Afterword: aesthetic citizenship and Necropolitics

ABSTRACT

This Afterword to the special issue on ‘Aesthetic Citizenship, Beauty Politics, and the State’ seeks to conceptualise further some key themes raised by its authors. The editors (Kukuczka and Liebelt, this volume) forward an understanding of citizenship as a complex aesthetic formation that combines embodiment practices, affective solidarities, and state power as a form of (neoliberal) governmentality that citizens internalise. In exploring the significance of aesthetic citizenship, I utilise Mbembe’s idea of necropolitics to understand aesthetic labour, affective solidarity, and biopower from the embodied perspectives of marginal citizens and noncitizens discussed in these articles.

KEYWORDS:

• aesthetic citizenship
• body multiple and relationality
• affective and intimate publics
• biopower
• neoliberal governmentality
• necropolitics

Introduction

The editors of this special issue forward the conceptual frame of ‘aesthetic citizenship’ to examine the relation between gendered body politics and the nation state which unsettles conceptions of the modern liberal citizen as disembodied and unemotional. Aesthetic citizenship is a feminist critique and challenge to citizenship studies because of its historical idealization of a neutral (white) disembodied and universal masculine subject. Claudia Liebelt’s (2019) concept of ‘aesthetic citizenship’ drives the research in the six articles to show the way personal appearance, aesthetic norms, and beauty practices are part of the criteria by which citizens navigate norms of inclusion and exclusion. Liebelt’s ethnographic research on Turkish women’s everyday beauty practices explores the political and religious shifts in national governance, moving from secular to Islamic discourses and policies, resulting in ‘more pious forms of hegemonic femininity in Turkey’ (2016). Liebelt demonstrates that the evolving political and cultural landscape in Istanbul has disrupted the hegemony of secular and modern urban feminine norms.

The articles in this special issue use methodologies that integrate aesthetic citizenship as integral to critical citizenship studies, suggesting that citizenship is an embodied and relational process characterised by action, negotiation, and change. This relational process brings into being different categories of difference (like disability, age, gender, sexuality, race, modern and traditional) that determine eligibility for citizenship based on norms and standards that are themselves contingent and situated. This frame reconceptualises the body as a dynamic site where personal and societal negotiations, reformations, and encounters occur, challenging traditional binaries and emphasizing the body’s role as a threshold that resists simplistic categorization in dominant symbolic schemas.

Using ethnographic, archival, and media research, these articles provide a framework for analysing aesthetic citizenship across three continents, Africa (Cameroon and Rwanda), Asia (Uzbekistan and Nepal), and North America in the negotiation of urban and rural labour migration, new ideologies of gender and the family, and mass-mediated affective communities. This rich collection therefore represents a substantial contribution to citizenship studies of body, beauty, affect, and state power. In densely layered ethnographies scholars discuss the role of dress codes for men and sartorial choices, sex work and beauty labour, state health policies, national parades, and feminine beauty and grooming rituals about citizenship. These articles emphasise both material – involving the consumption of beauty products or fashion or health practices – and non-material – affective communities and the embodiment of aesthetic ideals – aspects, thus challenging traditional views of the body and representing bodily experiences as locally situated to examine broader social implications of cultural embodied practices.

In what follows I provide a brief outline of feminist challenges to the universal disembodied subject that the aesthetic citizenship frame contributes to in the evolution of feminist citizenship by traversing the gender binary and going beyond citizenship as simply a formal legal status for the disembodied and universal subject. Secondly, I add to the editors’ (Kukuczka and Liebelt, this volume) discussion of the aesthetic citizenship frame by underscoring the importance of the concepts of aesthetic labour, affective citizenship, and intimate publics in the ordinary and exceptional nation-making beauty and body practices. Furthermore, I examine the role of aesthetic labour and neoliberal governmentality shaping the frame of aesthetic citizenship illuminated in these scholars’ research and apply these concepts to my research on national beauty pageants. Finally, I propose that necropolitics is embedded in the aesthetic citizenship frame by using examples from this special issue. I show how marginal and non-citizen groups negotiate access to embodied aesthetics and affective solidarities to navigate life and dignity even as they defy social death and evade death worlds.

Context: from disembodied citizen to affective and somatic belonging

Feminist scholars challenged the Cartesian frame of mind and body dualism embedded in the liberal ideals of a disembodied, rational citizen which accorded women a second-class citizenship status. Sylvia Walby (1994) posed a critique of previous citizenship scholarship and challenged the limitation of masculinist understanding of citizenship (Marshall, 1950) which focused on ‘labour’ and ‘white adult males’ but neglected ‘the structuring principles of gender’. Along these lines, Ruth Lister (1997) also critiqued conceptualizations and the ensuing practices of citizenship based on two gender constructs central to understanding women’s exclusion from full citizenship, first, the mind-body dualism inherent in masculinist philosophy and political theory, and second, the notion of the abstract disembodied individual, an assumption of the human norm as male, which structures the public-private divide and exacerbates gendered divisions of labour. Furthermore, feminist analyses of media institutions and practices also problematised the mind-body dualism and argued for embodied practices that transcend the binary of materiality and representation, viewing the body not as a mere object and or a subject but as an event that molds bodies in everyday practices (Budgeon,2003).

Feminist scholars have thus expanded the concept of citizenship by exploring how bodies serve as the interface, material, and object of citizenship practices, rights, and claims by critiquing the traditional liberal model of the articulate political subject, typically envisioned as a productive, able-bodied worker, father, or soldier, highlighting its exclusionary nature. Furthermore, they also explore alternative forms of citizenship by addressing the aspects of citizenship that remain invisible, silenced, or excluded. Drawing from developments in the feminist understanding of citizenship, aesthetic citizenship is conceptualised as a relational frame that also borrows from Annemarie Mol’s ideas of ‘the body multiple’ (2002) which posits that objects like diseases are differently enacted across various medical practices that rely on relational aspects of bodies. Mol rejects static methods in favour of understanding how objects and identities are continuously produced and altered in practice. Netz et al. (2019) use this idea to explore how bodies and citizenship are enacted in various practices and constellations. From such a perspective, this special issue indicates further, citizenship entails much more than just legal, political, and social rights and access to institutional resources.

Drawing on Mbembe’s (2003) concept of necropolitics, I argue that aesthetic citizenship is a frame that can address the negotiation of citizenship of the silenced, invisible, and excluded by integrating an analysis of ‘necropower’. By doing so, I rely on Ileana I. Diaz’s (2021) discussion of ‘necropolitical citizenship’. She also uses the term ‘malignant citizenship’ as a framework for understanding the colonial, racial, and violent aspects of the citizenship experiences of Puerto Ricans because, she argues, the limited legal citizenship rights granted are a ruse to ‘ … extend the borders of the United States, exert ownership over spaces and hold power over othered populations’ (Diaz 2021, 335). Diaz uses these two concepts to show how this form of colonial relationship puts Puerto Ricans closer to death and that it is their citizenship that facilitates this subjugation. She argues that while citizenship itself does not directly kill Puerto Ricans, the status conferred upon them is part of a colonial inequality matrix that shapes their living conditions, experiences, and opportunities, bringing them closer to death. This is based on the view that Puerto Ricans are racially inferior and undeserving of full citizenship rights. Thus, theorizing citizenship involves examining who grants citizenship, the different forms it takes, and how these variations affect individuals’ life conditions, highlighting that citizenship is more complex than merely being or not being a citizen. Thus, citizenship puts subjects at risk of state surveillance and necropower because of their history and because of their marked and visible embodied differences.

The aesthetic citizenship frame used by scholars in this issue draws from multidisciplinary feminist knowledge production and adds to the dismantling of the patriarchal and racial logic of the gender and racial binary by challenging the separation of economy from embodied aesthetic and affective notions of self-making (see Kukuczka; Lensu, this volume). It combines an understanding of the economics of aesthetic and affective citizenship and provides a nuanced analysis of how social structures and norms are reproduced. It challenges the gender binary separating economic production and social reproduction and the segregated spheres of private and public (home/outside) domains integral to traditional citizenship studies. Aesthetic citizenship analysis reveals body/beauty work or labour (Gimlin 2002, 6) for those gendered female and, to a lesser extent, male, to enhance their physical appearance, often through various forms of grooming, styling, and cosmetic procedures (Kukuczka; Zhao; Lensu, this volume). The concept emphasises the time, energy, and resources people invest in conforming to societal standards of attractiveness.

The aesthetic citizenship frame also integrates the idea of somatic belonging which can highlight how individuals and groups experience a sense of belonging through bodily practices and the embodiment of cultural, social, and political norms. Embodied cultural practices such as dance, dress, or dietary habits contribute to a sense of belonging by reinforcing connections to cultural or community traditions. It emphasises the role of the body as central to the formation of identity and community affiliation and this is particularly relevant in discussions about race, gender, disability, and other identity categories where the physical body is a crucial site of social and political negotiation.

Beauty as work: aesthetic labour at home and beyond

In their introduction, the editors (Kukuczka and Liebelt, this volume) illuminate different forms of inequalities that are connected to bodywork or ‘aesthetic labour’ that subaltern subjects are required to engage in.

Elias et al. (2017, 35) highlight the importance of body and aesthetic labour in management of appearance and explain that appearance management requires ‘attentiveness to the skin, hair, make-up, fashion, voice, body language, friendliness, managing emotions, dealing with conflict, and so on’. Anne Kukuczka’s ethnographic research (this volume) is an example of such beauty requirements in Nepal’s aviation industry where young unmarried Nepali women undergo professional training to become air hostesses. Kukuczka provides a rich description of the aesthetic labour of daily interactions and training practices of beauty socialization that is multisensorial as well as emotional and includes surveillance and policing of others. Elias et al. (2017) also point to the importance of beauty surveillance (of self and others) to perform ‘aesthetic entrepreneurship’ which connects beauty politics and neoliberalism. Kukuczka offers a nuanced view of how aesthetic norms are both taught and contested within the specific cultural milieu and economic aspirations of Nepali society. This includes adopting specific grooming habits and bodily presentations that align with national and transnational standards of femininity, class (rural to urban mobility and caste hierarchy), religion (a specific form of Nepali Hindu caste system), and professionalism. The training not only prepares women for employment in the aviation industry but also serves as a pathway to urban modernity, potentially leading to opportunities for international migration and better economic prospects. Here, aesthetic labour is instrumental and directly linked to job market demands, with young women viewing the aesthetic norms of the aviation industry as tools for economic and social mobility within and potentially beyond Nepal.

It is useful to compare the construction of femininity in the Nepali aviation industry to Ewa Majczak’s research (this volume) in Cameroon with young women participating in national parades who also ‘do’ a form of aesthetic labour that accumulates cultural capital but doesn’t directly lead to economic benefits. These women’s aesthetic labour involves dressing up in glamorous outfits and performing choreographed dances during national parades to signify the nation as modern. These acts are not just about looking good but are imbued with historical and cultural significance, linked to national identity and the legacy of independence of a postcolonial nation-state. Both these scholars illuminate how aesthetic citizenship is not merely about the superficial aspects of appearance but involves deeper engagements with issues of identity, belonging, and socio-political status. For women in these two case studies, bodywork, or aesthetic labour and internalised disciplinary techniques create their feminine and class identity in relation to history and national context. These subjects maintain their position as well as re-invent themselves through beauty labour.

Zhao Yang’s research (this volume) allows us to understand that aesthetic labour is also a requirement for hegemonic masculinity. Zhao examines the sartorial practices of rural-to-urban migrant men in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, within a nationalist and heteronormative political climate. This research illuminates the importance of the political environment in shaping embodied aesthetics reflecting a broader global rise of conservative and religious nationalism. The working-class interlocutors grapple with gender anxieties in public spaces, educational institutions, and among their peers, which perpetuate a hegemonic ideal of ‘proper’ Uzbek masculinity. Due to policing and surveillance of both implicit and explicit dress codes, they develop a preference for muted colours that aligns with heteronormative norms. Men who choose more colourful clothing risked social exclusion due to its association with ‘foreign’ gender ideologies, particularly in a society where same-sex sexual activities are illegal. Zhao explains that dress and fashion are often culturally coded as feminine and associated with women and gay men, which can lead to a heightened sense of scrutiny and surveillance for men who deviate from traditional masculine norms. This is particularly significant for working-class migrants, who might avoid colourful and fashionable clothing to prevent being perceived as insufficiently masculine or possibly gay, thereby managing their marginal status.

In these case studies we get a glimpse of how the postcolonial nation-states (Nepal, Cameroon, Uzbekistan) institute regulatory mechanisms based on discourses of ‘good versus bad citizen’ actively drawing on binaries such as Western/Asian, tradition/modern, and nation/foreign to enforce neotraditional gender laws, thereby policing marginalised subjects and maintaining control. By framing ‘Western’ influence as a threat to cultural authenticity and moral integrity, these states justify restrictive gender norms and laws that preserve traditional roles. This policing is achieved through legal frameworks, educational systems, media propaganda, public surveillance, cultural revival programs, and religious institutions. These mechanisms reinforce heteropatriarchal structures, marginalise non-conforming individuals, and ultimately use gender laws to define national identity and control populations. In the next section, I examine how beauty and feminism (as empowered neoliberal feminism) is appropriated by the US nation-state to constitute citizens as consumers in its imperial politics.

Affective citizenship, statecraft, biopower and nation-making

With beauty thus recruited to go to war, I am concerned with the biopower of beauty in the geopolitical contexts of neoliberalism and human rights discourses at the turn of the millennium … That is, I ask how hearts and minds are recruited through the appeal to beauty and how not only the state but also feminist invocations of women’s rights as human rights are made meaningful through such an appeal and all that it is imagined to promise. (Nguyen, 2011, 361)

Mimi Thi Nguyen’s quote above reveals the power of beauty in the governance of populations and its use in affective and civilizational discourse to justify neocolonial wars. She shows us how beauty is deployed in the services of American imperialism in the war in Afghanistan and illuminates how feminism can be used as a ‘civilizing’ discourse when combined with a humanitarian ethos of ‘saving’ Afghani women (also called white saviour narrative conveyed in Hollywood colonial adventure genre). She analyses the narratives of a non-profit organization called ‘Beauty Without Borders’, which opened a beauty school in Kabul. This organization uses feminist discourses of rescuing ‘burqa-clad’ Afghan women by ‘educating’ them about beauty techniques to modernise and liberate them from their ‘backward’ Muslim culture. Nguyen examines liberal, neoliberal, and imperial statecraft and her analysis illustrates how (gendered and racialised) citizenship is constituted by neocolonial imperial nations using the biopower of beauty. Her analysis reveals that liberal humanitarianism often conceals civilizational discourses by using beauty as a tool to justify violence. She highlights the foreignness and hypervisibility of the burqa, which is seen by Western subjects as symbolizing anti-civilizational and life-negating deindividuation, portraying Afghan women as passive and incomplete. Her critique provides a contrast to the state deployment of beauty as a site of life-affirming path to modernity and liberation. This dichotomy reflects a civilizational schema that equates modern femininity with beauty, suggesting that embracing beauty leads to a liberated personhood, thus masking underlying civilizational and colonial biases.

Other beauty studies scholars (Jarrín 2017, Liebelt et al. 2018) have also engaged with Michel Foucault’s (2010) biopolitical power in understanding how bodies are shaped by state and discursive power. The concept of biopolitics is used by many scholars to understand the management of life processes by institutions and governments and it is pertinent in understanding surveillance and beauty policing integral to contemporary consumer culture. For example, Jarrín (2017) illuminates the domestic politics of race and health in Brazil and instigates us to understand beauty as a form of biopower that constructs national boundaries and citizenship based on partial inclusion and exclusion.

Taking the Miss America beauty pageant as an example (Jha 2016), I also explored the biopower of beauty and the complicated ways in which beauty norms create feminine identity. I argued that beauty is a source of governmentality and functions as a symbolic marker of civilizational – both cultural and moral – superiority in a hierarchy of racialised difference assigning goodness, godliness, intelligence, competence, success, and femininity to whiteness. Drawing on Nicolas Rose’s (1992) idea of neoliberal governmentality, I argued that women’s bodies represent a symbolic space of changing nationalist and multicultural meanings that produce an exceptional neoliberal femininity. Rose understands neoliberalism as a new mode of statecraft in which market rationales are embodied by self-regulating, self-governing subjects. I argued that while beauty is an embodied social privilege for some, for others it remains a site of inequality, oppression, suffering, and disadvantage. The concepts of neoliberal governmentality and biopolitics help theorise the dominant mode of subject formation. Recent feminist research highlights that women, especially young women, are increasingly seen as ideal neoliberal subjects. Scholars like Elias, Gill and Scharff (2017), and McRobbie (2009) argue that young women are ideal neoliberal subjects, embodying neoliberal femininity. McRobbie highlights the global beauty and media industry’s appropriation of feminism, benefiting primarily young, middle-class white women with reproductive rights and access to education and labour markets, reflecting second-wave feminism’s successes. Furthermore, Christina Scharff’s (2012) research revealed that her UK and German participants viewed their feminist agency as self-managing entrepreneurs in contrast to the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’, reinforcing class and racial exclusions and civilizational superiority discourses. This underscores the biopower of beauty, demonstrating how Western-empowered femininity is built on exclusionary practices.

As noted by the editors of this special issue (Kukuczka and Liebelt, this volume), Lauren Berlant’s concept of ‘intimate publics’ (1997) is useful in understanding embodied aesthetics and somatic belonging, also because it describes the shared emotional experiences and narratives that create a sense of community and belonging among groups of people who might otherwise feel marginalised or disconnected from mainstream society. Berlant suggests that these publics coalesce around common emotional investments and desires – for example, a shared sense of loss, hope, or anxiety. Popular culture as a site of interpretive communities creates belonging for marginal and non-citizens. Beauty pageants, therefore, act as platforms for teaching and reinforcing societal expectations about gender body norms and shared inadequacies. Similar to my analysis of national beauty pageants where neoliberal and postfeminist sensibility is displayed, Ewa Majczak (this volume) finds that her research participants also perform this sensibility. Majczak’s ethnographic research in Yaoundé, Cameroon, focuses on feminine beautification practices as civic rituals in national parades which become a way for young women to access class mobility through a performance of glamour. Majczak deploys Sara Ahmed and Laurent Berlant’s ideas of affect in conceptualizing aesthetic citizenship to understand feminine practices of beautification and glamour in a national parade which can evoke powerful emotions of loyalty and pride. She discusses the formation of a common aesthetic of glamour that is mobilised as affective solidarity to create an intimate public. She uses Ahmed’s (2004) ideas to show how glamour as an aesthetic practice can be used to forge affective connections with the state, transforming public events into opportunities for personal and collective expression of citizenship.

Indeed, Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘affective economies’ (2004, 117–139) provides a framework for understanding the intricate ways in which affect contributes to somatic belonging and social cohesion as well as polarization and division, highlighting the role of emotions in embodied politics and everyday cultural interactions as exemplified in Majczak’s research. Additionally, Anne Kukuczka’s contribution (this volume) also illustrates beauty as an economic investment and highlights the affective hope for a better future. Affects can thus be seen as driving forces behind national beauty pageants as sites of economic regeneration and identity processes. So, emotions are not simply individual feelings but circulate between bodies and signs, contributing to the creation and solidification of social and political bonds and group identities. Furthermore, emotions attach themselves to objects or signs, such as beautiful and stigmatised bodies, clothes, or events, which then take on new meanings and values as they circulate within a community or society.

Necropolitics: from affective economies of fear to aesthetic citizenship of the subaltern

Achille Mbembe (2003), a Cameroonian postcolonial philosopher, develops the concept of ‘necropolitics’ to understand how bodies of non-citizens negotiate state power. Mbembe explains that necropolitics refers to how power conditions the possibility of social death for certain populations, particularly within the context of colonial occupation and modern forms of governance. Social death refers to the condition of people who are not considered fully human by dominant societal standards, leading to their marginalization and exclusion from social, political, and economic life. His theory is a critique as well as a development of Michel Foucault’s (2010) theories of biopower and biopolitics. Mbembe argues that state power in terms of sovereignty in contemporary, especially postcolonial, and neocolonial contexts is less about promoting life (biopower) and more about facilitating death (necropower). This form of power leads to the production of not only disciplined citizens but also disposable and socially dead noncitizens. Therefore, necropower is a critical aspect of understanding the dynamics of aesthetic citizenship and somatic belonging because it highlights the severe consequences of exclusion based on body politics.

Furthermore, Sara Ahmed’s (2003, 2004) theory of affect and its negative aspects are useful in understanding necropower, which is often directed toward ‘others’ (such as immigrants or racial minorities) to delineate boundaries and create collective identities. She discusses how the negative affects of fear and hate can stick to bodies, turning them into symbols of threat (Yang; Kukuczka; Lensu, this volume), which reveals the importance of affect and visibility in beauty’s biopower, i.e. in constituting racialised, classed, and sexualised subjects by the nation-state. Ahmed (2003, 379) discusses the politics of fear in the making of worlds and the reproduction of social norms, showing how fear sticks to some bodies and not others. She also explains how the circulation of fear, e.g. in state and media moral panics, shapes public perception and policy in ways that further entrenches exclusion and disempowers subaltern groups. Thus, Ahmed’s theory of fear points to a similar life/death nexus as Achille Mbembe’s concept of ‘necropolitics’, namely by examining how power operates through the regulation and control of life and death, particularly concerning marginalised populations. Both argue that fear is a mechanism of control and for Ahmed, fear is a tool used to shape social worlds and maintain boundaries between different groups. It creates a sense of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, justifying exclusion and marginalization, whereas, for Mbembe, necropolitics involves the power to dictate who may live and who must die. This form of sovereignty is exercised through mechanisms that expose certain populations to death or extreme violence.

Drawing on these scholars I argue that necropower is a critical aspect of understanding the dynamics of aesthetic citizenship and somatic and affective belonging because it highlights the severe consequences of exclusion based on body politics. I propose that it can be a powerful lens adding another layer to the aesthetic citizenship frame to examine the depth of social control over bodies and their disposability. It underscores the reality that non-conformity to aesthetic and bodily norms is not just a matter of social exclusion but can also involve significant violence (real and symbolic) to the noncitizen body.

We can see that necropower intersects with aesthetic citizenship in the regulation of bodies in Suvi Lensu’s research in post-genocide Rwanda (this volume). Lensu focuses on how state policies affect sex workers, who are female, queer, and trans individuals. To forge a new African modernity and national harmony, the Rwandan government implemented policies such as taxing European second-hand clothing and banning harmful skin-bleaching products. These measures disproportionately impact those in lower socio-economic strata whose livelihoods rely on aesthetic labour. Lensu highlights how these sex workers use European fashion and skin-whitening products not just for personal style but as essential tools for mobility and work across national borders. This consumption is pivotal for them to maintain a cosmopolitan identity and navigate public spaces. In Lensu’s research, the spaces that the sex workers inhabit are a site of necropolitics because their bodies are regulated by the disciplinary power of civic and public rules of dressing, and border surveillance by the immigration and police. The negotiation of necropolitics is subverted by sex workers who cross geographical and national boundaries to access ‘foreign’ products to gain aesthetic capital so that they can access employability.

We can also see the operations of necropower in the hypervisibility and racial fetishism of black bodies in Meredith Jones’ analysis of the Kardashian phenomenon (this volume). The fetishization of black women and their association with hypersexuality are prevalent in the ‘black hypervisibility’ that the Kardashians utilise by exploiting a black aesthetic to create profit. A major point of discussion is the ‘Brazilian butt lift’ (BBL), used as an example by Jones to illustrate how the Kardashians have embraced and commodified racialised aesthetic to boost their visibility and marketability. Visibility in terms of aesthetic citizenship can be a double-edged sword. While visibility can lead to acceptance and inclusion for some – for example, Beyonce’s impact on North American and global popular culture – it can also result in increased vulnerability for others, such as young black girls with darker skin negotiating colourism (Jha 2016). In trying to understand the commodification of black bodies, Jones invokes Laurent Berlant (1993) and David Russell’s (2004) critique of a disembodied subject, emphasizing how norms of privilege often require a universalizing logic of disembodiment. In this framework, certain bodies, typically white, able-bodied, cis-male, middle-class, and educated, are seen as neutral, enjoying citizenship by default. The ‘different’ bodies, such as feminine, queer, disabled, poor, Black, brown, or foreign, are deemed highly visible and symbolically have lower citizenship status due to their perceived excess embodiment. Jones borrows from Russell’s concept of ‘surplus embodiment’, where bodies become excessively visible and thus marginalised in terms of citizenship explaining that bodies coded as ‘low’, embodied, or subcultural experience citizenship differently, often facing a lack of control over their corporeal sensations of nationality. By creating spectacle and drama by embracing surplus citizenship, the Kardashians redefine beauty norms on a global scale, albeit at the expense of cultural appropriation, particularly through ‘blackfishing’. This phenomenon, where black aesthetics are commodified on the bodies of white women, reinforces problematic notions about race and citizenship (Diaz 2021).

The operation of necropower is also at work in Maxine Leeds Craig’s research (this volume). Drawing on the conceptual frame of aesthetic citizenship, she explores the history of the state-regulated health policies in the field of orthodontics where the straightening of irregular teeth became a routine part of early adolescence and the irregular smile was stigmatised, signifying poverty, lack of knowledge and parental neglect. The article highlights how neoliberal policies, emphasizing personal responsibility for health, have shaped the U.S. dental care system into a profit-driven model, making orthodontic treatments less accessible for lower-income individuals. This has perpetuated a social divide, where irregular teeth not only signify economic disadvantage but also affect one’s sense of belonging and social mobility. Necropower intersects here as can be seen in the extreme regulation or devaluation of lives that do not conform to these norms. For instance, individuals who cannot or choose not to conform to societal aesthetic standards of the ‘perfect smile’ may face systemic neglect, discrimination, or worse in their access to health, employment, and social recognition. A perfect smile in North America symbolises both economic status and aesthetic normativity. Beauty norms of ‘perfect Hollywood teeth’ create discrimination and exclusion for interlocutors who are from working-class backgrounds and who failed or chose not to modify their ‘crooked’ teeth. Thus, Craig’s research sheds light on how dental aesthetics intersect with economic and social factors, shaping notions of belonging and exclusion that are deeply connected to broader cultural values and neoliberal ideologies of privatised profit-generating healthcare that prioritise individual responsibility over collective welfare.

Conclusion

To sum up I have integrated necropower as well as biopower in the frame of aesthetic citizenship to add another layer to the analyses of the experiences of research participants as conveyed by the scholars in this special issue. This rich collection represents a substantial contribution to citizenship studies of body, beauty, aesthetic labour, affect, and state’s bio- and necropower.

The framework of ‘aesthetic citizenship’ unlocks a rigorous analysis of state power as well as intimate publics and somatic belonging of embodied subjects who engage in aesthetic labour of self-transformation. Their acts of modifying bodies are seen as efforts to gain recognition, rights, social mobility, and economic participation, transcending legal status. Additionally, this issue shows that citizens may creatively resist and challenge state and neoliberal governance through their aesthetic labour revealing the body’s relationality and beauty’s affective potential even as other subjects defy aesthetic surveillance and death worlds.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).