Paper short abstract:

Material-discursive tattooing practices in Naples are performative articulations of the interrelated beauty of the city and its people. In Late Modernity, tattoos in Naples are re/activated cultural reserves (Hauschild 2008) between cultural capitalism (Reckwitz 2019) and aesthetic lust (Böhme 2013)

Paper long abstract:

What is the tattooed beauty of Naples and how can tattooing practices help to see beauty itself in a different light? Drawing from my fieldwork in Naples, I argue that there is a local dynamic, an urge for a positive, a ‘beautiful’ image, not only of the people themselves, but of the whole city. Tattooing as a material-discursive practice rose from the social margins to the forefront of a Neapolitan beauty(-industry)-complex. The individual mark on one’s skin also reflects the city’s discursive landscape(s), its beauty-standards and much praised uniqueness. Not limited to the local criminal sphere or foreign ‘cultures’ anymore, tattooing today is fashionable and can be a possible determinant factor of social (upward) mobility for its bearer and its producer, the tattoo-artist. The performed beautification can help to understand beauty as a social and more-than-aesthetic category. Paradoxically, tattooing, as formerly criticized practice of disgust, became one of the methods to ward off the ugly sides of the city and contribute to its branding as beautiful, unique and resilient. Therewith, tattooing practices can be located in a field of tensions between cultural capitalism (Reckwitz 2019) and aesthetic lust (Böhme 2013). As ambiguous cultural reserve (Hauschild 2008), tattooing has become an integral part of the capitalist Late Modernity and its liberal tendencies but at the same time it is used as a form of resistance to neoliberal imperatives, new and old insecurities.