Nearly every culture in history has manipulated the body to represent their way of life and to enhance certain aspects of what is attractive in their culture. They have also used the same kinds of modification such as tattooing, piercing, scarification and body painting as a way of punishment, signs of fertility and sexual lure, manhood, war, and many many more reasons. Rubin is stating that these generalizations are arbitrary and superficial, so he gathered a series of case studies on specific ideas and examples in certain cultures.
The tattoo styles that i looked into and thought were the most interesting of the cultures that were mentioned in this reading were the Polynesian and Japanese traditional styles.
Inscribing the Body
I found that talking about the body as a canvas was a great way to view why cultures modify and decorate their body. The section of this reading that i found the most interesting was The Ambivalence of Inscribed Skin, it talks about before the civil war when slaves would be inscribed with marks from their owners and the scars from beatings and accidents. Usually tattooing is seen as an intentional action, but for some points in history and in other cultures it is viewed as a punishment, a constant physical reminder to break down a person's humanity. The same with Nazi concentration camp markings and the same for slave owners in Roman and Greek history.
No comments:
Post a Comment