The Social Semiotics of Tattoos: Skin and Self

by Chris William Martin, Paul Bouissac (Editor)

Overview

Why do people put indelible marks on their bodies in an era characterized by constant cultural change? How do tattoos as semiotic resources convey meaning? What goes on behind the scenes in a tattoo studio? How do people negotiate the informal career of tattoo artist? The Social Semiotics of Tattoos is a study of tattoos and tattooing at a time when the practice is more artistic, culturally relevant, and common than ever before.

By discussing shifts within the practices of tattooing over the past several decades, Martin chronicles the cultural turban in which tattooists have become known as tattoo artists, the tattoo gun turbans into the tattoo machine, and standardized tattoo designs are replaced by highly expressive and unique forms of communication with a language of its own. Revealing the full range of meaning-making involved in the visual, written and spoken elements of the act, this volume frames tattoos and tattooing as powerful cultural expressions, symbols, and indexes and by doing so sheds the last hints of tattooing as a deviant practice.

Based on a year of full-time ethnographic study of a tattoo studio/art gallery as well as in-depth interviews with tattoo artists and enthusiasts, The Social Semiotics of Tattoos will be of interest to academic researchers of semiotics as well as tattoo industry professional and artists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350056473
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/13/2018
Series:	Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Chris William Martin is Professor of Social Sciences at Algonquin College, Canada.

Table of Contents

List of Figures viii

List of Tables x

Introduction 1

1 Tattoos and Tattooing in an Era of Liquid Modernity 17

2 The Art and Artist behind Your Tattoo 37

3 Tattoo Artists as Artists 53

4 Permanence as Rebellion: Skin and Self 81

5 Of Cultural Change and Gendered Bodies 121

6 Tattoos as Artistic and Emotional Signifiers 143

Conclusions 165

Appendix A Methodology 171

Notes 189

References 193

Index 205

Editorial Reviews

Chris William Martin's new book, The Social Semiotics of Tattoos: Skin and Self, is a welcome new addition to the literature on tattooing. After almost 30 years worth of scholarship on the subject, much of which has been focused on deviance (or the shift away from it), the time is right for a new analysis of tattooing as an art and profession, within a context of rapid cultural change. The Social Semiotics of Tattoosis a must for anyone interested in tattoos, bodies, or art.
Margo DeMello, Adjunct Professor of Anthrozoology, Canisius College, USA

I thought I knew everything about the semiotics of tattoos, given that I have been teaching the discipline for over four decades. But this book has opened my eyes to new ways of grasping the meanings of tattoos in the world today. While it takes a historical foray into the meanings of tattoos, the book projects us into the current system of coding that tattoos evoke. It is a brilliant and refreshing new treatment of a topic that I thought had been laid to rest.
Marcel Danesi, Professor of Semiotics and Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada

Well written and very engaging ... A very strong ethnographic text which fuses together social semiotics and ethnography in a very accessible form.
LINGUIST

From the Publisher