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Trauma and Tattoo
Author(s) -
Sarnecki Judith Holland
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
anthropology of consciousness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1556-3537
pISSN - 1053-4202
DOI - 10.1525/ac.2001.12.2.35
Subject(s) - psyche , memoir , event (particle physics) , psychology , psychoanalysis , function (biology) , order (exchange) , history , social psychology , aesthetics , art , art history , business , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , biology
This article examines how tattoos may function as a way to deal with personal trauma. First, I examine a recent theory of how personal trauma cannot be fully experienced; thus, it calls for a return to the event in order to incorporate it into the psyche. Second, I look at how that return, often achieved symbolically, might include the process of acquiring a tattoo. Finally, I turn to various examples, taken from memoirs, film, and an interview, of trauma that has been expressed through tattooed images that turn bodies into memory‐laden texts.