Tattooing and civilizing processes: Body modification as self-control

Despite the ongoing revolution in the use of tattoos in North America, academic understandings of tattooing remain grounded in conceptions of "tattoo enthusiasts" as social misfits. In this paper, data from three years of participant observation with tattoo enthusiasts in Canada help critique preferred social-psychological interpretations of tattooing as irrational, "risk-taking behaviour" (see Carroll et al., 2002; Roberts and Ryan, 2002). Through the lens of figurational sociology (Elias, 1983; 1994; 1996), tattooing is interpreted in this paper as a pro-social and affectively regulated act of communication, rather than a pathological instance of self-injury.