Bad Bastards?: Tattooing, Health, and Regulation in Twentieth-Century Vancouver

Abstract

Using local newspapers and archival documents from the City of Vancouver Archives, this article investigates how state actors-namely the city of Vancouver's Health Departmentattempted to regulate professional tattooing in Vancouver. Simultaneously, I consider how tattooists understood health and sanitation relative to tattooing and, in the process, responded to and challenged regulation. In doing so, I investigate the complex relationship between Vancouver's professional tattooists and state actors, focusing on the methods used to regulate tattooing. I argue that although unfounded or inadequately established health concerns typically concealed efforts to control tattooing, tattooists worked within and against regulation to maintain a presence in Vancouver. À partir des journaux locaux et de documents d'archives des Archives de la Ville de Vancouver, cet article examine comment les intervenants du Département de la santé publique de la Ville de Vancouver ont tenté de réglementer le tatouage professionnel dans leur ville. Nous considérons également comment les tatoueurs ont compris les implications hygiéniques et de santé de leur pratique, et comment ils ont réagi à la nouvelle réglementation. Ainsi, en se concentrant sur les méthodes employées pour réglementer le tatouage, nous examinons la relation complexe des tatoueurs professionnels de la ville de Vancouver avec ses instances municipales. Nous avançons que même si les préoccupations sanitaires, qu'elles soient sans fondement ou insuffisamment démontrées, ont servi à masquer les intentions de contrôler le tatouage, les tatoueurs ont travaillé simultanément avec et contre cette réglementation afin de maintenir leur présence dans la ville.Jamie Jelinski is a doctoral candidate in cultural studies at Queen's University. During the fall of 2019, he will begin a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University. Jelinski's research contributions include published and forthcoming articles in Journal of Canadian Studies, Visual Anthropology, and Études Inuit Studies. Jamie Jelinski est un étudiant de doctorat en études culturelles à l'Université Queen's. En 2019, il débutera des études postdoctorales au Department of Art History and Communication Studies de l'Université McGill. Ses travaux récents et à venir paraissent dans des revues spécialisées telles que Journal of Canadian Studies, Visual Anthropology, et Études Inuit Studies.

Deviance as an historical artefact: a scoping review of psychological studies of body modification

“…Others (e.g., Drews et al, 2000) simply choose to emphasise terms like "risky" behaviour over analogous but differently valanced terms like "adventurous" or to emphasise the potential risks of tattooing (e.g., Koch, Roberts, Cannon, et al, 2005). Though poor-quality tattooing can certainly be dangerous (Kluger, 2015;Kluger and Koljonen, 2012), the chances of encountering tattoo-related medical complications in the current era is low, and there is some evidence to suggest that past fears over blood-borne pathogen transmission have been greater than the actual incidence of such tattoo-related medical complications (Jelinski, 2018;Lynn et al, 2019).…”

“…Another study by the same group of authors explores beliefs about the health and social dangers of tattoos, as though tattoos are more dangerous than current evidence suggests (cf. Jelinski, 2018;Lynn and Medeiros, 2017). Some studies note that, not only are body modifications different in how they are adopted and used, but each type of body modification also has variation.…”

“…Pressure from city health departments all over North America led to innovations in tattooing by artists seeking to revitalise the industry. As a study of legal dynamics of tattooing in Vancouver, Canada makes clear, the pressures from health departments led to changes that, over the succeeding decades, have become local law (Jelinski, 2018). These innovations set the stage for what Rubin (1988) called the "second tattoo renaissance," a resurgence in the popularity akin to the uptick after the electric tattoo machine was invented.…”