The localization of global tattoo culture as a form of youth culture among female university students in Cape Town Rhythms of Life: Youth and Popular Culture in a Changing South Africa, 18 March 2016 Shanleigh Roux PhD student University of the Western Cape Email: 3025443@myuwc.ac.za
General aim and objectives Aim: is to establish how the popular cultural practice of tattooing is semiotized and resemiotized on corporeal landscapes i.e. female university students at three Western Cape universities. Objectives: 1) To reflect on the extent to which the participants social context affects the type of tattoos they have. 2) To look at the performance of gender through tattoos as a way to express, as well as to (re)create novel identities.
Research sites UWC: Established in 1959, as a constituent college of the University of South Africa for people classified as "Coloured. SUN: Established in 1918, this university is often known as a largely Afrikaans dominated institution (Mabokela 2000). UCT: Established in 1829. The oldest of the three universities explored in this study. Data collection: Purposive sampling. Sample 24 female students (8 per university) Individual interviews (10-20 minutes) Digital images
Youth and popular culture According to the United Nations, youth refers to people aged 15 to 24. Popular culture influences how people throughout the world, and especially the youth, shape their identities (ibid, 2006). Popular culture is also seen as a site of struggle, where race, gender, nationality, identities, and power are negotiated (ibid, 2006). [T]he products of a media-obsessed world shape the imaginative landscape of youth s lives (ibid, 2006: 32). It is not merely consumed mindlessly and passively, but is rather used in innovative ways to create and express identity (ibid, 2006).
Youth, popular culture & tattoos Even though tattoos have become consumer products, the art of tattooing as well as the decision to have a tattoo, have communicative and symbolic functions (Barron, 2012). Tattoos tell stories and mark key points in the tattooee s life (Barron, 2012). In addition, tattoo culture concerns individuals mapping out their own rites of passage on their bodies, for others to read, but often for themselves (Barron, 2012: 109). The way the body is inscribed and read reveals the body as a skinscape i.e. a corporeal landscape (cf. Peck & Stroud, 2015).
Transcultural flows Used by Pennycook (2006: 6) to address the ways in which cultural forms move, change and are reused to fashion new identities in diverse contexts. How cultural and linguistic scapes are simultaneously fluid and fixed, move across space, borders, communities, nations, but also become localized, indigenized, re-created in the local (Pennycook 2006: 8).
Data set 1 so this one on the wrist uh the middle symbol is from a game called Assassin s Creed, and underneath that s written in Lord of the Rings Elvish: Nothing is true, everything is permitted. It s also a quote from the game but I also liked the concept of the quote, how- what it means and everything and around there is angel wings which I designed myself. I- I really like wings so. AH (UCT) Nothing is true, everything is permitted (Elvish)
Data set 2 the next one I got was also when I was eighteen. It s on my ankle, and it says uhm harmony in Chinese. Uhm and uhm I guess that one just kind of was like a reminder to myself to have like a balance, you know like school, fun, I don t know. AL (UCT) Harmony (Chinese)
Data set 3 Second one, probably can t pronounce it properly, is the Gye Nyame. It s a symbol from Ghana, and it represents the supremacy of God. Last year, I actually, where were we? We were in St. James, and I actually met a guy from Ghana and he says it s quite a popular symbol in Ghana. It- it s on their currency, which I didn t know at all. It s ya it s on their currency and it s a popular religious symbol in Ghana. KA (UWC) Gye nyame (Ghanaian symbol)
Data set 4 And then my fourth one says- it s in Afrikaans so it says soet slaap sonder sonde cause it s one of the lyrics of my favorite band, one of their songs. But it s like a song that symbolizes my- what I m going through at the moment. AO (SUN) Soet slaap sonder sonde (Sleep sweet without sin)
Tentative findings Although the signs are localized, gender practices can be seen as universal (petite girls = petite tattoos, font e.g. whimsical, aesthetics akin to jewellery). In some cases, the body appears multilingual, and it talks sometimes without the tattooed person knowing. Linguistic repertoires are not just languages we have communicative competence in, but from a multimodal, social semiotic perspective, our bodies can also have its own linguistic repertoires. Skinscapes (the body as a landscape) shows us that the global and the local are tightly interwoven. However, beyond that, we see that some languages and semiotics lack the affordances of others (no African languages besides Afrikaans).