Page - 123 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

The Tattoos of Armenian Genocide Survivors | 123www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 123–143 Ulrike Luise Glum The Tattoos of Armenian Genocide Survivors Inscribing the Female Body as a Practice of Regulation Abstract In the course of the Armenian Genocide (1915–1917), an unknown number of female victims were forcibly tattooed, often on the face. Inscribing them with an alien iden- tity, their captors permanently regulated the women’s bodies in order to assimilate them into their communities. Some women eventually escaped and found shelter in orphanages or women’s houses, but the tattoos remained on their skin, constituting a barrier to their reintegration. These women were stigmatized and shunned, their tattoos seen as a sign of sexual impurity and “transculturation”. The tattoos needed to be removed – and the women’s bodies regulated once again. Approaching tattoos as a means of regulation, this article explores how inscription materializes power dynam- ics in the context of the female body. Keywords Tattoos, Armenian Genocide, Regulation, Sexuality, Conversion Biography Ulrike Luise Glum is a master’s candidate in journalism at Deutsche Journalistenschule and the University of Munich (LMU). She holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in the study of religion and one in political science and economics. Black dots and lines are scattered over L. Bilandjian’s face, marking the tip of her nose, her forehead and cheeks, running down her chin and throat. They appear to be tattoos, but an examination of their origin and significance leads us far away from the contemporary understanding of tattooing, from the “tattoo renaissance”1 that has emerged over the past decades as tattoos have become a common, fashionable practice and a part of popular culture. Bilandjian’s tattoos (see fig. 1) are a record of the horrors she was forced to 1 Caplan 2000, xi. See Velliquette/Murray 1998. DOI: 10.25364/05.7:2021.1.7