The Prejudiced Look at the Practice of Tattooing ()
ABSTRACT
The word stigma is used to refer to disqualifying attributes based on
body signs that were inflicted on slaves, prisoners or traitors. This practice < in the West has been related to disqualifying
attributes for those who tattoo or are tattooed without their will. The stigma
to this practice comes from learning processes with which we formalize,
integrating these valuations into common sense. The unfounded nature of these
discrediting attributes results from stereotypes with which social control is
intended through control of the body. The first interpretative proposals of
tattooing were made by Cesare Lombroso in 1876 in Italy. In the twentieth
century continued the study of tattooing by criminalistics associating tattoos
and crime, continuing with prisoners. In the mid-twentieth century proposed
that tattooing was associated with sadomasochistic practices. To this fact we
must add What approach has been based on the classification of tattoos. This
type of interpretation suffers from a serious reflection, using arguments
proposed since the nineteenth century, to which for convenience people returned
to them a repeated mechanical application. These proposals do not take into
consideration other aspects of behavior that are present in the decision to get
tattooed and that are related to the way we build our identity. Nor do they
consider analyzing the society where these social practices are developed. In
these works, they also do not take into account aspects such as tattoos being
imposed and not being the result of a personal decision; nor that it is a
typical practice of societies where trademarks are used as a distinction, as a
therapeutic or protective; resource as well as an aesthetic expression.
Share and Cite:
Licona, N. and González, M. (2023) The Prejudiced Look at the Practice of Tattooing.
Advances in Anthropology,
13, 214-226. doi:
10.4236/aa.2023.132013.
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