The Great Ephemeral Tattooed Skin

Body & Society, Vol. 12, No. 2, 57-82 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1357034X06064321
© 2006 SAGE Publications

The Great Ephemeral Tattooed Skin

Patricia MacCormack

Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

The skin is always and already a serietl of planes which signify race, gender, age and such. Tattooing creates a new surface of potential significance upon the body. Tattooing can call into question concepts of volition in reference to the power to inscribe and define one's subjectivity through one's own skin, and the social defining of the subject. Skin is the involution or event between subject and object, will and cultural inscription, the social and the self. Feminists, particularly corporeal feminists, have attempted to think ways in which the female flesh may be recognized and self-defined without risking essentialism through reification of the meaning of ‘woman's body’. Thinking a tattooed female body thus resonates with some of the risks and benefits feminism has found in theorizing a marginalized body. Using Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard and other major influences on corporeal feminists, this article explores ways in which significance is sought in skin, and possible configurations of skin and world, which challenge the desire to read the flesh as a legible incarnation of subjectivity. 

Key Words: Deleuze and Guattari • feminism • Lyotard • materiality • tattoo