Jane Caplan’s Chapter 10 of Written on the Body discusses specific investigations and studies of tattooing in Rumania, Spain and Belgium. Caplan uses the international criminology debate stemming from France and Italy-based investigations made by criminologists Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909) and Alexandre Cassalagne (1843-1924). Caplan’s essay focuses on three different studies conducted by Belgian criminologist Louis Vervaeck, forensic anthropologist and criminologist Nicolas Minovici, and criminologist Rafael Salillas. These studies further support the conclusion that European tattooing as a practice has repeatedly been denied to come from indigenous transport or influence. Moreover, these criminologists underlined the degree to which foreign influences led to the development of European tattooing. While Caplan states these points, she concludes her essay by asserting how the tattoo has become an emblem for cultural exchange, regardless of whether people have chosen to realize it or not. Caplan insinuates that the cultural transmission of European tattooing as a present practice comes not from “traditional” cultures, but from the survival of “savage” cultures and reminds us of the survival of the meaning of inscription in tattooing.
Abby M. Schrader’s Chapter 11 of Written on the Body recounts how Russian officials utilized branding as a way of preventing fugitives from opposing the status system that held the infrastructure of the Russian state. Body marking quickly became a marker for self-control and the ability to construct identity. This ultimately led to the development of a tattooing culture among criminals in Russia and the Soviet Union. Schrader’s essay leans on to the notion that bodily inscription was a form of self-construction and criminals’ ability to forge their own identities, but only when concerned in the official practices of status-ascription. Schrader continues this through conveying the status groupings process initiated by Peter the Great. His goal was to structure a well-ordered police state and anyone who defied the expectations of said system was “a rejection of Russian authorities’ power,” which resulted in officials developing new politics to address or correct these inadequacies (Schrader 177). Two types of exile in contemporary Russia: the first type of exile comprises those who committed serious crimes like murder, arson, robbery, brigandage, etc. The state stripped these individuals of their property, declared them dead civilly and exiled them to Siberia. Prior to the eighteenth century, those, of all social groupings, convicted of hard labour exile were subject to facial punishments like knouting. The second type of exile consists of those facing punishments for less serious crimes. These were people convicted of lesser crimes and those deemed troublemakers in communities.
Stephan Oettermann’s essay on tattooed entertainers in America and Germany appears in chapter 12 of Written on the Body. Oettermann refutes a common lie told by many of the tattooed individuals appearing in shows. I found it interesting that these entertainers would mislead people into believing that these entertainers were abducted by Indigenous peoples and forcibly tattooed. The understanding that tattooing in the nineteenth century was common amongst entertainers provides me with more questions as to what other reasons these people would resort to the conception that they had been abducted.