A Possible Interpretation of Tattoos for Some Teenagers in Conflict with the Law

Abstract

What is the meaning of tattoos made by some teenagers in conflict with the law? From the observation and listening to these teenagers, we intend to demonstrate that some of them establish important meanings for tattoos. They show some preference for tattooed phrases such as "No love like mother's love" and "VidaLoka". These preferences have significant effects for some of these teenagers: subjective construction of a body, naming and social bounds. In order to understand this meaning, we will investigate the function of tattooing for some adolescents involved in drug trafficking and the vicissitudes of the act of tattooing as a means of incorporation, based on the concept of "contingency" and "naming" by Jacques Lacan. The notion of the imaginary for Lacanian theory will be one of the references to understand this phenomenon in some adolescents. We intend to demonstrate that the category of "contingency", from Lacan's last teaching, exposes a way of bodily construction based on the notion of the real and the political in the action of tattooing.