Sociology of the body as an area of study has been concerned with many social aspects of the body. Foucault’s body-politic led us to understand the relation between the individual body and the many political aspects of the society. This paper similarly deals with the relationship between power and the body in an indigenous community. Taking the case of facial tattoos among the Apatanis, we have looked at the body as a socio-political space where power is contested and colonial relations of domination are prominently played out. The study is based on ethnographic methods of data collection, including in-depth personal interviews, participant observation, and focused group discussion. The paper found that several factors like what constitute “modernity,” and how the youth want to represent themselves, played an essential role in how the community’s identity and body is shaped.
AdelmanM.RuggiL.2015. “The Sociology of the Body.” Current Sociology64(6):907–30.
2.
AltabeM.ThompsonJ. K.1996. “Body Image: A Cognitive Self-schema Construct?” Cognitive Therapy and Research20(2):171–93.
3.
AndersonC.2004. Legible Bodies: Race, Criminality and Colonialism in South Asia. Oxford, England: Berg.
4.
AppaduraiA.1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Vol. 1. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
5.
AtkinsD.1998. Looking Queer: Body Image and Identity in Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender Communities. Binghampton, NY: Haworth.
6.
BaruahS.2008. “Territoriality, Indigeneity and Rights in the North-east India.” Economic and Political Weekly43(12/13):15–19.
7.
BaumanZ.2005. Liquid Life. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
8.
BesleyT. A.PetersM. A.2007. “Space and the Body Politic.” Pp. 71–84 in Subjectivity and Truth: Foucault, Education, and the Culture of Self, edited by PetersM.BesleyT.New York: Counterpoint.
9.
BordoS.2000. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
10.
BoricD.RobbJ.2008. Past Bodies: Body-centered Research in Archaeology. Oxford, England: Oxbow Books.
11.
BrookB.1999. Feminist Perspectives on the Body. New York: Longman.
12.
BrownN. E.GershonS. A.2020. Body Politics. New York: Routledge.
13.
BurtR.1995. The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle, Sexualities. New York: Routledge.
14.
CaplanJ.2000. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History. London, England: Princeton University Press.
15.
CashT. F.1990. “The Psychology of Physical Appearance: Aesthetics, Attributes, and Images.” Pp. 51–79 in Body Images: Development, Deviance, and Change, edited by CashT. F.PruzinskyT.London, England: Guilford Press.
16.
ClastresP.1989. Society against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology. Translated by RobertHurley. New York: Zone Books.
17.
CohenD.LeungA.2009. “The Hard Embodiment of Culture.” European Journal of Social Psychology39(7):1278–89.
18.
ColeC. L.1993. “Resisting the Canon: Feminist Cultural Studies, Sport, and Technologies of the Body.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues17(2):77–97.
19.
ConradP.BarkerK.2010. “The Social Construction of Illness: Key Insights and Policy Implications.” Journal of Health and Social Behaviour51(1):67–79.
20.
CrossleyN.2001. The Social Body: Habit, Identity and Desire. London, England: Sage Publications.
21.
DemarestJ.AllenR.2000. “Body Image: Gender, Ethnic, and Age Differences.” The Journal of Social Psychology140(4):465–72.
22.
DeMelloM.1993. “The Convict Body: Tattooing among Male American Prisoners.” Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland9(6):10–13.
23.
EvansJ.DaviesB.2004. “Sociology, the Body and Health in a Risk Society.” Pp. 35–51 in Body Knowledge and Control, edited by EvansJ.DaviesB.WrightJ.Routledge.
24.
FanonF.1952. “The Fact of Blackness.” Postcolonial Studies: An Anthology15(32):2–40.
25.
Fausto-SterlingA.2000. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
FeatherstoneM.2000. Body Modification. London, England: Sage.
28.
FisherJ. A.2002. “Tattooing the Body, Marking Culture.” Body & Society8(4):91–107.
29.
FoucaultM.1986. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics16(1):22–27.
30.
HarcourtW. 2022. “Body Politics.” Pp. 109–23 in Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations, edited by ShepherdL. J.HamiltonC.London, England: Routledge.
31.
HargreavesJ.VertinskyP.2007. Physical Culture, Power, and the Body. London, England: Routledge.
32.
JoyceR. A.2005. “Archaeology of the Body.” Annual Review of Anthropology34:139–58.
33.
KaniT.1993. The Advancing Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh. Guwahati, India: Purbadesh Mudran.
34.
KaniT.2008. The Apatanis: In the Days of British 1828 to 1948: Tour Diaries and Reports of the Visitors on the Apatanis. Guwahati, India: Purbadesh Mudran.
35.
KaniT.2012. The Heritage of Hong Village. Itanagar, India: Frontier Printers and Publishers.
36.
KaniT. (ed.). 2015. Discovery of Subansiri Valley: A Tour Notes of Professor C.V.F. Haimendorf, 1944-1945. Itanagar, India: Frontier Printers and Publishers.
37.
KaningM.2008. The Rising Culture of the Apatanis. Itanagar, India: Himalayan Publishers.
38.
KaningM.2011. Spiritual Inquiry System of the Apatanis (Arunachal Pradesh). Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh: Tage Talyang Associates.
39.
KarlssonB. G.2003. “Anthropology and the ‘Indigenous Slot’ Claims to and Debates about Indigenous Peoples’ Status in India.” Critique of Anthropology23(4):403–23.
40.
KellyM. P.FieldD.1996. “Medical Sociology, Chronic Illness and the Body.” Sociology of Health and Illness18(2):241–57.
41.
KrutakL.2015. “The Cultural Heritage of Tattooing: A Brief History.” Pp. 1–5 in Tattooed Skin and Health: Current Problems in Dermatology, edited by SerupJ.KlugerN.KargerW.Basel, Switzerland: Kruger.
42.
LacquerT.1992. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
43.
LefebvreH.1991. “The Production of Space.” Pp. 323–27 in The People, Place, and Space Reader, Edited by GiesekingJ. J.MangoldW.KatzC.LowS.SaegertS.London, England: Routledge.
44.
LevyJ.SewellM.GoldsteinN.1979. “A Short History of Tattooing.” The Journal of Dermatologic Surgery and Oncology5(11):851–56.
45.
LongkumerA.2020. The Greater India Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
46.
MeskellL.2016. “Writing the Body in Archaeology.” Pp. 13–22 in Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record, edited by RautmanA.Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
47.
NettletonS.2021. “The Sociology of the Body.” Pp. 103–24 in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology, edited by CockerhamWilliam C.Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
48.
PuwarN.2021. “Carrying as Method: Listening to Bodies as Archives.” Body & Society27(1):3–26.
49.
RanaG.2014. Tani Biidi: Abotanis’ Struggle for Survival (Based on Miji-Migun; Oral Tradition of Apatani). Ziro, India: Dani Kunia Foundation.
50.
RasmussenC.BrownM.2005. “The Body Politic as Spatial Metaphor.” Citizenship Studies9(5):469–84.
51.
SchildkroutE.2004. “Inscribing the Body.” Annual Review of Anthropology33:319–44.
52.
SenT.MallickS.KipgenN.2023a. “Prohibition on Tradition, Tattooing, and the Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh.” Asian Journal of Social Science51(1):54–61.
53.
SenT.MallickS.KipgenN.2023b. “Tattooing, Cultural Change, and the Indigenous Apatanis of Arunachal Pradesh.” Society60(5):761–71.
54.
ShahA.2007. “The Dark Side of Indigeneity? Indigenous People, Rights and Development in India.” History Compass5(6):1806–32.
55.
ShillingC.2004. The Body in Culture, Technology and Society. New York: Sage.
56.
SilberI. F.1995. “Theory, Fields, Boundaries: The Rise of Spatial Metaphors in Contemporary Sociological Theory.” Social Research62(2):323–55.
57.
SynnottA.2002. The Body Social. London, England: Routledge.
