Networked Scars: Tattooed Bodies after Breast Cancer

Abstract

This paper investigates the growing trend of mastectomy tattoos as an alternative to reconstruction, and their implication for the (de)regulation of women's bodies in the digital context. I explore how tattoos are incorporated into a "breast cancer culture" (King, 2010) as a form of self-care in the recreation of areola pigmentation after breast reconstructive surgery and in cosmetic masking of post-operative mastectomy scars. I examine how online discourses of tattooing practices are drawing women's bodies into an emergent 'biopolitics' (Foucault, 1990;Rose, 2001;Clarke et al., 2010), a productive type of power concerned with the risk management of a "biomedicalized subject" where women are encouraged to care for their health through informed decisions via online media (Pitts, 2004) and through consumption and beautification techniques in line with normative femininity (King, 2006). Yet, online media can potentially operate as sites for the creation of new publics wherein women can retell the stories of their bodies through new practices of inscription that subvert medicalized and masculinist reconstruction narratives. I perform a discourse

Unveiling beauty: Insight into being tattooed postmastectomy

“…Very little is known about what it is like to be tattooed postmastectomy, despite some women choosing this unconventional body project as an alternative to reconstruction. 18,19 Despite a lack of research, relevant literature suggests motivations for women being inked postmastectomy include regaining one's identity, improving body image, sense of beauty, and heightening feelings of control. 19,20 Diagnostic procedures such as ultrasounds, mammograms, biopsies, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), and lengthy treatments which may include chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation leave lasting effects which can lead to feelings of powerlessness and for some women, distorted images of self.…”

“…Very little is known about what it is like to be tattooed postmastectomy, despite some women choosing this unconventional body project as an alternative to reconstruction 18,19 . Despite a lack of research, relevant literature suggests motivations for women being inked postmastectomy include regaining one's identity, improving body image, sense of beauty, and heightening feelings of control 19,20 .…”