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“On the book of my body”: Women, Power, and “Tattoo Culture”
- Feminist Formations
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 28, Issue 3, Winter 2016
- pp. 174-195
- 10.1353/ff.2016.0048
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This paper offers a feminist perspective, in theory and practice, of “Stories on the Skin: Tattoo Culture at FAU,” a multidisciplinary research and creative project at a South Florida public university. That project has explored and presented tattoos as a shared cultural experience, rather than as a symptom, or a fad. Considering relevant scholarship in various disciplines, tattoo emerges as a repository of memories and a site of affirmations, but also a significant form of creative, embodied self-expression, beyond temporary fashion. Conversely, the practice invites negative stereotyping and diagnostic models of interpretation, and women are especially targeted by these. Proposing a positive value to connecting mind and body, story and skin, through the creative process, the project offers a model of feminist engagement with body politics, and a site for empowerment in the current “war on women.”