The Remembering Skin

A tattoo is visible. Much of what it means is not.

The Remembering Skin begins with my interest in that difference. An image can remain on a body through changes in relationships, belief and circumstance. The person carrying it may return to it often, rarely notice it, reinterpret it, or decide that it no longer says what it once did. Permanence of ink does not settle permanence of meaning.

I wanted to examine whether an image worn on the body might help call a memory, commitment or sense of belonging back into awareness. That is a question to investigate carefully. It is not permission to decide what another person's tattoo reveals about their character, history or psychological health.

This academic edition brings several kinds of scholarship into conversation. Direct research on tattoos has a different standing from a theory drawn from memory research or an analogy with hypnosis. I have tried to keep those distinctions visible, especially where an attractive explanation reaches beyond the available evidence.

Cultural meanings require particular care. A mark that appears to an outsider to be an individual choice may belong to relationships, traditions and responsibilities the outsider does not understand. Curiosity becomes more useful when it includes a willingness to ask, listen and accept that some knowledge is not ours to claim.

I hope the book encourages a more thoughtful conversation about the images people carry. The argument begins with attention to those images, but it must keep returning to the person whose skin we are looking at.

Stuart Corlett