INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP

Friday October 30, 2026 at Maison de l’Asie, 22 avenue du Président Wilson, 75016 PARIS and on Zoom.

Tattoos and the various forms of body modification (scarification, deformation, piercing, body painting, branding, and therapeutic or punitive interventions) bear witness to an intimate and enduring relationship between the body and culture. Present since prehistory, as archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence attests, these practices have persisted across time and societies, evolving in response to shifting religious, social, aesthetic and political contexts.

Far from being mere ornaments, tattoos and body modifications have functioned as markers of individual or collective identity, signs of belonging, devices of spiritual protection, expressions vof gender and power, and as instruments of control, stigmatisation or resistance. In contemporary societies, these practices are taking on new forms of reappropriation, oscillatingv between traditional continuities, ruptures, heritagisation and artistic creation.

It is within this diachronic and multidisciplinary perspective that the workshop Body History/Histories: Tattoos and Body Modifications in Asia is situated. It proposes to examine the body as a space of memory, narration and identity negotiation, focusing more particularly on the societies of South Asia, Central Asia and East Asia.

The workshop will cover an extended chronological arc, ranging from prehistory to the contemporary period. It will draw on a variety of sources; archaeological remains, human skeletal material, iconography, ancient texts, ethnographic surveys, living practices and contemporary productions, in order to bring together different perspectives and disciplinary approaches.