Tattooing the Body

Tattooing the Body, Marking Culture

Jill A. Fisher

Literature on American tattooing appears in varied forms, from the scholarly journals of anthropology, history and sociology to newspaper stand magazines that can be construed as ‘soft’ pornography. What this spectrum of literary forms has in common is a relative marginalization in which American tattooing is perceived as part of a deviant subculture and not a topic of serious intellectual interest. Academics involved in this research have referred to colleagues’ attitudes about research on tattooing as a deviant interest in deviance. In addition, many academics have an agenda of legitimating the practice of tattooing by explicating its social and cultural patterns. Although much of this work is important scholarly investigation, I have found that many authors romanticize the practice of tattooing in ways that often do not correspond with their analyses. This article will, in part, respond to the tensions between analyzing and romanticizing tattooing as cultural practice(s). The purpose of this article is to explore the complex relationship between power and the physical and social practices of tattooing in the late capitalist state. Beginning with the history of tattooing as a cultural practice – from ancient Greece through the colonial period to contemporary USA – I will highlight the temporal and geographical changes in the practices and perceptions of tattooing. My hope is that its history in Western civilization will offer insights into the ways in which tattooing is practiced in the late 20th-century USA. In addition to creating a historical narrative, I will also situate the sociocultural practice of tattooing the body for the tattooist and the ‘tattooee’. This investigation into body inscription will serve as a means to elucidate the contemporary practice of tattooing as one that is simultaneously physical and social, with multiple levels of constructed meaning.

 And finally, I will explore the ways in which tattooing acts
Body & Society © 2002 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 8(4): 91–107 [1357–034X(200212)8:4;91–107;028513] as a cultural signifier in the late 20th-century USA. I will attempt to show how tattooing as a form of body modification can be analyzed as a form of resistance to or a symptom of a culture that has commodified the body.

Tattoos in antiquity

The reasons for which one might tattoo his body are varied. Currently, the most
popular explanation is decoration. The tattoos themselves come in a myriad of different
forms, colors, and subjects. These may range from religious icons to a portrait of a
favorite pet. Since there is a certain bond among those who are tattooed, group
identification may be a major motivation for tattooing. As a testament to this fact, prison
tattoos are widely practiced as a method by which convicts associate themselves publicly
with a gang. Tattoos bind outcasts together, partially because the practice is still regarded
as socially unacceptable.
This same social disapproval was present in Greco-Roman times. Authors such
as Herodotus, Xenophon, and Lysias describe tribes outside their personal social confines
as employing tattoos to their fullest extent, in the form of full-body suits. These authors
always express surprise that tattoos denoted high social status in these other societies.

requirements and criteria for the safety of tattoos and permanent make-up

Resolution ResAP(2008)1
on requirements and criteria for the safety of tattoos and permanent make-up (superseding
Resolution ResAP(2003)2 on tattoos and permanent make-up)
(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 20 February 2008
at the 1018th meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies)
The Committee of Ministers, in its composition restricted to the representatives of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland and the United Kingdom, member states of the Partial Agreement in the Social and Public
Health Field,
Recalling Resolution (59) 23 of 16 November 1959, on the extension of the activities of the Council of
Europe in the social and cultural fields;
Having regard to Resolution (96) 35 of 2 October 1996 revising the above-mentioned partial agreement,
whereby it revised the structures of the Partial Agreement and resolved to continue, on the basis of revised
rules replacing those set out in Resolution (59) 23, the activities hitherto carried out and developed by virtue
of that resolution, these being aimed in particular at: