QUEERING THE BODY, COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES THROUGH PIERCING AND TATTOOING A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for kJoH^T the Degree Master of Arts In Women and Gender Studies by Melinda Monique Lopez San Francisco, California Spring Semester 2018 Copyright by Melinda Monique Lopez 2018 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Hierarchies of Body Modifications & Art and Acts of Queering the body by Melinda Monique Lopez, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts: Women and Gender Studies at San Francisco State University. Julietta Hua, Ph.D. Professor of Women and Gender Studies Professor of Women & Gender Studies QUEERING THE BODY, COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES THROUGH PIERCING AND TATTOOING Melinda Monique Lopez San Francisco, California 2018 In this thesis project I show how a broader collective identity is produced through body modification and art, specifically piercing and tattooing since the 1990’s in the United States. I argue that the act of modifying and altering the body also queers it, and allows for reflexive embodiment, where the body acts as vessel for self-expression, ownership, adornment, or acts of resistance. While individual processes, the act participating in body modifications in also simultaneously creating a collective identity. I therefore trace the influences of social movements in U.S. since the 1950’s on body modification practices. My oral histories bring social activism into conversation by discussing how these acts of activism have influenced and produced different social identities, including different ways of performing femininities and masculinities. I certify that the abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis Date PREFACE AND/OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to truly thank from the bottom of my heart both of my readers that took the time and dedication to read and help me strengthen my project, I have learned so much from Professors Julietta Hua and Christoph Hanssmann intellectually. I would also like to thank the participants that were so willing to allow me to question their reasoning behind their decisions to perform acts of body modification and art onto their bodies throughout their lives as of yet. Lastly, I am very grateful and appreciative of the support and patience from my family, my love, employers, co-workers, and the many loved ones that have allowed me to sacrifice so much time while completing my Masters program, this success is not mine alone. Thank you, thank you, I love you, and God Bless! TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction/Literature Review............................................ 1 The Historic Altered Body........................................................................................2 Body Art and Modification as a Collective Identity................................................ 4 Queering the Body................................................................................. 5 Queer Theory................................................................ 7 Queer Theory and Biopower.....................................................................................9 Methods- Oral Histories.......................................................................................... 12 Overview..................................................................................................................14 Conclusion...............................................................................................................15 Chapter 1: Piercing.............................................................................................................. 16 The Human Body revealed through Queer Theory............... 20 Disidentifications.................................................................................................... 21 Counterpublics....................................................................................................... 22 The Regulation of the Body through Power...........................................................26 Kinship.................................................................................................................... 26 Reclaiming the Body through Feminism................................................................27 Chapter 2: Tattooing........................... 33 Conclusion......................................................... v 1 Body modification and art, such as piercing and tattooing can be read as an act of queering the body. When one considers the political significance of the body: desire, embodiment, and identification are all loaded with complex meanings that have multiple interpretations. The space our bodies occupy holds political significance individually and socially. I didn’t think much of my body as a site of political importance or as a site of resistance until my late twenties. Piercing and tattooing were a part of my teenage years into adulthood, socially and culturally. My aunts, uncles, and parents grew up during the Civil Rights social movements in South Central Los Angeles, California. I grew up with many oral histories of when they were discriminated against as Mexican Americans, children of immigrants, and the challenges the women in my family experienced being women of color. My father’s tattoos and branding came from his teenage years of brotherhood, cultural pride, and religious significance. My mothers were along the same lines, but were removed due to her embarrassment about exposing them in the workplace. During my teenage years piercing of the belly button, nipples, eyebrows, multiple ear piercings, sleeve tattoos, tattoos on the lower back for young women were becoming very mainstream and frequent due to pop culture. Growing older, piercings and tattoos started to play a new role and significance for sexual communities, socially and individually, one classic example during the 1980s into the 1990s was the self-identified gay man who pierced his left ear only, to indicate being a part of the gay community. My cousin’s tattoos and scarifications were all significant and signified lost family members, nationalism, or spiritual significance. Some of my uncles have various warrior type women tattooed on their body that symbolized a reflection of the type of women they had, or wanted, as a form of respect for their partners, such as a female warrior Amazon image. As I became older and exposed to more gender expressions and identifications beyond our western binary system of male or female, my thirst for knowledge about the construction of power, gender, heritage, control, and regulation has increasingly grown when it comes to ones embodiment. Why are our bodies such a threat and a site of control and supervision? As a queer? As a woman? As a self-identified gender-neutral body? As an intersex body? As a man? In this thesis I 2 would like to explore our embodiment as a site of political resistance and significance, individually, socially, and collectively. I want to look at the historical influence of social movements since the 1950s in the United States around different modes of body art and modifications, and how these movements contributed to one's self-expression and individualism collectively within diverse communities. My argument from my research believes that the body can be queered through bodily practices of modifications, such as piercing and tattooing. I would like to suggest and examine that since the 1990s in the United States, body modification and art, may have become its own broader collective identity within different subcultures and communities. I want to explore the involvement of embodiment and how various forms of body modifications play a role in contributing to the reproduction of body hierarchies within bodily modifications individually and socially. The Historical Altered Body Our daily-lived experiences reflect differently on every individual body. Factors of our past, race, gender, sexuality, and our physical bodily attributes contribute to our visibility of how our bodies are read. Personal narratives of body modifications and art are reflective forms of bodily transformations, and the way one intervenes to self-construct how they identify with their body and self-ownership. I want to look at the body as a political site of resistance through the personal performance of altering the body and expand upon the notion that the body is capable of being queered through the production of modifying one's body as a form of bodily expression and embodiment. Historically, different forms of body modifications and art have had varied and have various meanings to different cultures internationally and globally. The colonial history of the art of tattooing can be traced to Polynesia from the mid-1800’s when an English explorer named Captain James Cook “encountered it” on a voyage touring the South Pacific1. Different forms of foot binding during the middle ages in Europe or the Chinese culture referred to as the ‘lotus foot’ 1 Cole, Anna. Douglas, Bronwen. Thomas, Nicholas. Tattoo Bodies, Art, and Exchange in the Pacific and the West. Duke University, Press. Reaktion Books 2005. 3 or “head-shaping practiced since the times of pre-Neolithic Jericho in Egypt,2” traditionally associated with beauty and royalty, are all diverse forms of body modifications and body art. Piercing, branding, and scarification practices can be traced to