The Social Semiotics of Tattoos

Skin and Self

Chris William Martin

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781350169067
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350056497
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

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 turn in which tattooists have become known as tattoo artists, the tattoo gun turns 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.

1

Tattoos and Tattooing in an Era of Liquid Modernity

Theoretical approaches

Basically, this work is about the cultural resources individuals use as they go about creating and expressing meaning in their everyday lives through body art practices. This book draws on symbolic interactionism, socio-semiotics, and Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity to provide the broad theoretical basis for a study of tattoos, tattoo enthusiasts, and tattoo artists. This multipronged approach is necessary if the sociological spectrum of tattooing is to be addressed. From transactions occurring in studios to descriptions and interpretations of the tattoos themselves. Symbolic interactionism and semiotics are complementary because both offer their own unique tools for understanding the production of meaning in everyday life. Social semiotics can provide a more systematic approach than symbolic interactionism for the analysis of signs and symbols.

Zygmunt Bauman’s ideas about the fluidity and insecurity of identity in contemporary Western societies frame interpretations within the societal mode of post (or liquid) modernity. Although Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) was never a self-declared symbolic interactionist, his skepticism about the natural sciences as a model for the social sciences was consistent with the philosophy of symbolic interactionism. This combination of perspectives is typical of symbolic interactionism after circa 1990 when research by symbolic interactionists became increasingly eclectic.

Positivist and humanist sociology

This chapter will endeavor to provide readers with a brief history of the theoretical perspectives used in the book while offering a description of the ways in which they will be utilized. Yet, to acquire a comprehensive understanding of symbolic interactionism, some knowledge of the two broad “traditions” in sociology is required: positivist sociology and humanistic sociology.¹ There are a variety of labels for these traditions. Their meanings overlap but are not identical. Positivist sociology may be referred to as scientific sociology. Humanistic sociology is also known as idealist and interpretive sociology (Wilson 1983). Positivism can be defined, in one sentence, as the application of the methods of the natural sciences to the study of social life. The fact that the words “positivism” and “sociology” were coined by the same person, Auguste Comte (1787–1857), is important because it is an indication that throughout the history of sociology, positivism has been the dominant tradition.

In contrast, humanistic sociologists relate sociology to the humanities, literary studies, and social criticism because they are skeptical that people can be studied better using the methods of the natural sciences. Symbolic interactionism, a form of humanistic sociology, is the perspective of a minority of sociologists. These two traditions are a matter of degree. Sociologists may identify with one without agreeing with all of its typical characteristics. Thus, the approach adopted in this work might be characterized as “symbolic interactionist friendly” rather than mainstream symbolic interactionism (Helmes-Hayes and Milne 2017).

Positivists emphasize logic and reason as the way to unearth information leading to generalizations about our shared sociality. Positivists assume that there are objective social realities that can be “discovered” just as natural scientists discover the so-called laws of the natural world. Facts are considered neutral. They are not a product of an investigator’s interpretation. To discover social facts a researcher should try to retain an outsider’s noninvolved, apolitical perspective. In principle (although not always in practice), positivists reject the advocacy of moral values. What ought to be is not science. Morality is left to politicians, religious leaders, and philosophers. Objective reality is best revealed through quantitative methods of research. The proper focus of research is thus the observable and the measurable because research must be replicated and verified.

Historically, positivists have also described social phenomenon as a result of structures of control that exist independently of an agent. Agents are viewed somewhat like pawns in a game in which they have little true understanding of their actions. Common sense is rarely an avenue to truth, at least an intellectually exciting version of truth. Communities of social scientists, not the untrained public even though they have personally experienced the issue under investigation, are the experts in judging the quality of research because common sense is assumed to be simplistic, confused, superficial, and ethnocentric.

The heyday of positivism in North American sociology was the 1950s and 1960s. It (rightly) came under attack by sociologists influenced by Marxism for abandoning commitment to social justice, which motivated an earlier generation of sociologists; by feminists for underestimating the extent to which one’s standpoint in society influences opinions about social theory; by post-structuralists for its exaggerated emphasis on logic and reason; and by symbolic interactionists for insensitivity to the power of individuals to resist social forces.

David Gartrell and John Gartrell (1996) published a study of the influence of positivism in the 1980s, which is useful for understanding the present. Gartrell and Gartrell examined four leading sociology journals (American Sociological Review, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Sociology (UK), and Acta Sociologica (Sweden), and compared two time periods—the late 1960s and the late 1980s. The first time period was toward the end of positivism’s heyday in the social sciences. The second time period witnessed several years of criticism in North American sociology and a longer period of criticism in Continental sociology. Using content analysis, Gartrell and Gartrell classified articles as explicitly positivist, or implicitly positivist, and absent of positivist content. The authors concluded that “the rumors of positivism’s death have been greatly exaggerated … Even though our data indicate a decline in the incidence of positivistic content in CRSA, Acta Sociologica, and Sociology, these journals continue to publish articles with positivistic content, to differing degrees” (Gartrell and Gartrell 1996: 153). Apparently, no one has replicated this research in the past twenty years, but the Gartrells’ generalizations still seem to hold, judging from an unsystematic reading of sociology journals. There are few reasons for believing the situation has changed since the late 1980s.

One of the most eloquent defenses of both positivism and humanistic sociology is Randall Collins (1989) in his article “Sociology: Proscience or Antiscience?” After rejecting many common criticisms of positivism, Collins (1989: 137) concluded by emphasizing the disciplinary advantages of eclecticism. “Our attitudes toward one another within our intellectual field [are] … negativistic, hostile, dismissive.”

This factionalism is debilitating because we need multiple approaches in order to cross-validate our findings. For sociology to make progress, we need some spirit of generosity, instead of a spirit of factional antagonism. This is not the same as a policy of “go your own way,” tolerating each other but having nothing to do with one another intellectually. Building sociological knowledge is a collective enterprise.

The two traditions of sociology, positivism and anti-positivism (or humanistic sociology), also exist in semiotics. Although it is a simplification, it is common to distinguish between structural semiotics, in which a system of signs and codes takes precedence over the intentions of the senders of a message; and social semiotics, which emphasizes the interactions of speakers, writers, and other participants in communication. Structural semioticians are “primarily interested in understanding how signs and structures of semiotic rules make people, rather than in understanding how people make, use and renegotiate semiotic rules” (Vannini 2007: 115). In structural semiotics, the origins of systems of signs and codes may be something as pre-social as thinking in binary categories that reflects the structure of the brain. In contrast, it is not unusual for some of the fundamental ideas of social semiotics to sound a lot like symbolic interactionism.

Symbolic interactionism

The theory with the longest tradition of anti-positivism in North American sociology is symbolic interactionism. I introduce this theory through an appreciation of some historical underpinnings of its origins before discussing how it came to be developed in modern applications and how it will be used here to understand tattoos and tattooing.

Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s must have been something to see. Any historian may close his/her eyes and see glorious art deco façades, Al Capone and prohibition, and men and women walking The Loop, which, if viewed from above, would make up a sea of fedoras and top hats. But ask sociologists and they may picture Robert Park and Ernest Burgess building a legacy based on the groundwork of philosophers from the American pragmatist tradition like Mead, Dewey, James, and, C. S. Peirce and together shaping what would become known as the Chicago School of Sociology (c. 1915–35).² The legacy of pragmatism can be seen in the ideas and writings of the Chicago School by observing how the humanistic epistemological turn that would become symbolic interactionism shared an appreciation of the study of meaning and that the thought and experiences of individuals shape, and are not just shaped by, social reality (Reynolds 2003: 47).

As G. H. Mead (in Strauss 1956: 286) wrote concerning Comte and positivism: “the positivistic doctrine assumes that our objects are given in such observation, and that is the logical weakness of positivism. It assumes that the world is made up, so to speak, out of facts, is made up out of those objects that appear in the experience of the scientific observer.”³ Susie Scott (2015: 5) says pragmatism was a precursor to symbolic interactionism by the way it “suggests that the self has two sides: subject and object simultaneously.” This then depicts symbolic interactionism and modern-day semiotics as having both an origin traced to elements found in the ideas of C. S. Peirce and the pragmatist tradition (see Collins 1985: 185–91; Rochberg-Halton 1983).⁴

Herbert Blumer, who coined the term symbolic interactionism in the 1930s, used ideas like the generalized other, which had been discussed at Chicago for some time, primarily by Mead and others, as the theoretical basis of his perspective. It has since become a standard way of introducing symbolic interactionism to summarize the principles found in Blumer’s (1969: 2) landmark book Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method.

[1]‌ human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them … [2] the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows … [3] these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters.

Moving to more recent discussions of symbolic interactionism, David R. Maines (2001) in his book The Faultline of Consciousness: A View of Interactionism in Sociology is a source for the basic principles of symbolic interactionism while also offering increased insight into both the First and Second Chicago School. In this work, Maines defines symbolic interactionism in broad terms. He distinguishes between “interactionist promoters” and “interactionist utilizers” (or “unaware interactionists”) and argues that the latter category is more common in contemporary sociology than many people realize. Maines’s explanation of symbolic interactionism is in terms of four “facts” and a few related orienting propositions. This discussion combines facts and propositions.

The four “facts” emphasized in symbolic interactionism

1. People can think, and they possess self-awareness. Cognition, self, and identity are central concepts in symbolic interactionism. Common sense thinking is assumed to be rather sophisticated because people naturally think about the situations they encounter in everyday life, although to differing degrees depending on the person and situation. A study of people’s actions should begin with their conscious motives and self-identity. Social scientists’ explanations of other people’s acts that contradict common sense are questioned. The authorities on a research topic are the actors who have experienced the subject investigated. Consequently, good sociology is an elaboration of common sense and has a phenomenological element. Meaning it allows for a view of meaning from the perspective of the consciousness of those observed.

2. Communication is central to all human social activity. The aspect most in line with social semiotic inquiry is that meaning is created, shaped, and reshaped through social interactions and is thus a product of symbolic exchanges by knowledgeable social actors. Human interaction is impossible without communication whether it is the silent internal dialogue of individual cognition (inner speech) or communication with others. Humans are radically different from other animals whose ability to communicate is quite limited. It is not just human vanity to emphasize differences between animals and humans due to language, culture, and the remembrance of the past. All systems of symbols (language, gestures, material artifacts, clothing, music, etc.) are relevant for understanding insiders’ wisdom. But no system is as important as language because a lot of “interaction” is just talk. Emphasis is on the inherently ambiguous meanings of symbols and the practical problems of interpreting what others mean. Human communication is never easy.

3. All forms of human activity occur in situations. Societies are aggregates of individuals. British society and French society, for example, are constructs. No one has ever seen them. Interacting individuals and their symbols are the observable, fundamental features of societies. “Situation” is defined as the “factors with which an actor must deal in forming a line of conduct” (Maines 2001: 5). Interaction occurs in “cultural, institutional, gendered, national, racial, economic, and/or historical contexts” (Maines 2001: 3). Historically, face-to-face interaction was emphasized in symbolic interaction but its principles can be extended to include interaction via mass media and social media (Hogan 2010).

4. Human relationships and collectivities are forms of activity. All activity is agency endowed. Interaction is a dynamic process in which actors adjust to each others’ responses and the perceived evaluation of responses. “Others” may not react in the way an “actor(s)” anticipated. Rules are negotiated and are typically more flexible than one would think by reading a rule book. Symbols and institutions are created, maintained, and changed through human activity.

The preferred research methods of symbolic interaction are supposed to be faithful to the empirical world of experiencing actors. The ideal methods are ethnography and unstructured interviews, which are utilized in this work. Quantitative methods, on the other hand, are considered less sensitive to the subtlety of people’s thinking. Moreover, multiple-choice surveys are at best gross indicators of common sense. Careful observation is more important than explicit, abstract theorizing since the latter is not the way people think about the various situations they confront daily.

This book sometimes expands the analysis of messages beyond the less detailed stud...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• 1 Tattoos and Tattooing in an Era of Liquid Modernity
• 2 The Art and Artist behind Your Tattoo
• 3 Tattoo Artists as Artists
• 4 Permanence as Rebellion: Skin and Self
• 5 Of Cultural Change and Gendered Bodies
• 6 Tattoos as Artistic and Emotional Signifiers
• Conclusions
• Appendix A: Methodology
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Copyright Page