Antropologia
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Why We Tattoo? Exploring the Motivation and Meaning

Archita Dey and Kaustav Das

It is difficult to understand why people would choose to have ink injected under their skin as this means taking themselves a mark that will last longer they remains on this earth. There can be multiple constructions and of them, very common preconception focuses on abnormal characteristics associated with tattooed people, even, historically in many places of the world, “tattoos” were regarded as sign of social marginalization for the lower socio-economic groups as well as for marking criminals. But with the large prevalence that has taken place over the last 20-30 years, it has become main-stream, particularly among young people to present and express their self. Over time it has crossed continents, cut across the class and gender lines, flowed between high and low cultural milieus. Though there are many scholarly articles on tattoo have been found concentrating on American and European context but there is a paucity of documentation from India. Present exploratory research is an attempt to understand motivational dimensions from the lived experiences of the tattooed people in the metropolitan city Kolkata. A qualitative approach was adopted using in-depth interviews. Overall evidences suggested that there are many perceptions prompted people to have “tattoo” ranges from art, individuality, spirituality, memories to affection, fashion, scar hiding, idealizing someone and sometimes even influenced from social media.