Description
There has been much sociological work on community responses to social disasters, shaping a wealth of literature. However, such literature largely downplays the community responses to acts of terrorism, positioning the only valid responses as violent and psychologically long-lasting. Drawing on the Manchester Arena Attack of 22nd May 2017, this presentation critically explores the tattoo as serving a political yet commemorative function following social disasters. Rather than anger and fear being embraced by the Mancunian community, worker bee tattoos were widely adopted as a sign of solidarity in the aftermath both in and around the city of Manchester. I suggest that such affirmative gestures can deconstruct and reconstruct a distinctive politics of response to terrorism and violence, with the worker bee tattoo being a verbally silent yet visibly embodied political stance of both Manchester and terrorism at large. This presentation also prompts sociologists to consider how aesthetic considerations, like tattoo imagery and placement, may affect the degree to which a tattoo is viewed as communicative of a particular collective identity and history. As a whole, this presentation will allude to the idea that embodiment is one way in which individuals can resist the rhetoric of terrorism by drawing on empirical interviews with participants.
