Caplan Ch. 10 – 14<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doing further reading on Lombroso\u2019s approach to criminology was very interesting for me after having spent so much time studying Godna for my presentation last class. The idea of criminality being nature instead of nurture is appalling but it also follows as part of a pattern I have been identifying in all of these chapters on how the western views of tattooing have affected all the other tattooing traditions. This belief definitely brings about a bias that we are still attempting to dismantle today, and as mentioned in the chapter, Lombroso\u2019s claim turns a blind eye to the fact that not only criminals were tattooed, since this practice was also simply a practice of the working class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still thinking about Godna however, reading about Russian prisoner tattooing cultures makes me wonder what are the factors that make people who are being tattooed in a punitive way reclaim the practice and turn it into a form of subculture? In South Asia it was certainly not the case that Godna was reclaimed and later embraced. An yet on chapter 11, Schrader describes how tattooed which began as a way of preventing the success of fugitives (much like in colonial South Asia) the subculture of Russian prison tattooing quickly turned hierarchical\u2014at least in that they developed a symbology of tattooing which would serve as markers for status among the criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall I liked the analysis made in chapter 14 the best out of this week\u2019s assigned readings. I think it very much reflects the current view towards body modifications in general, although I disagree on a couple of points, I think the emphasis on how body modifications (mainly piercings and tattoos) are a form of self expression and moreover a way to externalization the internal self was very spot on. If anything, I don\u2019t believe that in cultures which embraced tattoos there was ever a different idea as to their function. Indigenous cultures of tattooing probably saw them as a form of self-reflection, and the same can even be said of for example, the Russian prison tattooing culture. Which admittedly started from a negative dehumanizing point but went on to become a form of identity within the system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caplan Ch. 10 – 14 Doing further reading on Lombroso\u2019s approach to criminology was very interesting for me after having spent so much time studying Godna for my presentation last class. The idea of criminality being nature instead of nurture is appalling but it also follows as part of a pattern I have been identifying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17782,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":756,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}