• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.167-200
• /
• 2019

In recent years, the material has mattered to the humanities and social sciences in the West and feminism is no exception. It is a notable change that feminist analyses, which had previously shown critiques against science and technology, attempted to build new engagements with matter. STS (science and technology studies) has also accumulated scholarships and developed conceptual tools on the thing or the existence itself through "the ontological turn." The objective of this paper is not to introduce new materialism or new material feminism in full, but to reveal the possibility and potential of doing science, technology and women studies by selectively relying on the achievement of new materialism feminism. This article shows a way to study women's practice of science and technology by analyzing the case of plastic surgery practices through the ontological concepts of STS, particularly those of Annemarie Mol, Karen Barad, and Charis Thompson, and proposes a new engagement among new materialism, feminism, and STS. This article is organized as follows. First of all, after briefly discussing main issues in new material feminism, I will show the limitations of previous feminist studies of plastic surgery under the light of new material feminism. The rest of the article introduces the conceptual tools of ontological STS, describes plastic surgery practices with those tools, and finally provides their feminist implications.