Permanent Souvenirs: Traditional Tattoos and the Search for Authenticity in the Northern Philippines
ISBN: 978-1-80117-937-9, eISBN: 978-1-80117-936-2
Publication date: 21 November 2022
Abstract
The authors discuss the case of Whang-od, a renowned and revered tattooist in the Philippines, whose skill with batok (traditional tattoos) has generated worldwide attention. While batok was originally designed for a warrior class to signify their power and elite status, it has been transformed into a commodity for national and global audiences and promoted via social media. Utilizing participation observation of, and interviews with, visitors to the village where Whang-od lives, the authors show how this form of “ethnic tourism” is built around the status of batok as an authentic practice that influences both the ways that locals present, and tourists, try to consume, the culture of the village.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We benefitted immensely from the local support and collaboration of Analyn “Ikin” Salvador-Amores, a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of the Philippines in Baguio whose area of specialization focuses on the northern Philippines in general and the Kalinga as a specific area of study. Her work on traditional Kalinga tattooing is not only comprehensive and significant, but it also breaks new ground in the study of Philippine indigenous culture. Having dedicated more than two decades of rigorous fieldwork among the different ethno-linguistic groups in northern Luzon, she is the world’s leading authority on traditional Kalinga tattoos and the one who introduced Pack to this area of inquiry.
Citation
Pack, S. and Sun, J. (2022), "Permanent Souvenirs: Traditional Tattoos and the Search for Authenticity in the Northern Philippines", Heřmanová, M., Skey, M. and Thurnell-Read, T. (Ed.) Cultures of Authenticity, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 63-76. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-936-220221005
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023 Sam Pack and Justin Sun