‘older’ people are happy to age but not be ‘aged’. The stylisation of ‘older’ using practices to fashion the appearance of the body is therefore deployed in struggles around subjectivity to challenge, resist and subvert forms of subjectivity connected to being ‘aged’.

Stylisation of an active ‘older’ self and lifestyle

By far the most commonly used adjective in the texts generated for this study to describe ‘older’ in terms of self and lifestyle was ‘active’. Almost all of the ‘older’ participants in this study described themselves and their lives as ‘active’. For Tom being active means:

Tom, Isabella and Mandy consider an active lifestyle to be a life where you ‘make the most out of it’.

In our interviews Charlotte and Chloe both suggested that an active ‘older’ lifestyle is linked to cosmetic surgery and wealth:

As these extracts demonstrate, Charlotte and Chloe see ‘older’ as a time of freedom from financial struggle and being able to enjoy the consumption of commodities. Chris also reflects that money is an important factor in active lifestyles and suggests that such lifestyles may not be available to ‘pensioners’ relying on social retirement schemes for income. Whilst a certain amount of disposable income is needed to engage in the practice of cosmetic surgery and fashion active lifestyles, the ‘older’ participants interviewed for this study came from a range of socio-economic positions. Whilst Mandy revealed money was not a consideration in her decision to have cosmetic surgery, Isabella spoke of her careful saving plan whereby she put aside small sums until she had saved enough for her procedure.

The ‘cultural habitat’ (Gill Reference Gill2008), comprising employment, wealth, leisure activities, health, social and romantic relationships, is associated with the ‘young-old’ or ‘third age’ subject (see e.g. Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000; Katz and Laliberte-Rudman Reference Katz and Laliberte-Rudman2005; Katz and Marshall Reference Katz and Marshall2003; Powell Reference Powell2006). James specifically connects being ‘active’ with the ‘young-old’ in his statement:

In the following statement Chloe suggests the importance of lifestyle to the new cultural constitution of the ‘young-old’:

As this extract suggests, maintaining a ‘healthy, fit lifestyle’ and ‘mental attitude’ is a condition of possibility for the constitution of the ‘active’ ‘young-old’. Chloe links being ‘active’ with physical and mental health in her statement that:

Similarly, Angela suggests, ‘so if you can keep the right weight, eat right and whatever then you can participate in a lot more things and stay active. Not die in a heap when you get to 70. I am trying to do that’.

Despite the association between active lifestyles and health, good health was not a precondition for Sophie's experience of engaging in cosmetic surgery and constitution of an ‘active’ and ‘young-old’ subjectivity. Sophie talked about having a near-death experience, a chronic condition, cancer and other health problems. At the time of the interview Sophie had decided not to undergo any further cosmetic procedures because her post-surgical recovery was becoming too difficult. However, prior to that, her health difficulties had not prevented her from having cosmetic procedures to enhance her appearance and ‘feel better’. From these excerpts it is possible to say that rather than good health per se, it is engaging in practices to take care of oneself that is the condition of possibility that enables the constitution of an active lifestyle and the ‘young-old’ subject.

As cultural theorists in ageing studies have observed, the social and cultural constitution of the ‘third ager’ or ‘young-old’ has occurred through neoliberal and consumer discourses of active, successful, productive and healthy ageing (see e.g. Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Gilleard and Higgs Reference Gilleard and Higgs2000; Katz and Laliberte-Rudman Reference Katz and Laliberte-Rudman2005; Katz and Marshall Reference Katz and Marshall2003; Powell Reference Powell2006). As Katz (Reference Katz2005: 121) notes in his paper ‘Busy Bodies’, ‘the notion of activity, a recurring motif in popular treatises on longevity since the Enlightenment, today serves as an antidote to pessimistic stereotypes of decline and dependency’. He goes on to argue that modern gerontology and associated health-care professions have seized on ‘activity’ as an ethical keyword to generate ‘critical intersections between activity and regimens of care and lifestyle with a focus on the management of everyday life in old age’. ‘Activity’ thus ‘marks an alliance between political and personal aspirations’ (Cardona Reference Cardona2008) for ‘positive, healthy, independent lives’ (Katz Reference Katz2005: 126). ‘Older’ subjectivities styled in relation to principles of being ‘active’ thus form at the intersection of relations of power and practices of self-care.

The problem, Katz (Reference Katz2005: 122) argues, is that social welfare policies are eroded in favour of ‘neoliberal policies and market-driven programmes to ‘empower’ older individuals to be active in order to avoid the stigma and risks of dependency’. However, these policies fail to address the ways in which socio-economic position, gender and race affect the capacity of individuals to engage in practices of self-care and exclude possibilities of ‘successful ageing’ that are not premised on individual's ability to be physically and financially independent. ‘Ageing well’ thus becomes an individual responsibility within a context of structural constraint (Katz and Laliberte-Rudman Reference Katz and Laliberte-Rudman2005).

‘Deploying a catch-all cry against neoliberalism and governmentality’ to show how the ‘older’ body is ‘rendered fodder for the machine that produces “better” citizens’ would be, to borrow from Probyn (Reference Probyn2008: 402–3), ‘the spectacular analysis of the obvious’. In terms of fat and feminism, she argues that whilst such critique proves an obvious point, such scholarship does little to intervene. Like Probyn's critique of feminism, the ageing studies scholarship described is informed by a narrow reading of Foucault. This means that the insights derived from this work are methodologically and politically limited because they fail to acknowledge agency in terms of the ways ‘older’ subjectivities are navigated, adapted, adopted and constituted by the subject. The new ‘young-old’ subject, to parallel Gill's (Reference Gill2008: 438–9) argument in relation to post-feminist femininity, ‘highlights the way in which power and ideology operate through the construction of subjects, not through top-down imposition but through negotiation, mediation, resistance and articulation’. Rather than a governmental practice conditioned by discourses of ‘active ageing’, cosmetic surgery can be read as an ethical practice of critique.

Exceeding the boundaries of ‘older’: cosmetic surgery as an ethical practice of critique

Through critique of the ethical principle of ‘ageing gracefully’, this paper problematised ‘natural ageing’ in relation to ‘older’ people. As Tulle (Reference Tulle2008: 7) suggests, the problem lies with age acting as a limiting ‘structure guiding our social location and our dispositions’. As Dr Wilson observes:

Dr Wilson might have said that ‘age is only a number’ but his statement still suggests that chronological age does not confer an essentialist nature to ‘older’. Interestingly, Dr Wilson states ‘but I honestly, I don't judge people by their age. I don't look at the numeric numbers. I look at their phenotype age’. What Dr Wilson is suggesting by ‘phenotype’ age implies a judgement based on physical appearance and self-expression and thus the possibility of exceeding limitations imposed by chronological age through self-stylisation.

Many of the interviewees suggested that ‘age is just a number’ and ‘old’ is a state of mind. Heather, for instance, proclaims:

Similarly, Mandy states:

Dr Smith described ‘old’ as a state of mind unconnected to chronological age:

In addition, the data generated for this study suggests that ‘older people’ are challenging normative expectations in relation to chronological age and transforming what it means to be ‘older’. In his interview Chris states:

Chris’ suggestion that ‘65 is the new 50’ reveals a contemporary shift in Western cultures of ‘older’. As his statement illustrates, this shift is partly attributable to increasing longevity and accompanying social changes. However, the choice to skydive rather than play cards or bowls speaks to ‘older’ in terms of new possibilities and practices.

Ms Taylor and Ms Robinson talked about possibilities and practices concerning ‘older’ in the following statements:

As these excerpts suggests, these new possibilities and practices are connected to an ‘active’ lifestyle and regimen of self-care.

Charlotte, Mandy and Angela express a critical attitude about age in terms of the rhetorical question ‘why not?’ when asked about their decisions to have cosmetic surgery:

In his work conceptualising critique as an ethical practice, Foucault (Reference Foucault, Lotringer and Hochroth1997: 32) considers the act of voluntary insubordination a virtue. For Foucault (Reference Foucault, Lotringer and Hochroth1997: 28), this entails a ‘critical attitude’ and ‘an act of defiance’ in relation to mechanisms of subjection that operate to render individuals intelligible and govern their conduct. The question ‘why not?’ is an act of defiance that exemplifies what Foucault meant by voluntary insubordination and critique. Such a critique entails reflection on how we are disciplined with respect to our identities and courses of action in order to test the limits of these forms of subjectivity and relations of power (Gabardi Reference Gabardi2001). For ‘older’ people who engage in cosmetic surgery, this attitude can be interpreted as ‘testing the limits’ of ‘older’ to explore the possibility of transgressing and ultimately transforming those limits.