Cultural Theory in Everyday Practice

Chapter six

Tattooing: the bio-political inscription of bodies and selves

author: Nikki Sullivan

In Chapter six of “Cultural Theory of Everyday Practice”, the author talks about tattooing as the bio-political inscription of bodies and selves that the deployment of power is directly connected to the body. The statement that I most agree with form the chapter is “it is often regarded as a performative act of symbolic rebellion” (Sullivan, 82) I believe that tattooing is an act of rebellion, an act that most subculture groups take pride in as it distinct them from the dominant groups as well as being seen as a form of counter-cultural resistance that suggests how the body is inscribed as the commodified stuff of self-actualization. A tattoo articulates ones interiority and community membership, emphasizing ones feeling of belonging. Furthermore, a tattoo also tells an individual’s “identification with counter-hegemonic discourses, practices, and lifestyles” (Sullivan, 82) such as feminism. But there is also another viewpoint that certain groups of people have on tattooing such as Christians. In the Christian religion, tattooing is established as a deviant practice since it involves the contamination of God’s temple, the human body. Being born into a Christian household, it was mandatory that I shun upon these deviance including the people that have them. My family would often frown upon other family members that ignore this belief and decide to get a tattoo themselves. Though to some extent I believe that tattooing is an act of one’s rebellious pursuit to a certain entity, I do not believe that it is an act of sin. Personally, I believe that tattooing is merely an act of arrogance and pride that involves defying the dominant culture to establish one’s own position in society. People who are overwhelmingly insecure about themselves in terms of appearance and who they are as a person would tend to deviate the focus on a particular object that they posses, such as a tattoo.