I am so much cooler in Bolivia.

“Really, I am!” I want to shout at people I meet here in DC.

I suppose it’s a matter of social positioning, and I can’t really help it. Here I am a grad student and adjunct professor. I either stay in sweat pants all day or try to fight my younger-than-I-actually-am appearance by trying to dress like an academic. I hate when librarians ask me if I’m looking at information for a class paper. But in La Paz, I am one of the cool kids. I wear vintage, rockabilly dresses or ripped jeans and t shirts given to me by tattoo artist friends. I’m a live music junkie, a tattoo shop groupie, booze-slinging benefactor, restaurant aficionada, mural-painting sidekick, dj enthusiast, and a legitimate luchadora who rarely pays for a drink.

I wrote in May that I’m famous in La Paz (only half-jokingly), and its (half-jokingly) true. La Paz has the feeling of a small town, and if I don’t know everyone, I at least know someone who knows them. DC is small too, but rather than being comforting, its almost oppressive. When I left here in April 2011, I had good friends and a comfortable repertoire. I return to a place that feels empty. Most of my friends have left (such is life in such a transient city). With others I have grown apart. Evenings feel empty here as I crave distraction, camaraderie, excitement.

I came back in a depressed state, and googled “post-fieldwork depression.” Most of what turned up was written by people who disliked their field site and were depressed in the field. I felt the opposite. I longed to return to my friends, my usual days of training, reading, writing, visiting friends workplaces or homes, nice dinners served by my favorite Belgian, and the free tequila shots that went along with it. I missed the guessing games of who I’d run into on the street (there was always someone, but you never know who). Slowly it gets better. Easier. I instinctively put paper in the toilet, and don’t turn my nose at tap water. I wait patiently at bus stops, and thoroughly appreciate my electric heater. But I’d happily give it all up, even knowing there are horrific electric showers waiting for me on the other side.

But this is how it happens. We re-integrate ourselves to the best of our abilities. We find the little things that make us happy (hot water in sinks) and try to forget the things that were so magical about our other home (evening light on Illimani). And at the very least, I’ve found a bartender here who hooks me up as well as I was taken care of in LPZ.

After three hours of anticipation, one and a half hours of preparation, and a mere minute of actual tattooing, I was permanently marked.

Alé drove me back to Olivers for a drink, and Mike, the American bartender was the first to ask to see it. 

"That's it? You were gone for 3 hours and that's all you got?"

Two days later, when I showed Hugo, he was offended. "I drew you a beautiful design, and instead you got a line?" He laughed and brushed me off.

When I arrived in Lima, Amanda asked about it. "Who did it? Well, its only a line. I guess it doesn't really matter."

Even upon returning to my hometown, my father's best friend asked to see it. "That's it? Why not more? If you're going to do it, you've gotta do it."

But Alé's words ring in my head. "No es para nadie. Es para ti." And I love it. Even after the countless hours I had spent hanging out at Tito's over the last year, I learned a lot about tattooing that night. And even though, perhaps "its only a line...it doesn't really matter" who the artist was, I'm confident (politics or none) that I chose the right person to do it. Someone I trusted, someone who cared enough to make sure it was exactly what I wanted, and someone who in the three weeks since has asked countless times how it is, if its healed, how the color is fading, and if I like it. Maybe I'm just gloating, but now I can't imagine getting a tattoo from a stranger. There's just something too impersonal about that.  

We set an appointment for 8pm on Thursday, but by 8:45 when I still hadn't heard from him, I called to find out what had happened. He was still working on someone else's and said he'd call when he was finished. I was getting nervous, so I went to Oliver's, the bar below my apartment to distract myself. When I hadn't heard from him two hours later, I was convinced I'd leave still a "sin." But around 11pm, Alé walked through my door and escorted me to his car waiting down stairs. We drove to his house, stopping for salchipapas on the way, and arrived around 11:30. We ate, he looked for a foto with the right angle of Illimani, and we talked about US politics. He found a foto, and traced it. He cut it out, and used transfer paper to put it on my wrist. He didn't like it, so used some lotion to rub it off. He printed another foto and traced it, again putting it on my left writs. But he didn't like it as a simple line, so using a pen he added a snowcap and shading. But he still didn't like it and set about searching for yet another foto to use. Again, he traced just the line of the peaks, as originally planned, and transferred it to my right wrist for comparison with the more elaborate version.  

"Como te parece?" [What do you think?] he asked. "Si, esta bien." [Yeah, its good] I replied. And then he was frustrated. The truth was, I was frustrated as it neared 12:30 am and we were still messing around with drawing lines. But I didn't say that. Instead he said, "Es para toda la vida. Tienes que estar segura." [This is for life. You have to be sure.] And he was right. "Es para ti. No es para mi. No es para nadie. Es para ti." And suddenly I realized he really cared. He had told me earlier it was a birthday gift and I couldn't pay him for it, but it was that moment that I realized this wasn't just about him doing one more tattoo. This wasn't a chance to practice. This wasn't a debt that needed to be paid or even gift that needed to be given. This was an opportunity to give me something that we both cared about. And my attitude shifted. I mean hell, it wasn't like I really had anything to do Friday morning anyway.

He said he needed to go upstairs to his apartment, and told me he would leave me alone to ponder which of the two Illimani drawings I wanted. It took me a minute, but I quickly decided the simple line was what I had imagined for months. So when he returned I raised my right arm up, as if asking to be called on by a teacher, and he grabbed the lotion to take the more detailed drawing off.

The old drawing erased, he transferred the line to my wrist yet again, and we inspected it to make sure it was straight. But of course, he decided it was too low and transferred it to his wrist, higher up, for comparison. But his wrist had far fewer fold lines in it than mine, so the comparison was difficult. But after much squinting, we decided mine should be moved up, so more lotion, more erasure, more transferring, and more scrutinizing for perfection. And then we were ready.

"Te gusta?"
"Si, mucho."
"Segura?"
"Si!"
"Esta perfecto?"
"Si. Esta perfecto."
"Ok, me dijiste tres veces. Te creo."

So he covered the arm rest with plastic, and slid two stools over by his tall, bright light. He cleaned and disinfected as I started realizing I was really going through with this.

"You know, its funny" I told him. "I remember in high school, eating dinner at the house of my boyfriend with his parents and discussing tattoos for some reason. I said I would never get one because I didn't like them. But, well, look at me now..."

"Why did you change your mind?"

I had to think about how to explain in Spanish. "Well, its like a scar. I like scars because you see them and you have to remember the circumstances in which you hurt yourself. You look at it and suddenly this memory comes back. And for me, I want to remember Bolivia. I think I've changed a lot here and grown, and had incredible experiences. And I never want to forget that. I want to look down at my wrist and remember."

And then I scooted my stool over and placed my wrist on the plastic covered leather. 

"Lista?"
"No, pero nunca voy a estar lista. Tienes que empezar."

And then, at approximately 1am, the buzzing started. And he gently touched down and did a short stroke.

"Esta bien? Estas bien?"
"Si. Todo bien."

Seventy five seconds later he was done. 

So, a few days before I left La Paz, I got a tattoo. I suppose it was a long time coming. Quite a few of my tatuador friends had offered free services over the last year and a half, and in the end, as Juaquin told me, I just couldn't leave the country without some ink. So, in the parlance of tattoo culture in La Paz, I become one of the "con."  

It was not a decision I made lightly, but one I had been thinking about since my sister visited in June. She wanted to add to her growing collection of inked art, but in the end we ran out of time. However, this set me thinking about if I might want something, what I might want, where I might put it, and who might be my artist.

Since I arrived in La Paz the first time in 2009, I have had a bit of a love affair with Illimani, the beautiful mountain that towers over La Paz. In fact, his picture has graced a number of blog entries here. Some of my favorite places in the city have a view of the mountain, and I always feel lucky when I'm allowed to be alone while viewing him. Its something of a centering mechanism. When I'm frustrated, confused, troubled, or even relieved or happy, it always feels better to stare at Illimani, meditatively. And on cloudy days, when the view's obstructed or he just appears to be another fluffy cloud in a blue sky, I'm a bit disappointed.   

And so, my desire to be able to see Illimani at all times--even when its cloudy, even when I'm far away--made it the perfect choice. And my wrist seemed like the perfect place. Easy to see whenever I want. More visible to me than others. But easily covered by the watch that I go crazy without.  

But the question of who was possibly the most difficult. And obvious choice would be Edwin, owner of Tito's. But then there was Andres who had become my best friend in the last few months. And Hugo had drawn up possible tattoos for me before, unsolicited. Both Diego and Caro had run off to Argentina to tattoo there for a stint, so they were out, and Gonz was in an argument with Edwin and had left the shop. Everyone told me to go with the best artist, but I knew it was only a line. And I knew the politics would catch up with me. So, I went with the underdog, my old friend Alé who had just set up a studio on the floor beneath his apartment. I hesitated for a number of reasons, but I knew in the end my loyalty lied with him. 

So the Tito’s guys walk into the bar in their certain affected ways, dripping with meaning. But they are not naked fusions of heads and limbs. They are not just bodies. They are bodies that are covered in various ways.

Gonz wears a black Pantera shirt over a black turtleneck. He has long, thick wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail. He has two lip piercings (of the sort I’ve heard my sister call “snakebites”), along with a few silver hoops in his ears.

Alé often wears an Ed Hardy shirt with a tiger on it that he told me he bought at the El Alto market one Sunday. He wears baggy light colored jeans and black Adidas shoes that often have the laces untied. His dark brown leather jacket has a sweatshirt hood poking out the collar. He shaves his head to the second lowest setting once a week. He has small black flesh plug earrings, and his right hand has a tattoo in black and red of a rotary tattoo machine that says “calibración.”

Edwin, the owner, in many ways looks the least menacing of them all. His medium sized flesh tunnel earrings are the most obvious visible nod to his career. He wears glasses that hover in the space between hipster and dorky. The night that Gonz surprised me with his energy, Edwin wore a white tshirt with the DC skateboarding logo on it. After 2 beers, he lifted it up to reveal the tattoo of a classic 1950s auto. He said, “and it’s a transformer!” I was puzzled. Then I started laughing hysterically as he puffed out the stomach and it resembled more of a VW bug than a long lean car.

Diego, I always picture in his “Johnny Walked” shirt—with the Johnny Walker logo, only in a wheelchair. He has black spiky hair and fairly large flesh tunnel earrings. He almost always wears ray ban sunglasses outdoors. He has a goatee and tattoos peak out of his shirt on his neck and his arms.

Their bodies, in some ways more than others,’ are obviously constructed. The piercings (many of which take time to stretch) and tattoos are visibly “unnatural.” But though the specifics might differ, their bodies are constructed through the same processes as everyone else’s. Donald Lowe (2005) lists, among other things, that processes of bodily construction include the work we do, the commodities we consume, and the politics of gender and sexuality to which we ascribe or aspire. In other words, these bodies (all bodies) flexibly accumulate markers through consumption, production, and identity practices.

What they have accumulated, among other things, is the ability to perform as authentic tattoo artists. Much has been written on the ways that both dress (Adkins and Lury 1999, Atluri 2009, Halberstam 1998), and purchase of goods (Mort 1995, 1998, Tomlinson 1990) work to perform authenticity of identity. Because they rely on social scripts (the ones that tell us not to trust a barber with a bad haircut or a tattoo artist with no tattoos), over time these symbols congeal to produce appearance of naturalness (Butler 1999:44). (Well, of course my tattoo artist wears a leather jacket. What would you expect? A tweed sport coat?)

As Bucholtz and Hall explain, authenticity (or as they say, “authentication,” to emphasize its active and processual nature) is about realness in contrast to artifice. Certain accumulations (clothing, tattoos and piercings for the Tito’s guys, or boyfriends from Travestis in India) provide validation for identities (2005:500).

Often authentication of identity is achieved through connection to valued symbols (Bucholtz and Hall 2005:500). But as Lowe writes, “All body practices [production practices, consumption practices, social reproduction practices, practices of sexuality and gender construction, and practices of psychopathology] have become commodified to such an extent, that the satisfaction of our diverse bodily needs is reconfigured by the requirements of flexible accumulation" (1995). Thus the “valued symbols” of today are often connected to certain brand names: Ed Hardy, DC, Pantera (yes I, along with other more respectable figures, argue bands at times may constitute a brand in and of itself).

Through juxtaposed images and signs, advertising connects product characteristics with prevailing social and cultural values. As a result, we no longer consume commodities to satisfy relatively stable and specific needs, but to reconstruct ourselves in terms of the lifestyle associated with the consumption of certain commodities.

Much like the travelers at the Ekko bar, the tattooists flexibly accumulate symbols of their identities: t shirts that reference “alternative” subcultures related to music or skateboarding, piercings of various sizes, visible tattoos, and bodily comportment that indexes an atagonistic attitude toward the world (authority?). And like the tourists, this accumulation, though it relies on certain forms of consumption, is not simply about buying specific products, but includes the accumulation of non-commodified symbols. Alé’s image of the tattoo machine on his hand is a clear example. Even his Ed Hardy tshirt, which likely cost less than 5Bs (75 cents) in El Alto is a product that is purchased, but is important for its social capital rather than its economic worth. 

However, as Carolan (2005) argues, in this new era of conspicuous consumption, surrounding oneself with "nice things" is insufficient … rather we are striving to become the 'Nice thing" itself, to literally embody our consumption. He suggests this is visible in the ways bodies are dressed, fed, comported, and even their apparent "health.” The outward appearance of one's body is considered to be a window to one's inner worthiness. Thus we arrive back at the body, a vehicle for brands and symbols. Litterally punctured. Literally written upon. And yet, perhaps it is the (somewhat) irreversible nature of these two latter processes that provides the sense of authenticity. A gate can be altered. A shirt can be changed. I know that Alé has a suit hanging in his closet. But that “calibración” on his hand is still going to be visible. And is still going to reference a very specific identity. 

Adkins, Lisa and Celia Lury
1999  The Labour of Identity: Performing Identities, Performing Economies. Economy and Society 28(4):598-614.

Atluri, Tara
2009  Lighten Up?! Humour, Race, and Da Off Colour Joke of Ali G. Media, Culture, & Society 31(2):197-214

Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall
2005 Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach. Discourse Studies 7(4-5):585-614.

Butler, Judith
1999 Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.

Carolan, Michael S.
2005 The Conspicuous Body: Capitalism, Consumerism, Class and Consumption. Worldviews 9(1):82-111.

Halberstam, Judith
1998  Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Lowe, Donald M.
1995 The Body in Late-Capitalist USA. Durham: Duke University Press.

Mort, Frank
1998  Cityscapes: Consumption, Masculinities and the Mapping of London since 1950. Urban Studies 35(5-6):889-907.
1995  Archaeologies of City Life: Commerical Culture, Masculinity, and Spatial Relations in 1980s London. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13:573-590.

Tomlinson, Alan
1990  Consumption, Identity, and Style: Marketing, Meanings, and the Packaging of Pleasure. New York: Routledge.

Last Thursday, I found myself in the Ekko bar, when Gonz, Luis, and Edwin from Tito’s Tattoos sauntered in. They stayed near the door, and there was part of me that wanted to go talk to them, but I didn’t want to appear to be some sort of groupie or something. They were on the couches in the vestibule, and I was just past the inner doorway by the bar. I played coy for a while, hoping they’d see me, but eventually when they wandered closer to replace their Paceña bottles with fresh ones, I tapped Gonz on the shoulder.

I expected a very cool, reserved response, but he actually got quite excited to see me. When I touched his shoulder, he slowly turned my direction, but upon recognizing me gave a little skip-like hop in my direction and gave me a hug.

This reaction surprised me. I expected something more reserved. More cool, calm, and collected. More “oh, I’m a cool tattoo dude, and you’re some gringa I’ve met twice before so I’ll say ‘hola’ and kiss you on the cheek, but no need to dwell.” But instead I got what felt like a genuinely excited reception. And I think the reason I expected something different, lies in the corporeality I’ve come to associated with the Tito’s guys.

Primarily meaning, Alé’s embodiment. He is calm and collected. Too cool, in many ways. Quiet, but brooding. He stands calmly, as if his feet are fastened to the floor and his chest is magnetized to the sky. His shoulders are back and down, as if he could wipe his hands across his chest and it would seem natural. He is slow and sustained. And a bit strained. He pulls his head back a little. He is tired. He is bored.

Edwin, the owner of Tito’s, is slow too. The way “cuando llegaste?” pulled out of his mouth the first time we saw each other this January, made an impression on me. Like taffy. Sweet and slow. But never overly enthusiastic. 

Diego, my first friend from Tito’s, is slow too, though with flourishes like Gonz, at times (though mostly out of anger). But he is heavy and tied to the ground. Diego, Edwin, & Alé all have a certain slowness. A liquidity. A gravity.

And Gonz in some ways is their opposite. He is jumpy, easily excited. He smiles wide and wags his hands. He moves his head forward when he listens. He has a weight to him. It is not as if he will float away at any moment. But one has the feeling that he could jump without warning, and land sloppily but with ease.

So all of this got the cogs in my brain turning, thinking about bodily movement. Marcel Mauss—perhaps the father of anthropological thought on embodied movement—suggested there is no "natural" way to walk, but only socially mediated and transmitted forms of moving. He called these learned forms of movement the "techniques of the body"-stances, postures, physical habits of body use that are acquired like language and that are equally communicative (1973). Patterns of action “do not just vary with individuals and their imitations, because “they vary especially between societies, educations, proprieties, and fashions, prestiges.” (1979:101). Bodily movement is learned. At times children are explicitly instructed in etiquette or manners, other times it is less explicit (but just as important). Indeed, from Goffman’s “Presentation of the Self” (1959) to Butler’s “performative repetition” (1999), one does not need to look hard to sociological explorations of the ways that bodily movement is not only learned but made to represent aspects of personhood, identity, or social position.

Perhaps one doesn’t need to theorize all this. Perhaps we all understand that the way one moves in the world says something about the person. She who walks with her head held high and a swagger in her step announces her confidence (and so much more), and we all understand. But I take time here to explain, because sometimes it is so seemingly natural that we barely notice. As Bourdieu explains: “When habitus encounters a social world of which it is the product, it finds itself ‘as fish in water’; it does not feel the weight of the water and takes the world about itself for granted” (in Wacquant 2004:43).

But as much as movement may seem natural, both the actor and the observer organize moves into meaningful action. I see the gravity and liquidity of most of the Tito’s guys and I interpret it as gestures toward “badass,” “too cool,” and “aloof.” In my head I hear Snoop Dog playing...

I cannot speak to what their motivations are (consciously constructed or subconsciously created), but David Best writes "One cannot specify an action, as opposed to a purely physical movement, without taking into account what the agent intended, that is there are reasons for, and purposes to, actions" (Best 1974:193). To put it in terms of Clifford Geertz’s interpretive anthropology, we must “sort winks from twitches and real winks from mimicked ones” (1973:16). That is to say, what I know or learn from their actions is not just about looking at physical movement, but includes understanding action in context (Best 1978:79). To understand body movement as socially relevant, its not just about “muscles, bones, and angles of displacement, locomotor patterns, or positional behaviors” (Prost 1996). Its about Bolivian chicos in their twenties, who for various reasons make a living as tattoo artists, entering a gringo bar. Their swagger is laden with the politics of language (they speak Spanish in an English speaking place in a Spanish speaking country). Their speaking patterns are influenced by cosmopolitanism and globalization of travel. It is about globalization of imagery and pop culture. It is about the fact that the sign outside the shop says “Tito’s Tattoos and Piercing,” not “Tito’s Tatuaje y Perforación.” It is about a performance of gender that is utterly globalized in ways that are far from uni-directional. No, it is about performances of gender that range from Megadeath tshirts to VW bugs. And it is about sexuality. It is very very much about sexuality.   

And as these factors mold the body, the body molds the person is as well. Our bodies are intimately implicated in our identities. Our race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age, religious afiliation, political stances, and whatever else, may be written upon the body, but also mutually constitute the body as well. As Mauss wrote, the body is simultaneously the object upon which culture works, as well as the tool with which that work is achieved (1973).

So then, this all begs the question…do the Tito’s guys conceive tattooing as a mental creative process or as a physical skill? Most likely it’s a combination, but what is privileged? What is heightened and what is obscured? Which is the attractive part? And what does that tell us about embodiment?

Best, David
1974  Expression in Movement and the Arts. Lepus Books, London.

Butler, Judith
1999  Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.

Geertz, Clifford
1973  Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.    

Goffman, Erving
1959  The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: Prentice Hall.

Mauss, Marcel
1979  Sociology and Psychology: Essays. Ben Brewster, trans. Boston, MA: Routledge 1973  Techniques of the Body. Economy and Society 22(1):70-88.

Prost, J.H.
1996  Review Essay: Body Language in the Context of Culture. Visual Anthropology 8(2-4):337-43.

Wacquant, Loïc
2004 Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. New York: Oxford University Press.