Tattoos and piercings are modern trends in the present time. Society still has prejudice against people who have tatoos because being tattooed was description only applied to offenders in the past. I´ll try to change that point of view about tattooes and people with piercing in my thesis. I´ll concentrate on explaining the concepts of tattos and piercing within a historical context and then I{\crq}ll gradually progress towards understanding these phenomena into their present day forms. Consequently, I´ll explain the concepts of ritual partly from an anthopoloigcal and also partly from a psychological point of view, as well as the currrent meaning for society and how this affects the individual. The most important point of this thesis is to explain if it is possible to comprehend tattooing and piercing as curative behaviour within the present postmodern society. The target of thesis is analyse the motivational factors for tattooing and piercing by identifying and analysing the ritual aspect of today{\crq}s phenomenon of tattooing and piercing, with a point of view towards the absence of ritual within the present postmodern society. I have used the qualitative investigative method with the help of a structured interview with a specific target group and I{\crq}ve also used observation, as a research method. Furthermore, I have used a second type of updated analysis (found in literature). The main target is the composite of a person who is tattooed and pierced; as opposed to the minimum prerequisite for this procedure which are having at least two tattoos or two piercings per individual. The additional file contains information of those tattooed people or by the people who do the piercing. The research questions regard the qualitative character of the development and have been determined based upon the results that are evident for some people that a tattoo symbolizes the kind of personal expression. On the contrary, piercing is largely done just as a fashion statement. Tattooing and piercing are on the rise independently from the escape of an individual life period and it means that they doesn´t pose medical problems. The large significance presents the choice of motives, which are the main factors of the respondents for the further motivation for an additional tattoo or piercing.

My master thesis aims to describe the community of tattooists, who started tattooing after 1989 or whom opened a tattoo studio after the Velvet Revolution. My thesis should help expand the history of tattooing in the Czech Republic and help understand why tattoos are a big phenomena now. One part of the thesis concentrates on the history of tattooing in different historical eras around the world. The next part focuses on how tattooing was forbidden during the communist era and people saw at as taboo. As relevant literature in this topic is missing, the primary sources used are oral historical interviews. The interviews focus on tattooing and the carrier of tattooists, but will mentioned also the private life of the recipients of tattoos. The main topic of the thesis is the emergence of tattoo studios in the Czech republic, its' importance to the people receiving tattoos and the impact on the personal and social life of the interviewees.

This master thesis focuses on body modifications, mainly tattooing. The aim is to present the tattooing in a broader context and show its link to many aspects of people's lives that was evident especially in traditional tribal societies before the colonization era. The attention is paid to the Maori culture and the Marquesas Islands because their tattoos used to have high art value and formed the inseparable part of the inhabitants' lives. At the same time it describes the up-to-date situation in the western culture, where the body modification is very popular. It also mentions the current tattoo projects happening in the Czech Republic. Information are taken from several books available in Czech, especially the work written by Martin Rychlík "Tetování, skarifikace a jiné zdobení těla" and many electronic books in English. Information about the tattoo and body art news comes from the websites where the interested people meet and write their observations and articles about the present events. The conclusion shows that body modifications and body adornments are as old as a mankind. They appear in all cultures and do not have only the aesthetic function. They are the important source of information about social position, family relation, wealth, past experience, etc. Tattoos and the other body...

DIZERTAČNÍ PRÁCE Mgr. Markéta Bauerová Ústav etnologie (původně Katedra teorie kultury) FF UK Obor: Obecná teorie a dějiny umění a kultury kombinované doktorské studium školitel: Doc.PhDr. Martin Soukup, Ph. D. ANOTACE DIZERTAČNÍ PRÁCE Antropologie umění a tetování lidského těla jako umělecké dílo Tato práce pojednává o umělecké tvorbě, lidské imaginaci a univerzálním, hluboce zakořeněném tvůrčím pudu člověka v kontextu antropologie. Autorka se ve svém výzkumu zaměřila na fenomén tetování lidského těla, jeho historii, současnost, sociologický a estetický rozměr. Výzkum se snaží prokázat, že umělecké tetování má potenciál stát se právoplatným uměleckým oborem. Anthropology of art and human body tattoos as an artwork This work deals with the artistic creation, the human imagination and universal, deeply rooted creative instinct of man in the context of anthropology. The author in her research focused on the tattoo phenomenon, its history, present, sociological and aesthetic dimension. The research seeks to demonstrate that artistic tattoo has a potential to become a recognized art discipline.

The diploma thesis "Body art - the functional and symbolic meanings of tatoo and piercing" focuses on body modifications that are used as body art and which have become fashionable as a cultural and social phenomenon in the contemporary society. First part of the thesis introduces a basic theoretical framework and sets the subject into the context, which the author presents in such a way that even a laic can benefit from the paper. Theoretical part defines the terms and introduces first archeological findings connected with this cultural phenomenon. Further on the paper introduces examples of body art from selected traditional cultures and describes the way, which this phenomenon undertook to the contemporary western society. At the end of the theoretical part categories of functional and symbolic meaning, which the body art can acquire, are introduced. Second part presents qualitative research that focuses on functional and symbolic meanings, that the body art in contemporary society acquires. Statements of twenty-two people who talk about their body art can be found here. At the end of the paper you will find out which functional and symbolic meanings of body art are the same among the contemporary society and the primitve one, how do they differ or which functional and symbolic meanings have vanised...

The thesis deals with the theme "Modern tribal tattoo" - description of that theme and subsequent performance of the tattoo.

The aim of my diploma thesis is to give an insight into the social reality of lightly tattooed people as well as those, who are just considering tattoo. Of people, for whom is tattoo neither a lifestyle nor only the fashion trend that recently penetrating into the mainstream culture. Presenting attitudes and opinions of these tattooed and potentially tattooed people the thesis tries to elucidate, what does it mean for them to be tattooed, if there are any concrete values and meanings connected with tattoo, how tattooed understand and reflect a possibility of conflict with the social norms and if the risk of this conflict somehow influences the decision of getting a tattoo. Main current approaches to the phenomenon of tattoo, historical development and changes of its situation in western culture are introduced in the theoretical part. The empirical part then draws on data acquired from semi-structured interviews with tattooed and potentially tattooed living in Czech Republic.

The goal of this thesis is to conduct qualitative research aimed at psychological aspects of tattoos in the form of ethnographic study. The research follows a relationship between an individual and his tattoos with the main topics being a motivation for getting a tattoo, meaning of the tattoo for the owner, and the relationship between the artist and his client. Data were gathered using unstructured interviews with an emphasis on building trust between the researcher and the interviewee. The study concludes the motivation can be distinguished into internal and external. The internal motivation represents the benefits tattoos can bring to his owner while the external motivation shows the ways an individual can use the tattoo to send a message to others. As for the owner-tattoo relationship, results show variations in how can one perceive his tattoos and what tattoo could mean for the owner. Some of the respondents viewed their tattoos as just a body decoration, others used them as symbols of their own deeper thoughts and lifestyle. When exploring the artist-client relationship, it has been found out trust and mutual sympathies as well as setting up proper boundaries to keep the relationship on the professional level all seem to play an important role. KEYWORDS tattoo, self-expression, identity,...

The dissertation deals with the issue of physical modifications, especially tattoos, in the environment of Czech male prisons. It is based on ethnographic research conducted between 2013 and 2017 in a total of five Czech men's security prisons. The aim of the thesis is to describe the phenomenon of decorating the body of inmates sentenced to serve prison sentences in Czech male prisons and to present the interpretative and meaningful potential of body treatments, especially tattooing, in relation to the so-called second life of the convicted. As a part of the thesis, the design of ethnographic research in the environment of Czech male prisons, including its limits and pitfalls, is presented, while the specificity of this research field in the field of socio-scientific research is demonstrated. Attention is paid to the issue and importance of body in the prison environment and, in consequence, to body modifications that are used at the prison level to resist against the attempt to discipline convicts' bodies through unified institutional practices. Emphasis is placed primarily on tattooing as the most frequent and the most significant physical modification of the criminal subculture in the Czech prison environment. The final chapter and the pivotal part of this thesis brings the categorization of...

ŠVADLENOVÁ, Jana. The phenomenon of tattoo, body as a socio-cultural and art document. Prague, 2013. Thesis. Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education, Department of Fine Arts. Supervisor PhDr. Jan Šmíd, Ph.D., 126 pages. Thesis "The phenomenon of tattoo, body as a socio-cultural and art document" is about tattoo as not only a form of body decoration, but as a possible theme in arts teaching. The author tried to map the history of this ancient ornamentation, to justify rising interest in it in the present and last but not least, tried to find a way how to present it to elementary school students in a comprehensible way. The thesis includes examples of possible reasons and ways of tattoo, while trying to find a connection to rituals (traditional and modern). The important part is finding options how to include this topic in the arts teaching at elementary schools and how to approximate possible pros and cons of this ornamentation.