Body Modification And The Concept Of Creating Agency Or Surrendering It.

Part One: Research Plan People all over the world,in history and even in present day are always after the goal to construct their own personal skin and identity. Depending on cultural rites and customs the way the person may choose to bring themselves into their own sense of identity varies, but one example I have noticed is visible in many different human cultures over many years and shows no signs of stopping, that is the modification of their own body. The Tabula Rasa concept of that when we are born we are blank slates for the world to write upon us is taken almost too literally when people take it upon themselves to place whether it be simple patterns or elaborate images upon their skin or even piercing the skin and adorning the body with jewellery. It is this that I will be looking into more focusing on the why rather than the how. When people modify themselves is it an act of creating a personal agency, is it a rebellious act or is it something more. Why do people do it, some cases it is the normal rebellious thing to get a tattoo or a piercing and some places it is encouraged and even forced upon people. But what is it about modifying the human body that is so captivating? What is it that changes people, does it make them more or less of a person? Or better yet does it make them more of their own person or more of one of the regular persons? The interviews I shall carry out will be a series of short informal ones and I will also choose a tattoo piercing studio as my main ethnographic site. As a person with tattoos myself I am familiar with the area and is not a total outsider to the life of the tattooist and the people that frequent there as a person with no experience in the tattooing chair. To also dive in further I will gain a new tattoo during this project to get into the setting as part of my participant observation and I will relay my reasons for what I got and why.

Part Two: Research Project.

Why do people get tattoos and what are the meanings behind them, are they simply decoration or do they have a deeper meaning to the wearer or not. I will be asking questions such as these to myself during the project. My general approach will be participant observation as well as a collection of interviews and historical research. I will enter myself into my field site that I have chosen, Wizard Tattoo, at this tattoo studio where they also do piercing I will with permission from the owner hang around and experience the world of a tattooist and get an insight into the kind of people that get tattoos and what they get as well as why, also to deeper grasp the understanding of it all I will also get a tattoo myself making myself a participant and an observer to the rituals of getting a tattoo. My plan is to find out the answers to the questions is one based on investigation into the history of body modification, tattoos, piercing and scarring, both cosmetic and as coping mechanisms or addictions, as well as interview people close to the subject, be it people who have suffered from scars inflicted onto them by force, those who choose to get them, those who are pressured into tattoos and those who rebel with them, those who give tattoos and those who willingly accept them and seeking a deeper understanding of the issues. I believe that the use of tattoos in particular as well as other forms of body modification are directly the result of culture and where ever I look I will find a different answer, in some places tattoos are a rebellious act and I other it is quite the opposite, my theoretical approach to this instead of seeing if there is a universal reason for a tattoo or piercing rather to seek a universal reason why marking the body is connected to the concept of self, whether it be to enhance or hinder your sense of self. Although there is many theories as to why, my main thought as to why the body is used so powerfully is because at the root of it all the body is fundamentally the only thing that is truly yours, barring cases of slavery or the concept of religion quoting that your life is not your own, the body is your property it cannot be taken and claimed by anyone else, you cannot lose it and it will be with you for the rest of your life as it was there from your birth. This makes the body the one possession that stands out so strongly as being yours to yourself and to others, so by marking it you are showing more of your inner self on your outer shell (your skin). The pieces of literature that I have consulted are; Inscribing the body, by Enid Schildkrout (2004) and Investigating changing moral boundaries through tattooing, by Nikolas L. Prohel.

Research- Firstly sat down an read through some articles of tattooing and what it meant to certain people. I also had designated a field site, Wizard Tattoo. I visited my field site and firstly walked around the site making notes of the general area. The tattoo studio was neither too spacious nor too cramped it was nicely fit to the 3 Tattooist that worked in the area as well as a waiting space. I made myself known to the tattooists, I had already talked to and arranged the visits with the manager Wizard aka Christopher Dean. At first I had a look through the books that the artists had laid down for prospective tattoo designs. I believed that the book would give an insight in to not only what the tattooist would think would attract people but also what people would look through before they decided on their tattoos. I sat down unobtrusively and watched as other people came into the store to discuss the tattoo`s they wanted to get. It was an interesting experience, one man wanted his children`s names tattooed upon his arm while another youth wanted a winged skull upon his shoulder blade. These different people might have had different reasons for wanting a tattoo but they shared the fact that they wanted to mark it upon their body. Also while I was waiting a group of girls entered where one of them asked on the prices of a tongue piercing. I also took my time to interview a tattooist who he himself had ample body art and piercing done, apart from that I also interviewed a large group of persons on why they had tattoo`s and piercings and if they had scars what they meant. The people I interviewed were of a varying age range, I have attached the transcri pts to the appendices. The information I gained from asking people as well as sitting back and just observing people was abundant and although I was not sure as to how far I was getting towards my conclusion I felt as if I was getting a deeper insight. Upon collecting my first hand data from Participant Observation and Informal Interviews I went to second hand sources for data collection on the practices and customs surrounding tattoos in cross cultural setting. Such results coming from both notes made in class as well as external reading material, yielded information on Prince Jeoly the tattoo`d islander, the scarification practices of rural groups in Africa and the piercing and extreme body modification found in Melanesian cultures.

Findings and Results- My information gathering task yielded many different varied results as to why people modified their bodies in certain ways as well as why other ways of modification was not viewed upon in the same light. The first part of my findings I will touch upon is rebellion, difference or breaking a mould. Of some of the people I talked to and some of the things I predicted I found that people get tattoos to rebel. It is this rebellion bringing themselves into the spotlight that is creating the agency within them. One young man spoke to said he wanted to get a tattoo simple because it would make him stand out, to judge whether that is an acceptable reason or not is to judge too quickly, the point of the matter is this young man admitted he didn`t know what he wanted to get and walked onto his tattoo parlour and looked through the book before deciding on the design he would get. It seems that many people fall into this trap of thinking that tattoo`s make them different as does piercing and therefore set out to get them breaking from the mould, but it is this exact thinking that drops them into the next category of why I have discovered that people get tattoos.

The next category that I discovered that people can fall into is the conformity, conformist ideal. Many people get tattoos and piercings not only in the western world but also among the developing countries as a way of conformity, meaning that while it is not necessary some people still feel the need to get it, to join part of their desired community. One instance that is quite amusing is the people that want to break away from the masses get these modifications to prove that and only end up being part of another group.

The next group is the group of style and beauty. Some people both here in the western world and in Melanesian societies see body modifications as a way add or even enhance beauty. In the west we have things such as plastic surgery which at times could be purely cosmetic or a way to put things right. But things such as breast implants and hair extensions are our version of low meaning modification, because a new pair of breasts can only means a pair of breasts the same with a new nose, what separates them from tattoos and piercings is the possibility of added meaning. Tattoos and piercing have meaning as well as a beauty and style aspect. Some cultures will sharpen their teeth or stretch their lips or earlobes it is a choice for that place and peoples with their own reasoning of beauty behind them.

The category of fashion and trend is one that borrows aspects of both the style and beauty group as well as the conformity group. Styles of tattoos and piercings have become popular in different eras for example on speaking to the Tattooist CJ, he explained to me how the previous style was to get tattoos in tribal patterns and piercing in the nose, he explained that even though now eyebrow and tongue piercings were coming strong nose piercings were still rather common. He explained how now the common tattoo was that of stars, either a single large one or many smaller stars. We conversed and came to a joint agreement on why we thought that people decided to get these particular designs. The beauty aspect of it is that different styles always seem cooler and in fashion at different types causing people who want to stay in the times to jump upon that bandwagon. But then the fact that everyone else has it, they don`t want to seem like the odd one out if they didn`t get one or got something different, but it is the desire for a difference that allows certain variations upon the otherwise simple style. Popular icons endorse certain things upon their own bodies and the followers re-enact it upon themselves, as celebrities tend to adorn themselves with more tattoos than the average person, but it is more limited to singers as tattoos can hinder an actors range. Writing is also becoming popular on the scene, and also getting words in other languages are some of the most trendy and era dominant tattoos.

Another group of people are the ones who want a memento, a reminder of a truth, person or time. For these people the tattoo`s often mean the most, they will either be designed from scratch with aspects of whatever the memento would be, or simply be name, place or date. It is these one which have the widest range between regret and content. Some of them for example a lovers name is common but also the most commonly regretted tattoo, while the name of your children will be one that is often never regretted. Lost loved ones are also a common memento type tattoos. These tattoos are very common and often hold the most feelings behind the motive. Other people will get memento tattoos to remind them of things in their past say an exciting birthday, an amazing holiday or overcoming a great obstacle.

The next grouping of reasons why people get tattoos is identity, although all tattooing and piercing is an act of showing your own identity, some people get them to show that they belong to a category of people or a group of such people. One example is prison tattoos and they can divide into smaller groups such as getting a tattoo to show your crime, sentence and whatever details or one to show who you are affiliated with. In some African cultures the tattoos or scar pattern on your skin is sort of like your passport and identity as to what tribe you come from. People who get tear drop tattoos are to identify themselves with a particular crime, while other people will get tattoos about their country of origin or something significant to tell them apart from the general public and allow you to view them differently. Tattoos have been to used to identify people in negative ways removing agency, like in the case of slaves been marked by their owners, Jews by the Nazis and punishment to show shame.

The last one is one that can develop from any of the others and that is addiction, some people will continue to edit their body for the thrill or the sake of it, body dysmorphic disorder could come as a result or even a cause. Discussion and Conclusion; After looking through these findings, I can come to my own thoughts that body modification is not something that can fall under any one reason as to why they do particular things. As for some people who had practised self-harm who I spoke to, the scars were a symbol of their past of what they had done to themselves and what they should remember the cause behind it. While some people who have been in fights wear scars like trophies. Wearing making up, having a tattoo or any way of changing what your form looks to the outside world be it even wearing certain clothes is a joining of your natural form and your nurtured personality. It is dressing yourself with the ideals from your head. The general idea that your body is you at your base and purest form, and somethings are so close to you or you feel should be close to you for whatever reasons that you must make it apart of your form. Whether it is for conforming ideals or rebellious, cosmetic, mementos or even just a trend the act of changing your body some times semi permanent or in other cases complete permanent is just a way of manifesting your mind, what you think, feel and want to be onto your being.

All around the world the reasons are different for the body modifications, but what is symbolises is the same wherever you go. This is me. This makes the messages and the possibilities linked to this potentially limitless. It does exactly what the wearer wants it to do to their own agency, to help them fit or break a mould or inscribe something they want to remember. I realised came to a similar conclusion as did other researchers in the field.

Further Research As a further research abstract of this, it would be interesting to find out those who have the drive to change themselves but lack the courage to follow through with it and see if there is a certain mental difference between the two groups.