The term body piercing is fairly self evident. It refers to the piercing of the body with a hollow gauge needle and the installation of surgical grade steel (or gold, titanium, surgical plastic) jewellery into the tongue, nipples, nostril, naval, lips, labia, eyebrow, ear cartilage, ear lobe, ear tragus, perineum, penis, scrotum, septum, clitoral hood and clitoris proper.
In the last decade a surge of popular interest and involvement in the permanent body modification practices of piercing and tattooing has been evident in the industrialised West (Rubin 1988, Paine 1994). This 'popular interest' manifests itself as numerous articles in popular magazines (eg. Betts 1994), as 'special features' on local current affairs television, in radio documentaries, as the theme of large-scale photographic exhibitions (see Manne 1993) and as articles in newspapers such as The Age (see Masterton 1994, Blake 1994 - among many others) which have helped to disseminate a basic knowledge and awareness of these modification practices to a larger more mainstream population. Creating a knowledge and an interest in Melbourne which has in the last five years shifted piercing out of the backrooms of adult bookstores and into heavily patronised, high-technology shop-front studios.
This research derived its impetus from the observation that what has been a highly stigmatised practice repugnant to mainstream Western society now seems to be gaining in popularity and momentum. (Although this is not intended as an analysis of the processes by which marginalised practices are co-opted into popular culture per se.) What fascinates me is what I perceive to be a new and emerging physical sensibility among the citizens of the developed nations.
Specifically, what it is about the lived experiences of modern people which leads increasing numbers of them to seek out and participate in practices long considered the domain of primitive societies.
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Literature Review:
The exotic ritual practices and body ornamentation of the world's 'tribal peoples' have traditionally been the domain of cultural and social anthropology, generating and sustaining a huge body of research (eg. Stocking 1968, Blacking 1977). The focus of such attention has always been on traditional non-western societies; 'primitives', simultaneously naked and adorned, alternatively cutting and scarring the body and piercing the face. From studies of Tiv scarification to Mayan tongue piercing, anthropological inquiry is largely descriptive, couching explanations for primitive body modification practices in terms of its function and role in tribal societies (Polhemus 1978:149-173).
Rubin (1988) claims that his academic anthology Marks of Civilisation is the first systematic, cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary exploration of body modification and adornment. Marks of Civilisation purports to be global in scope, however it pays scant attention to the contemporary Western body modification practices of body piercing, focusing instead on tribal cicatrisation and tattooing.
Popular anthropological texts which feature Euro-American subjects such as Virel's (1979) Decorated Man and Robinson's (1988) Body Packaging compound this trend by portraying primitive body modification and Western adornment practices in providing scopic pleasures for a populist audience.
Two recent ethnographic studies on tattooing and body piercing in contemporary America have explicitly attempted to redress this balance. Based on years of in-depth field work both Myers (1992) and Sanders (1988) are concerned with their subjects' motivation and rationale for becoming pierced and tattooed. Sanders became extensively tattooed in the seven years he spent engaged in field research. He interviewed and surveyed tattooed people and emphasises the tattoo as both a mark of disaffiliation from conventional society and as a symbolic affirmation of personal identity (Sanders 1988:395).
Myer's participant observation in ritualised SadoMasochistic group 'piercing parties' over a two year period led him to conclude that such practices fulfilled a universal human function in providing a 'rite of passage as a cultural drama' as well as providing the means by which members could proclaim their various social affinities. Myers devised eight categories to contain his subjects' rationale for their involvement in body modification practices. He describes his subjects as 'sane, successful people' in an effort to counter both the emphasis in medical and psychological literature on aberrant psychology and self-mutilation and the repugnance mainstream society feels toward his subjects' interests in the body.
Myers' conclusions are limited by the nature of his sample population and are couched in cross-cultural, trans-historical and ultimately functionalist explanations for Euro-American body modification practices. Such non-local and non contextual explanations for what appears to be a relatively recent and also increasingly popular and divergent practice in the West are ultimately unsatisfying and necessitate the examination of broader approaches to the body in sociology.
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The Body in Social Theory:
Shilling (1993) describes classical sociology as being 'disembodied' because it maintains and accepts the mind/body dichotomy. In focusing on the mind as that which defines humans as social beings, classical sociology has tended to ignore the 'embodiedness' of its human subjects (1993:8). Shilling describes the body as thus having had an 'absent presence' in sociology, nurturing and informing much of its enquiry yet neglected as an object of analysis (1993:10). The traditional focus in sociology on collectivities and a fear of supporting work based on biological essentialism has contributed to the disciplines inability to adequately account for the physical body in social space (Scott and Morgan 1993:2,14).
Two broad paradigms can be identified in sociological literature pertaining to the body. The first, Shilling describes as the 'social-constructionist paradigm' (1993:10). Two theorists dominate here. Goffman (1959) focuses on social life as a shared set of bodily gestures and idioms whereas Foucault (1980) conceptualises the body in social life as the site of multiple and contesting discourses.
Social constructionist views of the body tell us about how society has 'invaded', 'shaped', 'classified' and made the body meaningful; the body is named as a theoretical space, yet this space tends to remain undertheorized. Social constructionism thus reduces the human body to social forces (Shilling 1993:198).
The second paradigm is described by Shilling (1993) as 'naturalistic' or 'reductionist'. Here the tendency is to reduce the complexities of social life to an unchanging pre-social body which forms the biological basis for social relationships and inequalities; social categories are thus reified as natural phenomena . Naturalistic views both underestimate and overestimate the importance of the biological body to society by assuming that social phenomena can be seen as direct and unmediated products of the body and failing to perceive that social inequalities can themselves become embodied (1993:199).
Neither reductionist nor constructionist paradigms are able to adequately account for what appears to be an increase in body modification practices in the West as body piercing seems to be a social act inscribed upon a biological phenomenon.
Thus the theoretical framework adopted for this research will be the work of Chris Shilling. Shilling is attempting to create a third paradigm he describes as a 'foundationalist' view of the body. Shilling argues that the human body is most profitably conceptualised as an unfinished biological phenomena which is taken up and transformed as a result of participation in society (1993:12).
What emerges from the literature review as crucial to this research is the need to contextualize the practice of body piercing within its location and place in history. Previous research has erroneously concluded that body-piercing serves universal functions by comparing and conflating piercing practices from pre and post industrialised countries as 'remarkably similar' (Myers 1992:16).
What seems evident is that in traditional societies, ritual body modification practices connect people and their bodies to the reproduction of long established social positions whereas in the industrialised West body piercing seems to serve the function of individuating the self from society.
The work of Giddens (1991) and Turner (1991) on modernity and self-identity is invaluable in understanding this paradox. Turner identifies and highlights four broad historical factors in the West he argues contribute to the rise of the body as a 'self-reflexive project for modern people' in the period of time he conceptualises as 'high modernity' (1991:19-22). Giddens uses such concepts as 'lifestyle' to describe the 'integrated set of practices chosen by individuals to give material form to a particular narrative of self- identity' (1991:81). Giddens (1991) argues that as the dominant discourses of religion, family duties and hard work lose currency at the close of the twentieth century, modern people are attempting to construct a 'narrative of self' upon all that seems to remain solid and tangible: their physical bodies (1991:225). Considered in this context an upsurge in hitherto 'primitive' body modification practices among modern people can be aligned with the dominant discourses and pre-occupations of mainstream society in physical health and fitness.
Where Giddens and Turner provide a broad historical and theoretical context with which to account for the rise of body piercing in the West, Rubin, a social anthropologist, documents in loving detail the rise in popularity and the evolution of tattooing in the West. While not concerned with body-piercing per se the trajectory is arguably similar. Rubin (1994) contends that the 'tattoo renaissance' in the West was bought about by the professionalization of the practice; with increasing access to high quality tattoo resources hitherto excluded groups of the middle class and women became involved, helping to lessen the stigma on tattooing, thus broadening its appeal (1994:233).
A common and enduring theme throughout much of the literature is the impact piercing the body has on both an individual's self identity and feelings of group affiliation. Sanders (1988) writes of tattoos providing 'social cues' between people, and of his subjects marking themselves with 'indelible symbols of what they see themselves to be (1988:426)'. Paine (1994) echoes this sentiment with his analysis of body piercing as part of the fashion system. Paine argues that piercing provides the means for an individual to 'attempt to forge a genuine mode of self-exploration which does not rely on the current authenticating narratives of fashion (1994:14)'. There are two important reasons for this research. The first is that it will attempt to fill a gap in the literature. Despite an exponential increase in recent sociological writing on human embodiment and various body modification and adornment practices specifically (eg.body building: Mansfield 1993, tattooing: Sanders 1988, 'style': Faurchou 1988) there is a paucity of literature pertaining specifically to body piercing practices in Western countries.
Secondly, the medium of the human body has a unique capacity as the focal point for the integration of extremely individual and at the same time extremely collective levels of experience (Polhemus 1978:27). This study may then serve as a vehicle for furthering an understanding of how objective and subjective, individual and collective experiences are integrated in everyday reality. These data may thus yield valuable insights into the increasingly individual 'life-worlds' of contemporary citizens of the West. They may also contribute to a project which is gaining momentum in sociology (see Featherstone et al, 1991, Scott and Morgan 1993): attempting to provide the theoretical apparatus to adequately 'account' for the body in the social world.
In order to avoid repeating Myers' (1992) ethnographic 'thick description' of body modification practices in contemporary America this research has identifiably different theoretical objectives. This study moves beyond Myers' research parameters in an effort to contextualize what appears to be an upswing in body modification practices in the West. Specifically asking: why at this moment in history are the modern people of the industrialised nations indulging in body modification practices formally the domain of the world's primitive peoples?
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Method:
This research builds on a fairly recent trend in Sociology, where the study of marginalised communities and/or practices is initiated and undertaken by members of those same communities (eg. the work of lesbian and gay theorists of the seventies which has since given way to research endeavours by those representing a plurality of sexualities). Following Paine (1994), Rubin (1988), Vale and Juno (1988), Sanders (1988) and Myers (1992) I write about body piercing from an 'insiders' perspective. As someone who has been involved in piercing and tattooing from a young age I cannot claim critical distance from either my subject or my informants. However, Fetterman (1989) argues that every researcher begins with biases and preconceived notions of how people think and act, and to mitigate the negative effects of bias the ethnographer must first make specific biases explicit (1989:11). This is my particular bias: I don't perceive piercing, scarring or tattooing the body to be an abhorrent or mutilating practice.
Despite a gradual and observable shift into the mainstream, body piercing still has residual connotations of deviance. Thus access to valid data may be difficult or impossible for an 'outsider', as the relatively short time frame of this study precludes the groundwork necessary to establish trust and rapport between the 'outsider-researcher' and the population under study (Fetterman 1989:18).
This research has been designed with my position in mind and attendant ready access to a group of 'piercees'. The data gathering instruments will generate data which can be qualitatively analysed. Although a quantifiable demographic profile of 'piercees' would be invaluable, any attempt to glean reliable data about an individual's status as a mainstream or as a marginalised person would probably be considered too invasive.
After Sanders (1988), I have a two pronged approach to data gathering: in-depth interviewing and a short written questionnaire. These research instruments were chosen both for their expediency and for their fundamental role in generating qualitative primary data. The time constraints of this project mean that it is not an ethnography per se, but an ethnographically styled report. I am hoping to maintain however, the emphasis in ethnographic research on preserving and detailing the 'emic' ('natives' perspective) of my informants in tandem with the etic - grounded theory. Ethnography - the art and science of describing a group or culture - has been selected as the mode of this research because its inductive, holistic nature allows for multiple interpretations of reality and alternative readings of data (Fetterman 1989:12).
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