Home Sweet Home: Tattoo Parlors as Postmodern Spaces of Agency

Abstract

Tattoo culture has pervaded mainstream culture in recent years, due in part to the influence of the postmodern condition. Defined most significantly by a temporally fragmented and eclectic, relative existence, the spaces of postmodernism become essential objects of study due to the relative nature of identity construction within those spaces. Thus, this essay turns attention to the spaces of tattoo parlors, which serve as worthy objects of postmodern spatial study. Themes of materiality, embodiment, and performance are cited as critical elements that provide support for the claim that tattoo parlors serve as postmodern spaces of agency. This agency is most prevalent when examining the material, embodied, and performed elements of control and choice in a tattoo studio. Three distinct tattoo studios serve as the contextual backdrop for this essay, illuminating these elements of choice and control.

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