Marking the body identity and identification in contemporary body modification
Marking the body identity and identification in contemporary body modification
This thesis examines contemporary tattooing and body piercing from a sociological perspective. Drawing on data from a number of sources, including interviews with a variety of contemporary body modifiers, it attempts to account for, and assess the significance of, the current popularity of the practices in question.
Having outlined the objectives, scope and methodological rationale of the study in the opening chapter, the thesis moves on in Chapter 2 to consider the history of the practices under scrutiny. Chapter 3 then reviews the existing literature, looking first at the large body of work that has approached the topic from a psychiatric and/or criminological perspective, and the difficulties associated with this literature when viewed from a sociological perspective. The chapter then proceeds to examine the small but growing corpus of sociologically-oriented literature in the field. It is noted that these studies have failed to adequately engage with recent theoretical work in the sociology of the body, much of which is relevant to the practices in question, and in Chapter 4 the thesis addresses this more theoretical body of work.
Building on this theoretical framework, the following three substantive chapters look respectively at: the extent to which contemporary tattooing and piercing should be dismissed as a fashionable trend or can be seen as a manifestation of an increasingly tight relationship between the body and identity; the extent to which such practices might be viewed as resistant, subversive and transgressive of hegemonic forms of embodiment, thereby differing from other, more mainstream, body projects; and the influence of Modern Primitivism on UK body modification and the extent to which the current popularity of tattooing and piercing reflects a resurgent sensuality and/or the emergence of neo-tribal or sensual solidarities.
University of Southampton
1999
Sweetman, Paul Jon
(1999)
Marking the body identity and identification in contemporary body modification.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
This thesis examines contemporary tattooing and body piercing from a sociological perspective. Drawing on data from a number of sources, including interviews with a variety of contemporary body modifiers, it attempts to account for, and assess the significance of, the current popularity of the practices in question.
Having outlined the objectives, scope and methodological rationale of the study in the opening chapter, the thesis moves on in Chapter 2 to consider the history of the practices under scrutiny. Chapter 3 then reviews the existing literature, looking first at the large body of work that has approached the topic from a psychiatric and/or criminological perspective, and the difficulties associated with this literature when viewed from a sociological perspective. The chapter then proceeds to examine the small but growing corpus of sociologically-oriented literature in the field. It is noted that these studies have failed to adequately engage with recent theoretical work in the sociology of the body, much of which is relevant to the practices in question, and in Chapter 4 the thesis addresses this more theoretical body of work.
Building on this theoretical framework, the following three substantive chapters look respectively at: the extent to which contemporary tattooing and piercing should be dismissed as a fashionable trend or can be seen as a manifestation of an increasingly tight relationship between the body and identity; the extent to which such practices might be viewed as resistant, subversive and transgressive of hegemonic forms of embodiment, thereby differing from other, more mainstream, body projects; and the influence of Modern Primitivism on UK body modification and the extent to which the current popularity of tattooing and piercing reflects a resurgent sensuality and/or the emergence of neo-tribal or sensual solidarities.
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Published date: 1999
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Local EPrints ID: 463895
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/463895
PURE UUID: 763f5a57-64ac-4cac-af53-70fe40656e82
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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 20:58
Last modified: 04 Jul 2022 20:58
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Author:
Paul Jon Sweetman
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