Catherine Allerton Lipsticked brides and powdered children: cosmetics and the allure of modernity in an eastern Indonesian village Forthcoming in M. O’Hanlon and E. Ewart (eds) Body arts and modernity In much of the comparative literature on body arts, a general contrast can be noted between anthropological examinations of various forms of ‘tribal’ body decoration, and a more eclectic series of writings, from sociology and cultural studies, on western fashion and cosmetics. Throughout this literature, the argument is repeatedly made that these two phenomena cannot be easily compared, since they may express quite different notions concerning the individual and society, the body and the self, as well as conceptions of gender and sexuality. For example, Turner’s famous work on Kayapo ‘beauty’ as ‘an ideal expression of society itself’ (1980: 135) or arguments that Melanesian body decoration celebrates ‘social and cultural vitality’ (Knauft 1989: 254) can be contrasted with descriptions of how Western women achieve an individual ‘look’ through the use of cosmetics (Rudd 1997: 68) or must ‘put their face on’ in order to signify ‘femininity’ (Craik 1989: 18). More generally, poststructuralist theories of ‘masquerade’ have contrasted western cosmetics, which are required to accurately represent an ‘inner’ self, with tribal body markings that are not necessarily premised on a belief in the unity and integrity of the ego (Negrin 2000: 85-6). In other words, whilst anthropological writings focus on the social aspects of body decoration, sociological work on cosmetics focuses on ideas of individual choice and expression, apparently reflecting the disembedded nature of social relations in western societies. 1