OFM Mods :: Cultural Appropriation and Inclusion in the Modern World

I’ve sat on the topic of this specific OFM Mods topic for a few months. 

As a heavily modified white person, the conversation around body modification in regard to  cultural appropriation and the experience of non-white enthusiasts is clearly not mine to lead. 

So, this column is a bit different: I’m not going to talk about my experience or opinion, but rather, center BIPOC voices, using this limited space as an exercise, especially for white folks, to listen and learn, and to continue the conversation, on their own time and with others in their communities.

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A Tumblr post blew up years ago, titled “Cultural Appropriation and Body Modification,” the white author diving into how body modification contributes to cultural appropriation, to which Alicia Cardenas, a Native woman and professional body piercer, responds, via The Point Journal of Body Piercing.

Cardenas recognizes the author for initiating the conversation, but says, by doing so, they continue to center themselves. She references the author’s language, insinuating that certain piercings are Westernized, citing stretched conch piercings in the inner ear cartilage as an example.

They were initially named sadhu piercings, “…because the first people to have large conch piercings were, in fact, sadhus (a Hindu discipline), so that means we stole it, not the other way around.”

She notes at the beginning of her response that, rather than drawing these assumptions about other cultures as white people, it’s more productive to actually ask a person of color and not paint sweeping narratives about appropriation without that consideration. 

“Stealing is a word that doesn’t belong in this equation … to steal something means it at some point belonged to someone and was then stolen,” Cardenas says. “Symbols like the swastika don’t belong to anyone or any one culture, just like the cross … or spiral, or hundreds of other imagery items … if they don’t belong to anyone, you cannot steal them … in fact I would go so far as to say they belong to everyone.”

She mentions Kavadi and Sundance rituals, involving stress on the body to induce euphoric, altered states of consciousness. A modern-day example is suspension, in which the body is pierced by large hooks and a person is suspended in the air. She says blood rituals go back as far as humanity and don’t have names until we name them. 

The cited Sundance ritual, “is a mimick of itself, at best, as the ceremony has changed many times… the Druids have a type of Sundance, the Lakota, the Mexicah, Mayas, Dine … about a million visions of the same intention. Who is to say a backyard suspension hold any less importance?”

She says people should respect these ceremonies, but it’s wrong to say that people don’t belong to them in any capacity because they are white or because they can’t travel to the “original” location where the ceremonies occurred.

She says, directly to the Tumblr post’s author, “What that says to me is you are more comfortable keeping cultures segregated.” She says, if it weren’t for the white men elevating these practices in the 1900s, leading to their publishing in media and increased population, she and many other Indigenous people may not have found body modification and connected to it, those elements of their culture, and the rich cultures of the world in the same way.

Another discussion under this umbrella is the segregation that can occur within shops and artists within the industry, which trickles down to tattoo shop clientele.

Kandace Layne is a Black, Atlanta-based tattoo artist. In a 2020 interview with Allure, she talks about her workplace, a Black-owned tattoo shop, where she started her apprenticeship, and in her observation, white-owned parlors rarely hire anyone who isn’t also white. She sees this as a problem perpetuated by the education system for tattooers: if an artist does their apprenticeship in a predominantly white studio that doesn’t frequently tattoo clients with darker skin tones, that apprentice simply won’t have that experience.

“Tattooing Black skin needs to be something that everyone learns,” she says. “It is strange to me knowing that some people have completed apprenticeships that never even touched on it.”

Layne also says, as an artist, you must acknowledge the content you are tattooing. American traditional was surely born in the West as the name suggests, an “American tradition,” though it often displays racist imagery: Native people wearing religious headdresses, shrunken heads, and clown imagery used to mock Black folks, as a few examples.

“I think sharing cultures is positive … but when people are tattooing designs or elements from other cultures, it’s important to know what you’re tattooing and do it justice, especially when it’s not yours.” She adds that it’s important not to whitewash other cultures or make sure a person getting tattooed is intentional about their work, not just getting it because it’s “cute” or an aesthetic, recognizing some designs are so sacred to other cultures that they may not want people tattooing certain designs without permission or initiation.

Jar, a Dominican American tattoo artist, tells Allure, “I used to tattoo anything on anyone, but as an artist, and a queer POC, it’s my responsibility to protect the community and stop spreading (appropriation).” Instead, she now asks people about the pieces and what it means to them, as a conscious effort to avoid creating appropriative content. She says it’s partially an artist’s responsibility, not just the person pursuing the modification.

Japanese traditional tattoos are also culturally significant tattoos that have gained wider popularity, notably larger projects like the full-body munewari, historically meant to show commitment to both the tattooer and the person receiving the artwork.

Horitomo—a tattoo artist at State of Grace in San Jose, CA specializing in Japanese tattoo—tells Art & Object that people all over the world getting and doing Japanese-style tattooing is, “a great thing. It keeps the art alive and evolving.”

State of Grace Owner Taki Kitamura says the art of Japanese tattoos has been appreciated worldwide for centuries and, “It all comes down to respect. Japanese tattooers have always tattooed non-Japanese … I would hope that those who acquire and apply Japanese tattoos do so in a respectful manner and pay attention to what these images symbolize … when tattooed with respect, I think Japanese tattooing is a wonderful way to share and appreciate Japanese culture.”

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This handful of voices is a miniscule fraction of the many cultural perspectives on this topic and by no means constitutes the beliefs and opinions of all people in these communities.

I hope this column inspires those passionate about body modification to consider the history, the perspectives of cultures who have historically practiced it, and how we can work toward being inclusive, respectful, and all-encompassing in these and other conversations.