Short bio

Alexander Edmonds is Professor of Social and Medical Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh.  He also holds an appointment as senior researcher at the University of Amsterdam's Centre for Social Science and Global Health.  His research has examined the social uses of medical technology, plastic surgery, international development, and more recently, military cultures, mental health and psychological expertise.  Regionally, he conducts ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil and the United States. Edmonds earned a BA with distinction in philosophy and religion from Stanford and a PhD with distinction in anthropology from Princeton.  He was also a Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Research

A major focus of his research is therapeutic work on the self and body in consumer societies.  His book, Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex and Plastic Surgery in Brazil, explores the commercial, erotic and intimate aspects of beauty in a nation with extremes of wealth and poverty. The book was awarded the Diana Forsythe prize from the American Anthropological Association, the Eileen Basker Memorial prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology, and honorable mention in the Sharon Stevens prize from the American Ethnological Society.  

His current work is with military veterans.  Focusing on the United States, Israel and the Netherlands, this project is a comparative study of psychological health, resilience and reintegration after combat.  It also examines the development of clinical reasoning on war syndromes over the last decade. This research is funded by a five-year “Starting Grant” from the European Research Council. His other work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson Society at Princeton, the European Union 7th Framework Program, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. 

Edmonds has written about his research for news media, including the New York Times, and been interviewed about his work by BBC Radio, the Associated Press, and other media outlets.     

Publications: books

• 2010. Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex and Plastic Surgery in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press. 
• Read the introduction to Pretty Modern

 Journal articles and book chapters (selected)

•  Edmonds, A. 2013. Can Medicine be Aesthetic? Disentangling Beauty and Health in Elective Surgeries. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 27(2):233-52.
• Edmonds, A. 2013. The Biological Subject of Aesthetic Medicine. Feminist Theory 14(1):65-82.
• Edmonds, A. 2012. A Right to Beauty. Anthropology Now 4(1):3-9.
• Edmonds, A. 2012. Body Image in Non-Western Societies. The Encyclopedia of Body Image and Human Appearance. T. Cash (ed.) Elsevier. pp.238-242.  
• Edmonds, A. 2011. “Almost Invisible Scars”: Medical Tourism to Brazil. Signs 36 (2):297-302.  
• Edmonds, A. 2009.  Learning to Love Yourself: Esthetics, Health and Therapeutics in Brazilian Plastic Surgery. Ethnos 74(4):465-489. (Awarded David Edge Prize)
• Edmonds, A. 2009.  'Engineering the Erotic': Aesthetic Medicine and Modernization in Brazil. In C. Heyes and M. Jones (eds.) Cosmetic Surgery: A Feminist Primer, pp. 153-169.  Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
• Edmonds, A. 2008.  Beauty and Health: Anthropological Perspectives. Medische Antropologie 20(1):151-162.
• Edmonds, A. 2007.  'The Poor Have the Right to be Beautiful': Cosmetic Surgery in Neoliberal Brazil. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13: 363-381.
• Edmonds, A. 2007. "Triumphant Miscegenation": Reflections on Race and Beauty in Brazil. Journal of Intercultural Communication 28(1): 83-97.
• Edmonds, A. 2002.  No Universo da Beleza: Notas de Campo sobre a Cirurgia  Plastica no Rio deJaneiro. In M. Goldenberg, ed., 2002. Nus &  Vestidos. Rio de Janeiro: Record 

Media

• Read  'A Necessary Vanity.'  The New York Times.  
• Read “La beauté pour tous.” Courrier International
• Listen to interview on BBC Radio 4, “Thinking Allowed”

• Book website

• Download "The Poor Have the Right to be Beautiful: Cosmetic Surgery in Neoliberal Brazil."

Teaching and supervision

Edmonds has taught courses and supervises theses on medical anthropology, mental health and emotion, race, visual anthropology, international development, reproductive health and sexuality, and the ethnography of Brazil and Latin America. 

• Community-embedded reproductive healthfor adolescents in Latin America - EU FP7 research project

• Masters program in medical anthropology and sociology (MAS)

Awards and fellowships

• 2012 David Edge Prize for best journal article in science and technology studies.  Awarded by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).  
• 2011 Diana Forsythe Prize for best book in the anthropology of work, science, technology, and biomedicine.  Awarded by the American Anthropological Association
• 2011 Honorable Mention, Sharon Stephens Prize for best first book.  Awarded by the American Ethnological Society. 
• 2011 Honorable Mention, Roberto Reis Prize for best book in Brazilian studies.    
• 2002-4 Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Modern Studies, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
• 2001 Woodrow Wilson Society of Fellows, Dissertation Writing Grant
• 2000 Social Science Research Council, Dissertation fellowship 

Research grants (selected)

• 2012.  European Research Council Starting Grant for  5 years anthropological research on combat trauma and military psychiatry.
• 2010.  Multi-partner grant for 4 years research on adolescent reproductive and sexual health in Latin America, funded by EU 7th Framework program.  
• 2006. Early Career Grant, "Black Subjectivity," Macquarie University 

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