ABSTRACT
Cosmetic surgery has risen in developing and overdeveloped parts of the world and has steadily become a notable part of mainstream cultures (Haiken 1997). In the last decade, parts of the cosmetic surgery industry have become globalised and somewhat borderless: surgeons train and work in multiple countries, patients travel to undertake operations, diasporic healthcare communities establish, and associated tourism industries flourish (Bell et al. 2011). Cosmetic surgery tourism comes under the umbrella of medical tourism, which can be broadly characterised as ‘a growing transnational circulation of patients, capital, and biomedical objects and knowledge’ (Ackerman 2010: 404). Medical tourism is surrounded by questions about relationships between wealth and access to healthcare, equity and exploitation in developing economies, flows of labour, and patient safety (see Connell 2011).
