Page - 126 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

126 | Ulrike Luise Glum www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 123–143 to constitute a communication system, within which tattoos are carriers of a polysemic meaning, which is transcribed through the interaction between the tattoo and its recipient. It is therefore essential to consider the context of the tattoo, as well as the relationship between the tattoo, the tattooed person, and the tattooer. These relationships are of crucial importance for this article, since here they are governed by violence and coercion.9 In the present context, regulation will be understood as a process of assimilation and exclusion. The use of the term “assimilation”, instead of “inclusion”,10 is intentional here and its meaning is interpreted, following Jutta Aumüller’s reading of Mary Douglas, as being connected to purity (Reinheit) and oblitera- tion (Auslöschung). Aumüller refers to “purity and danger”, whereas Douglas identifies the separating out of the impure, the dirty, as an identity-forming factor. Assimilation is related to the inability to endure difference. It can be understood as a combination of appropriation (Vereinnahmung) and cleans- ing (Säuberung). Coerced tattoos were an appropriation of the enemy’s body. They are an interference in a person’s physicality that is not eliminated, but reshaped at the will of another.11 This process of regulation erases and establishes difference, which is made visible. Hence, tattoos are relevant for symbolic and social boundary forma- tion. By marking social differences connected to unequal access to resources and opportunities, tattoos represent and document an individual’s position within society and may radically transform it.12 As we shift our focus to the tattooed women of the Armenian Genocide, the dialectical process of bounda- ry formation is crucial, since assimilation is always simultaneously accompa- nied by social exclusion. Through the irreversibility of the tattoo, the depriva- tion of freedom assumes an all-encompassing character. The tattoos embody a continuous actualization of their origin – an act of violence – and preserve the tattooed person’s experiences.13 9 Zwicky 2013, 81–83, 90; Zwicky 2014, 260. 10 Following Akçam, Bjørnlund, and Derderian. 11 Aumüller 2009, 41. See Douglas 1966. 12 Grigo 2015, 80; Dahinden/Duemmler/Moret 2011, 227; Häusle-Paulmichl 2018, 20, 37–38; Caplan 2000, xiv. 13 Zwicky 2013, 81–83. Boundary formation is especially relevant in the context of tattoos, since they are inscribed into the self’s most fundamental, physical point of demarcation, namely the skin. In other words, tattoos mark and modify the boundary between self and world. See Häusle-Paulmichl 2018.