ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a selective overview of beauty politics in Sudan, a country in North East Africa. The chapter highlights the context within which beauty politics plays out as well as the commodification of beauty. It discusses dominant constructions of beauty in Sudan and how these dictate the use of skin-bleaching and body-shaping products and pills respectively. The chapter also briefly discusses ways in which women who can read and write and who have internet access use social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp to exchange beauty-related ideas, to market beauty products, and to a less extent, to articulate narratives about cosmetics, and about resisting constructions of beauty that drive the use of harmful products to achieve an ideal color or body shape. Finally, the chapter examines selected traditional beauty rituals and aesthetics, highlighting the political, social, cultural, and spiritual functions that certain beauty items fulfill.
