This PhD project sets to study how beauty is shaped in the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Firstly, through a general but situated mapping of beauty evaluation and its implications in social inequality. In addition, regarding different sub-groups of cultural elites such as political elites, football elites, and an ethnography over the exclusive neighbourhood of Puerto Madero.

The history of Buenos Aires displays a constant tension over the definition of its own character and that of its inhabitants. Said tension has been accumulated and transferred onto social practices still ongoing, visible within the realm of beauty. Therein, distinction processes are performed, and symbolic boundaries are drawn in relation to beauty standards (re)producing social (dis)advantages.

Through a study of beauty through the cultural elites in Buenos Aires, PhD researcher Carolina Rabasa Rucki  aims to contribute to a comparative international study of the topic, offering a situated answer to how beauty and inequality are related, and what are the mechanisms in place at a macro, meso and micro level to (re)produce ongoing and new boundaries in social sorting, classification and exclusion.