Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Marked Bodies, Oppositional Identities? Tattooing, Piercing and the Ambiguity of Resistance

  • Chapter
Practising Identities

Abstract

The last twenty to thirty years have seen a considerable resurgence in the popularity of tattooing and body piercing in the West, with tattooing, for instance, undergoing what some have called a renaissance (Tucker, 1981; Rubin, 1988; Sanders, 1989; Curry, 1993). This refers not only to the development of new designs and techniques, but also to tattooing’s growing popularity amongst an increasingly diverse clientele. Although they may still form a large proportion of many professional tattooists’ clients, the stereotypical image of the tattooee as young, male and working class is increasingly outdated as more and more men and women, of various age-groups and socio-economic backgrounds, choose to enter the tattoo studio (Rubin, 1988; Sanders, 1989; Curry, 1993; Blanchard, 1994; DeMello, 1995).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Balsamo, A. (1995) ‘Forms of Technological Embodiment: Reading the Body in Contemporary Culture’, Body and Society,1(3–4): 215–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartky, S. L. (1988) ‘Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power’, in I. Diamond and L. Quinby (eds), Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance (Boston: Northeastern University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bellos, A. (1996) ‘As British as S&M’, Guardian,6 November.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanchard, M. (1994) ‘Post-Bourgeois Tattoo: Reflections on Skin Writing in Late Capitalist Societies’, in Lucien Taylor (ed.), Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from V.A.R., 1990–1994 (New York and London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogdan, R. (1988) Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bordo, S. (1992) ‘Postmodern Subjects Postmodern Bodies’, Feminist Studies,18(1), pp. 159–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brain, R. (1979) The Decorated Body (London: Hutchinson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (1994) ‘Gender as Performance: an Interview with Judith Butler’, Radical Philosophy,67, pp. 32–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S. and Taylor, L. (1992) Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday Life,2nd edn (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Craik, J. (1994) The Face of Fashion: Cultural Studies in Fashion (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Curry, D. (1993) ‘Decorating the Body Politic’, New Formations,19, pp. 69–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalrymple, T. (1995) ‘The Way of All Criminal Flesh’, Sunday Times,6 August.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, K. (1995) Reshaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery (New York and London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Dery, M. (1996) Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (London: Hodder and Soughton).

    Google Scholar 

  • DeMello, M. (1995) ‘The Carnivalesque Body: Women and Tattoos’, in The Drawing Center, Pierced Hearts and True Love: A Century of Drawings for Tattoos (New York/Honolulu: The Drawing Center/Hardy Marks Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (1984 [1966]) Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Emberly, J. (1987) ‘The Fashion Apparatus and the Deconstruction of Postmodern Subjectivity’, in A. Kroker and M. Kroker (eds), Body Invaders: Panic Sex in America (New York: St Martin’s Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Eubanks, V. (1996) ‘Zones of Dither: Writing the Postmodern Body’, Body and Society,2(3), pp. 73–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewen, S. (1988) All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (US: Basic Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Falk, P. (1995) ‘Written in the Flesh’, Body and Society,1(1), pp. 95–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Featherstone, M. (1991) ‘The Body in Consumer Culture’, in M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B. Turner (eds), The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory (London: Sage).

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrell, J. (1993) Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality (New York and London: Garland Publishing).

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1980a) ‘Body/Power’, in C. Gordon (ed.), Michel Foucault: Power/Knowledge—Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (Brighton: Harvester Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1980b) ‘Two Lectures’, in C. Gordon (ed.), Michel Foucault: Power/Knowledge—Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (Brighton: Harvester Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1981) The History of Sexuality,vol. I: An Introduction (London: Penguin).

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1988) ‘Sexual Choice, Sexual Act: Foucault and Homosexuality’ (interview), in L. Kritzman (ed.), Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture—Interviews and Other Writings, 1977–1984 (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallina, R. (1989) ‘Raelyn Gallina’ (interview by A. Juno), in V. Vale and A. Juno (eds), Re/Search no. 12: Modern Primitives—An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gamman, L. and Makinen, M. (1994) Female Fetishism: A New Look (London: Lawrence and Wishart).

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Cambridge: Polity Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottschalk, S. (1993) ‘Uncomfortably Numb: Countercultural Impulses in the Postmodern Era’, Symbolic Interaction,16(4), pp. 351–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Govenar, A. (1988) ‘The Variable Context of Chicano Tattooing’, in A. Rubin (ed.), Marks of Civilization: Artistic Transformations of the Human Body (Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History/University of California, LA).

    Google Scholar 

  • Grosz, E. (1990) ‘Inscriptions and Body-maps: Representations and the Corporeal’, in T. Threadgold and A. Cranny-Francis (eds), Feminine, Masculine and Representation (Sydney: Allen & Unwin).

    Google Scholar 

  • Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Towards a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Guest, H. (1992) ‘Curiously Marked: Tattooing, Masculinity, and Nationality in Eighteenth-Century British Perceptions of the South Pacific’, in J. Barrell (ed.), Painting and the Politics of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardy, D. (1989) ‘Don Ed Hardy’ (interview by A. Juno and V. Vale), in V. Vale and A. Juno (eds), Re/Search no. 12: Modern Primitives—An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hebdige, D. (1988) Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things (London: Routledge).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Klesse, C. (1997) ‘The Representation of Primitivism in a Specialised Sexual Subculture’, unpublished paper presented at ‘Body Modification’, at TCS conference, Nottingham Trent University, June 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levi Strauss, D. (1989) ‘Modern Primitives’, in V. Vale and A. Juno (eds), Re/Search no. 12: Modern Primitives—An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, M. (1996) ‘Feminism, Aerobics and the Politics of the Body’, Body & Society,2(2)’ pp. 79–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lombroso, C. (1896) ‘The Savage Origin of Tattooing’, Popular Science Monthly,April, pp. 793–803.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupton, D. (1995) ‘The Embodied Computer/User’, Body & Society,1(3–4), pp. 97–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mansfield, A. and McGinn, B. (1993) ‘Pumping Irony: the Muscular and the Feminine’, in S. Scott and D. Morgan (eds), Body Matters: Essays on the Sociology of the Body (London: Falmer Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mascia-Lees, F. E. and Sharpe, P. (1992a) ‘Introduction: Soft-Tissue Modification and the Horror Within’, in F. E. Mascia-Lees and P. Sharpe (eds), Tattoo, Torture, Mutilation, and Adornment: The Denaturalization of the Body in Culture and Text (New York: State University of New York Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mascia-Lees, F. E. and Sharpe, P. (1992b) ‘The Marked and the Un(re)Marked: Tattoo and Gender in Theory and Narrative’, in F. E. Mascia-Lees and P. Sharpe (eds), Tattoo, Torture, Mutilation, and Adornment: The Denaturalization of the Body in Culture and Text (New York: State University of New York Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mellor, P. and Shilling, C. (1997) Re-forming the Body: Religion, Community and Modernity (London: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Muggleton, D. (1995) ‘From “Subculture” to “Neo-Tribe”: Identity, Paradox and Postmodernism in “Alternative” Style’, unpublished paper presented at ‘Shouts from the Street: Culture, Creativity and Change’ MIPC Conference on Popular Culture, Manchester Metropolitan University, September 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muggleton, D. (1997) ‘Resistance or Difference? Expressive Individualism, Alienation and Subcultural Disengagement’, unpublished paper presented at ‘Power/Resistance’, BSA Annual Conference, University of York, April 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  • Musafar, F. (1989) ‘Fakir Musafar’ (interview by V. Vale and A. Juno), in V. Vale and A. Juno (eds), Re/Search no. 12: Modern Primitives—An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, J. (1992) ‘Nonmainstream Body Modification: Genital Piercing, Branding, Burning, and Cutting’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography,21(3), pp. 267–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pitts, V. (1998) ‘Provoking the Organic: Representations and Resistance in Extreme Body Marking’, unpublished paper presented at ‘Making Sense of the Body’, BSA Annual Conference, University of Edinburgh, April 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polhemus, T. and Proctor, L. (1978) Fashion and Anti-Fashion: An Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment (London: Thames and Hudson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Polhemus, T. (1995) Streetstyle: From Sidewalk to Catwalk (London: Thames and Hudson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, A. (1988) ‘The Tattoo Renaissance’, in A. Rubin (ed.), Marks of Civilization: Artistic Transformations of the Human Body (Los Angeles: Museum of Cultural History/University of California LA).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sanders, C. (1989) Customizing the Body: The Art and Culture of Tattooing (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sawchuk, K. (1987) ‘A Tale of Inscription/Fashion Statements’, in A. Kroker and M. Korker (eds), Body Invaders: Panic Sex in America (New York: St Martin’s Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Seaton, E. (1987) ‘Profaned Bodies and Purloined Looks: The Prisoner’s Tattoo and the Researcher’s Gaze’, Journal of Communications Inquiry,11, pp. 17–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shilling, C. (1993) The Body and Social Theory (London: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon-Miller, F. (1985) ‘Commentary: Signs and Cycles in the Fashion System’, in M. R. Soloman (ed.), The Psychology of Fashion (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Smyth, C. (1995) ‘What Makes a Man?’, Attitude,January, pp. 32–6.

    Google Scholar 

  • St Martin, L. and Gavey, N. (1996) ‘Women’s Bodybuilding: Feminist Resistance and/or Femininity’s Recuperation?’, Body & Society,2(4), pp. 45–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steele, V. (1996) Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweetman, P. (forthcoming: a) ‘Only Skin Deep? Tattooing, Piercing and the Transgressive Body’ in M. Aaron (ed.), The Body’s Perilous Pleasures (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweetman, P. (forthcoming: b) ‘Anchoring the (Postmodern) Self? Body Modification, Fashion and Identity’, Body & Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tseëlon, E. (1995) The Masque of Femininity: The Representation of Woman in Everyday Life (London: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tucker, M. (1981) ‘Tattoo: the State of the Art’, Artforum 19(9), pp. 42–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vale, V. and Juno, A. (1989) Re/Search no. 12: Modern Primitives—An Investigation of Contemporary Adornment and Ritual (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, E. (1990) ‘These New Components of the Spectacle: Fashion and Postmodernism’, in R. Boyne and A. Rattansi (eds), Postmodernism and Society (Basingstoke: Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, R. W. (1995) ‘Cyber(body)parts: Prosthetic Consciousness’, Body & Society,1(3–4): 239–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, M. (1991) An Inside Job: Policing and Police Culture in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Paul Sweetman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, University of Leeds, UK

    Sasha Roseneil (University Principal Research Fellow in Sociology and Director) (University Principal Research Fellow in Sociology and Director)

  2. School of Comparative and Applied Social Sciences, University of Hull, UK

    Julie Seymour (Lecturer in Social Research) (Lecturer in Social Research)

Copyright information

© 1999 British Sociological Association

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Sweetman, P. (1999). Marked Bodies, Oppositional Identities? Tattooing, Piercing and the Ambiguity of Resistance. In: Roseneil, S., Seymour, J. (eds) Practising Identities. Explorations in Sociology. British Sociological Association Conference Volume Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27653-0_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation