The Cultural Significance Of Body Modifications- A Pre-Test

Sydney Smith

University of Missouri, Anthropology 4830: Ethnographic Methods

Course Faculty: Dr. Mary K. Shenk

Introduction

This is report on the cultural significance of body modification for an undergraduate

course on ethnographic methods at the University of Missouri. This research is not a

comprehensive report that claims to understand the significance of body modification practices

within culture due to sampling technique and time limitations. This research would be ideal as a

pre-test for future work on this topic or information that may contribute to how to formulate a

pilot study on the best way to gather information on body modifications.

In this report, I will cover background research on the topic through a text analysis. Then

I will discuss methods used for research, then go over the results from data collection methods

employed. Then I will discuss the qualitative and quantitative results from survey and semi-

structured interviews. This paper concludes with an overall analysis of the results from this

project and a further discussion my experience with methods.

For the purposes of this research, a body modification is any visibly unnatural change

made to the body. This does not include breast/butt implants, or any surgical procedure that is

otherwise undetectable.

After some initial pre-testing in the data, I used grounded theory to make the following

hypotheses:

1. The more body modifications the person acquired, the less meaning the body

modification would have compared to earlier body modifications. The initial body

modification carry more significance and multiple meanings as opposed to later

modifications.

2. Piercings will hold less symbolic meaning and significance will be significant for

purposes of aesthetic appeasement.

3. Body modifications in prominent, non-hidden places will hold more significance to

the individual because they are willing to display modifications and have it open to

social interpretation and dialog.

Background

Because I am a member of the body modification community, I did not do as

much background research as I would have if I were unfamiliar with body modification

practices. The bulk of the background research I needed was because I was unfamiliar with the

methods used in research collection. I gathered this information from the Ethnographic Methods

course from Dr. Mary Shenk in 2015. However I did look at Van Wolputte’s Hang on to Your

Self: Of Bodies, Embodiment, and Selves to examine how other people thought about body

modifications. Van Wolputte’s article for the Annual Review of Anthropology was a review of

all the literature available for the subject of bodies and the meaning of bodies in the last 20 years

before 2004. He touches a bit on his own research in Namibia to correlate examples between the

research and the ideas/articles he discusses on different meanings of the body to elucidate some

of the more abstract meanings. None of the articles he mentions sounded as if they used any

laboratory experiments and the bulk of the author’s information was gained in natural

experiments out in the field while doing ethnographic research. This review was helpful in

pointing me to ways I should look at the body within Western society and how other

anthropologists tried to conceptualize the body. The body can be perceived in symbolic manner,

as a tool of space and time, purely physical, representational… the list goes on. The most

influencing things I found seemed to be related to thinking about the representational use of the

body as a natural symbol with which we think about nature, society and culture (Scheper-Hughes

& Lock 1987).

I also looked at Daniel Rosenblatt’s article based on research from a book called Modern

Primitives that seems to be an ethnographic collection of interviews on body modification done

in 1989. The author also said that he used Arnold Rubin’s (1988) book for a brief history of the

“tattoo renaissance.” Rosenblatt used casual conversation with friends involved in the practice

and attended events at which body modifications were highlighted/ not regulated by social dress

codes.

Rosenblatt’s two aims of the article were to place the activities of these so called

“Modern Primitives” in historical and cultural context and show how they mobilize Western

understandings of the world. He terms the actions of body modifications as a sort of resistance

movement because exploration of the self through primitive behaviors is a threat to the ideal

“non primitive” image that the west has evoked of itself throughout history. The author provides

a framework for the activity of body modification and how people in the west understand the

world through cosmogonic mythology and classical economic theory, as well as their ideals

about self, society and experience. He uses the interviews in the Modern Primitives book because

the way that people talk about their actions and practices are necessary to understand the

meaning behind them.

From the little background research obtained and the course on methods, I understood the

importance of collecting data through interviews, and this helped me plan the initial sampling

method I wanted to use and the type of data collection and analysis I should employ to get the

most from my research topic.

Methods

The next section is a discussion of the methods used in this study and the reasons I used

these methods. I also explain the research design as a whole and explain why this research was

not submitted to the Institutional Review Board. The two methods used were semi-structured

interviews and online surveys. Both of these methods are discussed separately, in detail.

Research Design

By definition (Shenk, 2/115) this research is a natural experiment because I examined

real world changes and opportunities that are differentially experienced or adopted. The real

world change is someone’s choice to modify their body (or not) and I observe the differences in

how people choose to modify and why they choose to modify. I also observe the differences in

how people with and without body modifications perceive different types of modifications.

I conceptualized a body modification as any visibly unnatural physical augmentation to

the body. I operationalized this definition further for maximum comparability. For females, a

body modification did not include single earlobe piercings because I deemed this practice too

common to derive any specific cultural pattern from. For both genders, a body modification did

not include unnatural hair color, tanning or surgical augmentations needed for medical purposes/

that may be perceived as a natural part of the person’s physical makeup. This definition of a

body modification went through six pre-tests by individuals with and without body modifications

through various class assignments. The goal was to include the most people possible under this

definition but still limit what a modification was so that it had some weighted meaning to the

person and in the data. “Significance” simply means the reason behind an individual’s rational

to modify their body and how such modification is perceived by the individual and other

members of the community.

I examined the cultural significance of body modification through qualitative, participant-

driven responses through 20 semi-structured interviews and 64 online surveys. I conducted

surveys on an individual level because this measurement may be aggregated to explain things at

a group/cultural level (Bernard, ch 2). The concept I’m researching is conceptual and cultural, so

the variables measured in this study are mostly on the nominal level, with a few ordinal level

measurements included in the survey through a Likert-Scale. The variables I measure are

nominal because there is no scale from which to quantify a level “significance” of body

modification practices. My variables are exhaustive and mutually exclusive reasons why

someone may have a particular body modification and why this modification is in the place it is.

The following is the list of variables I used and coded for to measure significance of

modifications from the interviews and surveys and their operational definitions:

1. Aesthetic enjoyment/ decoration (AES): anything done purely for aesthetic

purposes. There are no hidden meanings or symbolism behind the body

modification.

2. Bonding Activity (B): The body modification was obtained as part of a bonding

activity or used as means to get close to another individual. The individual

either participated in the body modification act as well, or accompanied the

modification process.

3. Commemorate an Event (EVT): the body modification as a commemoration or

reminder of an event that occurred that is meaningful.

4. Hobbies (HOB): The body modification is a symbol or statement tat represents

something the person practices or is involved in regularly

5. Interests (INT): The body modification is a reflection of the individual’s

personal interests. This may include taste/genre of music, television show…

etc.

6. Personal Statement (P ST): a statement or symbol that represents some aspect

of the individual’s identity or belief

7. Personal Experience (P EX): the body modification is a symbol of an

experience that occurred in this person’s lifetime. This may include rites of

passage.

8. Personal Reminder/Reflection (P REM/P REF): the body modification reminds

the person of a quote or message that is meaningful to the person they are or

seek to be or is a reflection of personal belief.

9. Religious or Spiritual Requirement (REL): The body modification is a

requirement of the person’s religious or spiritual practice.

10. Rite of Passage (ROP): The body modification is a rite of passage necessary for

cultural integration for a particular group. This may be personal and not

standardized ritual within a culture.

11. Social Statement (SOC ST): The body modification is used to say something

about the world or reflects the individual’s beliefs about the world

12. Tribute to the dead or admired individual (T): The body modification serves as

a tribute to an admired individual who is either deceased or living. The person

is/was important to the individual with the body modification.

13. Other (O): Body modification is a symbol or documentation of phenomena that

is not previously listed.

From these variables, I used grounded theory as my main form of analysis because the

variables tested came from personal experiences/ analysis of the experiences of others with body

modifications. I redefined and edited the codes as initial data was collected and were not

permanent until the surveys were publically available. If I were continuing data collection, these

variables would still be continuously edited or reformatted so that they best matched my research

findings. In an ideal research situation, I would have a third party examine my variables and

survey/interview codes because I could be biased toward finding data that is conducive to the

theories I am forming.

Consent

This study classifies as less than minimal risk by the Institutional Review Board and is

qualified for exemption from review because it is a project for a course and risks of participation

do not outweigh possible benefits (Shenk. 2/10/2015). Most of the behavior or character traits I

observed would be observable in a public setting. However, because I did interact with

participants and engaged in interviews, this research probably would not qualify for exemption

because some aspect of the interview may cause minimal emotional discomfort. This may

include touchy topics about the nature of someone’s body image, or a personal experience that is

emotionally charged. In-person, I obtained written consent or oral consent from the majority of

people I spoke with. For the online survey portion, the survey begins with a question that when

indicated, gives consent by agreeing to take the survey. All participants were given the option for

oral consent scripts to retain anonymity, but none of the participants were concerned with their

identity being shared within the classroom setting. All participants were notified of the voluntary

nature of participation in this project and were given the option to opt out at any time in the

process without punishment. All of the participants were of legal and mental capacity to consent

to participation.

The only identifiable information obtained were descriptions of body modifications, such

as specific tattoos and placements of the tattoo. This information was voluntarily obtained, but

poses minimal risk because more than one person could potentially have a similar body

modification and many of these body modifications can be observed in a public setting.

Semi-structured Interviews

I began this project with the intention of employing a combination of purposive-snowball

and quota sampling for semi-structured interviews. I chose these sampling methods because the

nature of my research examines a cultural trend/phenomena and not variation of individual

attributes, for which probabilistic sampling would be used (Bernard, ch5). I also chose this

method because I did not have a reliable sampling frame from which to draw. For example, I

could have used the phone book and cold-called people for their opinions on body modification,

but this would not give me a very good sample because I had no idea who would or would not

have body modifications. I collected data from people both with and without body modifications,

but people with modifications are of greater importance because they offer the greatest data to

qualify why others would participate in this trend. There is no record available to the public of all

the people who have body modifications, so calling everyone and hoping that I would eventually

reach a member of the community with a part of their body modified is not practical for a project

with minimal time allowed for data collection. I first reached out to my social circle of people

with and without body modifications, interviewed them and asked for people they thought would

like to participate in my study. I never went beyond the person they recommended to me, as one

would in proper snowball sampling. I never did this because of time/technology constraints. If I

continued with this method, I’m confident I would have a more representative sample than I

ended up with using other methods. It may have been subject to bias because I began with people

in my social circle, who are for the most part, of the WEIRD population, but I think after the

initial three recommendations, I would break that demographic barrier. If I struggled with

breaking this barrier, I would have resorted to quota sampling to fill demographic voids in data

collection that are common for data collection in a university town. I had an ideal sample size of

50 interviews. I wanted 10 people from five major ethnic groups, with seven of the ten people

with body modifications and three people without body modifications. I thought this appropriate

to obtain the most accurate representation of views on the practice of body modification. This

sort of ethnically stratified representation would minimize any erroneous assumptions I made

from the data collected by minimizing bias toward thoughts from any one group of people. I

thought the size of 50 interviews was feasible for time possible. I only succeeded in 20 semi-

structured interviews because I was not consistently working on collecting data for this project. I

still believe given all my resources, 50 interviews would have been doable for this project.

I formed semi-structured interview questions based on aspects I thought were important

based on my participation in body-modificatory practices. Being a semi-member of this cultural

community helped because I was able to ask myself questions and revise/add to them based on

the ways I felt underrepresented. Initial participants in my research were close contacts, so they

worked well for pre-testing my semi structured interview questions because they knew me and

were more forgiving of any pause or less-than-professional blunder. For example, I started with a

structured interview for the first two interviews I obtained, but found that this structure was both

more time-consuming and limited the range of response available by forcing questions that may

not be applicable to the respondent. Semi-structured interviews also allow the participant to feel

as if they are leading the conversation more than the interviewer, which is important for

examining cultural phenomena. This allowed the participant to tell me the aspects of body

modifications they felt were important and qualify those aspects with symbolic meanings or

personal accounts. I only needed to slightly probe the interviewee if I felt they left something

out, or for further explanations on something they mentioned. The responses are easily coded for

the variables I examine in this project’s objectives, and the extra work is worth the responses I

got. IF I were submitting this data, I could also use these personal accounts as examples of why

body modifications are/are not meaningful to people. Pull-quotes and anonymous experiences

introduce better emic perspective on the topic, which betters the researcher’s understanding of

the significance of body modifications while still being quantifiable for statistic analysis of

themes.

Online Surveys

For the latter/bulk of my data collection, I relied on convenience sampling for online

surveys because Facebook is a high-traffic area that users check for the most part on a daily

basis. I employed this spotty sampling method because it was the best way to collect the most

data in a short amount of time and I do not intend to publish the results of my findings for any

significant contribution to society. I am aware that this method is less than ideal for multiple

reasons and reduces much of the generalizability I could have with a different method of survey

distribution. Most of the bias comes from the fact that people I am close with (thus,

demographically similar to me) were more willing to see/answer survey questions, so I limit the

amount of diverse representation I could gather, despite having a very diverse total population to

draw from. I disseminated survey links (with short explanation) on Facebook by public posts on

my timeline that is visible to both “friends” and strangers. I also posted the link to pages centered

on body modification interests or specific tattoo pages from Columbia to try to broaden the types

of body modification respondents would have. I had a few people redistribute my survey because

they thought they knew people who would be interested in participating. This may seem like

snowball sampling but because I had little to no control over who redistributed my survey link. I

did not have a sampling frame in mind when I distributed this survey. I hoped to get enough

people to make up for the fact that I had less semi-structured interviews than planned for. As

mentioned, I wanted to collect the biggest bulk of data in the shortest amount of time.

I pretested this survey multiple ways. Many of the survey questions originated from

similar questions that obtained meaningful information from my semi-structured interviews. A

lot of them started as questions I would have used if I had done structured interviews. When I

recycled questions, I simply added mutually exclusive, exhaustive answers to each question. If I

felt I potentially missed an option, I allowed for written responses, “other,” or “unsure.” In

addition to the already-pretested questions from semi-structured interviews, I tested survey

questions in-person with three people, (Exercise 8, part 2). This pretest boosted my confidence in

choice to distribute the survey online because it was too long to hold someone’s attention in-

person. Even if I allowed take-home surveys, I suspect I would end with littler response rate than

I needed. In addition, I also revised which questions worked and which did not. The three

surveys I did in person were for a class assignment, so the questions were further revised by the

course faculty leader, Mary Shenk. I also took the survey about 15 times to test the online

platform (Qualtrics) and add/subtract any questions or options available before making the

survey public. The survey included three Likert-Scales that measured ordinal variables of

acceptability or appropriateness of some aspect of body modifications or the body modification

itself. Only the initial survey of body modification acceptability was pre-tested and run through

SPSS for Cronbach’s Alpha and resulted as a acceptable measurement. The other two probably

would not result as well as the pre-tested survey because they test the appropriateness of

different kinds of body modifications, some of which are extremes and reduce the inter-tester

reliability of the scale.

The survey consisted of 10 demographic questions, then lead participants to a separate

sets of questions based on whether or not they modified their body. People with body

modifications answered 24 questions (includes Likert-scales) and had the option to enter text

responses on symbolic properties of placement, type of modification and specific colors/insignia

used. People without body modifications answered 8 questions (includes Likert-scales). Both

types of respondent had the option to type in any additional, relevant comments before

completing the survey if they desired.

Results

In this section, I want to discuss the findings from the surveys first. I will cover the

limitations of my results from collection bias then I will discuss how the data fits or does not fit

with my hypotheses made in the beginning of the paper. After this, I will turn to other significant

trends and findings from the surveys. Second, I will discuss the findings from semi-structured

interviews, how they fit or do not fit with my hypothesis and then noticeable trends. I will end

this section with a comprehensive overview from both of the collections of data and any trends

found from comparing the two data collection methods.

Survey Data

First, I would like to discuss population bias introduced from lack of professional

sampling technique in the surveys. This is so the reader is not under the impression that my data

is representative of any population other than the majority population who filled out the survey.

There is a strong bias toward female, white/Caucasian participation who are 18-25 years old. The

survey was taken by 12 males and 58 females. Of the respondents, 43 (61%) were 18-25 years

old, six (9%) were 26-32 years old, four were 33-39 (6%), five were 40-46 years old (7%), seven

people were 47-53 years old (10%), four were 54-60 years old (6%) and there was one person

who was 67-73 years old. There is a representative from every age range listed except for 60-66

years old and 74+. This sample of people is a reflection of the people I am friends with on

Facebook and shows the limitations from bias of convenience sampling. This may have been

controlled for using a better sampling technique.

I have representation from at least one member of every ethnic group except for black or

African American people. I do not know why this occurred and this is not a reflection of

convenience sampling bias, but would have been avoided if I had done quota sampling for my

surveys. I cannot fix this data now because I would be unfairly targeting this demographic and

that is not in line with IRB standards of data collection.

Though I lacked representative data demographically speaking, there was near 50:50

representation from individuals who had body modifications and individuals who did not have

body modifications, which was the main focus of this research paper and is viewed as a success.

I did not have any participants with more invasive body modifications such as scarification,

branding, sub dermal implants or tongue splitting- this is in spite of the fact that I posted survey

links to extreme body modifications pages (closer to cluster analysis sampling procedure). I

would have had this limitation even if I had done a better sampling technique due to the

geographic location from which my research takes place. I would have had to specifically target

people with these types of body modifications if I found them. Most of the people with body

modifications (81%) have tattoos, or various locations of piercings (59%) or gauges (5%).

Now I would like to discuss interesting trends found from the participants with body

modifications. Of these participants, there was representation from every possible placement on

the body, which was important to determining the importance in my hypothesis. Unfortunately, I

realized I made a research blunder while I cross tabulated the reasons why people received body

modifications and the type of body modification they had- I allowed people to answer multiple

reasons. Therefore, if they had multiple body modifications, I will not know which particular

body modification they are speaking of when they are reporting the reason for getting it. For

example, one person could report that they have a tattoo and piercing and say the reasons for

modifying their body were for aesthetic enjoyment and to pay tribute to a dead family member,

but how would I know if the piercing or the tattoo was symbolic of the tribute?

I believe my first hypothesis “that the people with the least amount of body modifications

will have the most meaningful or significant modifications in terms of symbolism,” is correct

according to results from this survey. When I isolated data to examine just people with the

minimum number of body modifications and compared this to the reasons behind body

modifications, less people attributed reasons with aesthetic value, bets, impulsive actions, etc

than people did when they had more body modifications. In addition, the people with the most

body modifications had minimally invasive modifications such as piercings, which I already

hypothesized would be significant for aesthetic purposes. More people with minimal

modifications chose to qualify their body modifications with symbolic reasons for giving them.

More than half the people who responded with minimal amount of body modifications that were

not piercings chose to enter text about the significance of their tattoos. This researcher argues

that people willing to qualify their answers with symbolic reasons care more about their

modifications and they are more significant to them. In addition, 92% of the people with the least

amount of body modifications planned for their modification, meaning that arguably took more

time to think about the meaning behind the modification, the placement, etc.

The aforementioned survey blunder made examining my second hypothesis tricky as

well. In Qualtrics I had to specifically filter results for people who had only piercings (6]

people/70 total) and compare it to their answer for reason they modified their body. 100% of the

people with gauges answered that their body modification was for decoration/aesthetic value. For

piercings, I believe my hypothesis is correct, that piercings serve mostly aesthetic values because

100% of the people who only had piercings reported the reason for modifying their body was for

aesthetic purposes. 33% reported that they pierced their body as a reflection of personal interests

and 17% reported the piercing was part of a bonding activity. I believe that 33% reported

piercings as a reflection of personal interests because they are interested in piercings.

I cannot prove or disprove my third hypothesis, that body modifications in prominent

places will hold more meaning because the individual is proud of them and more willing to

endure social judgment. I cannot do this because when making my hypothesis I did not consider

white-ink tattoos or the fact that someone may purposely place a body modification in a hidden

place because they want to keep the meaning to themselves. I also did not consider piercings on

the face. When I isolated the person without tattoos and only piercings, including a nose

piercing, the reported reasons for modifying their body were decoration/aesthetic value and

bonding activity. If I had changed this hypothesis and added a question to the survey, I would

have said that people with more visible body modifications are more confident in their choices to

modify their body, and that may make their modification more significant to them. Again,

proving/disproving this hypothesis was particularly hard because I have to isolate specific

answers, which lessens the sample size and validity of my results when trying to make

hypothetical statements.

Some interesting trends were that for females if you have a tattoo you are also likely to have

multiple piercings. People who reported the most body modifications were people with piercings.

My findings from the (SPSS reliability pre-tested) Likert-Scale that examines people’s

general acceptability of body modifications were unexpected because I anticipated that the

majority of people with body modifications would view all body modifications as equally

acceptable but they did not, and their answer matched closely with the people who did not have

body modifications. I also anticipated that people with body modifications would be more likely

to accept body modifications on all areas of the body, but actually thought this was less

acceptable than the people without body modifications. I will include a graph from the people

with body modifications first and compare it to the people without body modifications.

General acceptability of body modifications from people with body modifications:

General acceptability of Body modifications from people without body modifications:

Until the Likert Scale on Acceptability of Reasons for modifying the body is run through a

reliability test in SPSS, I will not include the results of this scale. I will also leave out the results

from the scales on appropriateness of particular modifications by gender.

Semi-Structured Interviews

Most of my semi-structured interviews were with males. I lost many of the interviews to my

phone, which metaphorically ate 12 interviews I had done in person before I got to write down

the interview answers. However, I may not have the specific codes from the interviews that

denote tattoo significance but the great thing about the interviews was most of them were with

people with tattoos so if I remember the person, I can remember the tattoo and then why they

told me they had it for many of the people. This would not be acceptable in IRB submission, so I

will not include the results from those interviews. I also could not locate people with more

invasive body modifications such as scarification, sub-dermal implants or tooth filing.

My first hypothesis fits with the data gathered from semi structured interviews, but only

pertains to the first five body modifications. The first five body modifications will hold more

meaning and be more significant to the person, but even within the first five you see

deterioration of multiple meanings/symbols. This counts for earrings and gauges too. The initial

earrings mean more to the person and are more likely to be a rite of passage (parent’s pierced

their ears from birth or went to get them when they were old enough for a birthday) or bonding

experience with a friend. After the first two piercings, it is more likely the piercing was obtained

for aesthetic enjoyment or impulse decision.

That leads me to my second hypothesis, that the significance of piercings is aesthetic

enjoyment or decoration. This is especially true as piercings grow in number. People were less

likely to remember the experience from their fourth or fifth piercing than their first or second.

This is not the case with belly button rings, because participants viewed these as a rite of passage

for turning 18, but most respondents said the reason they got it was “they just thought it looked

good.”

My third hypothesis is mute based on these semi-structured interviews. One example for

why this doesn’t fit the data is because the body modification may be very meaningful to the

person, but their relatives do not approve of body modifications, so they chose a hidden place for

something that still holds a lot of meaning. One example was from a guy who hid his tattoo that

was symbolic for his dead mother living on forever with him, and included her signature. This

was the tattoo he spent the most time planning of the four he has, this was his first tattoo, yet he

hid it because he was not sure if his father would approve.

There are some interesting trends I noticed from my interviews. All the males I

interviewed had a tattoos, and all of the males I interviewed had at least one tattoo that was

associated with a band or song lyrics. This may reflect a trend that males with body

modifications are influenced by the music industry. Another trend is that although people have

particular tastes in body modification for themselves or for what they think is physically

attractive, they do not believe that it is their position to determine what is or is not appropriate

for other people. They also believed that it is not someone else’s place to determine what is or is

not appropriate for them to do with their body. All of the respondents had been stigmatized

negatively for their body modification by members of their family or the community, which may

have something to do with their lack of judgment for the body modifications of others. The

stigmatization came from older members of their family or the community, or people they

viewed were more “conservative.”

Concluding Thoughts

Because of the convenience sampling and loss of semi-structured raw data, it is

impossible to claim any quantitative or qualitative findings from this research are applicable to a

wider population. If my sampling technique was more methodical, I would be more confident in

extrapolating my data to a population that is more representative than the WEIRD (western,

educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) population I drew from. However, I feel that I could

extrapolate the trend to the residents of places like Columbia, MO because the research

population is very similar to the makeup of this university town, with the exception of my total

lack of African American population. I may have included more cluster sampling techniques

online as well to gain representation from individuals with more extreme body modifications

than tattoos, piercings and gauges.

Another error that I would like to avoid in the future was the blunders made from the lack

of in-depth pre-testing of the online survey. Although I did test the questions themselves to

make sure I left nothing out that would take away from understanding significance of

modifications, I did not run any sort of statistical analysis on this data. This made it hard to

deconstruct data for specific meanings that pertained to specific modifications when analyzing

the survey. I would have realized this if I would have examined the survey results sooner and

realized that I could not tell causal meaning between purpose and modification because I did not

make it so that any person had to specify which modification went with the particular purposes

for people with more than one type of modification.

A nice addition to my study would have been to have someone else re-code the data that

denotes significance from interviews. Because I used grounded-theory in my analysis of

interviews, I may be more bias toward making my data fit with the trends I noticed from

previous interviews. It would be a nice assurance to know the same themes that I documented are

in line with an objective source who has nothing to gain or lose from the outcomes of this

research.

Despite being an inexperienced, student researcher, there were some things I feel that I

got right. The first was the initial decision to collect data through semi-structured interviews.

With a topic as personal as body modification, it is important to make the subject feel like their

opinion matters, especially when they gain nothing from this study. By allowing a less scripted

format for answers, I believe I made interviewers feel like their individual experiences really

mattered to my data. This gave me better rapport and also better answers from which to draw

codes from. You can ask a person why they modified their body, like I did in the survey, but

when they have a particular story of an experience or qualification for a symbol, that may be

used as backup for reasons I coded something for significance the way I did. In addition, if I

were writing this for public submission, my research would be further validated with the use of

specific quotes and examples from actual things people said instead of just numbers or graphs. I

also do not regret using a voice-recording device for these interviews. I highly recommend this,

unless the person has a problem with it. The voice recording allows accuracy when you cannot

read your hand-writing, but also allows for less writing, which may make the person seem like

you are interested more in your notes for research than the meaning of the content that is coming

out of their mouth. I do regret using my phone as the device itself, and recommend using a voice

recorder or the audio function on a camera. My only regret is that I didn’t collect more data this

way, or stick to my original data collection initiatives.

I also highly recommend using Qualtrics for surveys. The functions of the software are

amazing when you have so many variables you can pit against each other and test for

significance. If I wanted to, I could have further tested the Likert Scale of General Acceptability

by responses from people who identified as more liberal versus more conservative and then

further stratified this by people who did or did not have body modifications. The survey

automatically creates graphs so that you do not have to export data to another platform to make

visual analytics. However, if you want to export data to excel or SPSS, there is a button within

results report that allows this. The data transfers so easy that there is no excuse not to run

additional tests on anything you think may be correlated.

I also do not regret not doing more background research on the topic of body

modifications. This may have given more understanding of historical precedent left by the

original cultural significance of body modification, but my research question is not looking at a

change over time or comparing differences in geographical trends in modification. I also feel that

I would have used more Content-based analysis and may have tried harder to replicate results or

trends more professional researchers documented. This also made me appreciate the process of

coming up with my own hypotheses on trends I found and having one of my trends thrown out

because it did not largely fit the data collected.

I have a few take away’s that would be useful to other students that I will put in a list

based on importance

1. SAMPLE TECHNIQUE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION

YOU CAN MAKE AS A RESEARCHER. This largely determines the time

you will spend collecting data and how valuable your data will be once you

collect it. Start early in your project so you do not have to resort to techniques

like convenience sampling.

2. PRE-TEST EVERYTHING AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. I got lucky because I

knew the relative content of my project, so I pretested my interview questions

and ran them by Dr. Shenk as part of assignments for class. However, I should

have started analyzing the survey data sooner so that I could have realized there

was a problem obtaining specificity in causal relationships from significance to

type of body modification in this format.

3. Ask a lot of questions: If you enjoy your topic, it is likely that other people will

enjoy talking about your topic. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or ask for

elaboration on any content you’re confused about. Record everything about that

person, and always collect demographic data, even when you think you may

not be able to use it, there is a lot of variation between individuals and you can

sometimes find relationships by stratifying data by demographic information.

The most important thing I learned about methods is to allow for time to pre-test all the

methods possible to find the best fit for your research question. Then allow even more time to

post-test your data through statistic analysis and qualitative text analysis because this is where I

gathered the most interesting results. This research would be very helpful before I did a pilot

study, and though I feel like I did a lot of work, this report would only measure up as a pre-test

for any real anthropologic study on the cultural significance of body modifications.

Cited Sources Bernard, H. Russell. 2011. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 5th edition. Alta Mira Press: Lanham MD. Mary K. Shenk. 2015 Ethnographic Methods: Lectures from Anthropology 4830. Spring Semester. University of Missouri: Columbia, MO. Steven Van Wolputte. 2004. Hang on to Your Self: Of Bodies, Embodiment, and Selves. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 33, pp. 251-269 Daniel Rosenblatt. 1997. The Antisocial Skin: Structure, Resistance, and ‘Modern Primitive’ Adornment in the United States. Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 287-334

Appendix: Oral Consent Form for Voluntary Participation in Student Research This maintains the researcher obtained oral consent from voluntary participants in a minimal risk study. Purpose: This is a study about the cultural significance of body modification for a class project concerning the methods of conducting proper ethnographic research. A body modification is defined as any alteration to the body, excluding medical surgery procedures.

Methods: The researcher will ask a series of questions that pertain to the participant’s experience with body modifications in their culture. The answers will be written down according to date and time of interview, then re-written and stored on a encrypted drive. The oral nature of this consent form ensures participant’s identity will not be shared with third parties. The only person who will see a reflection of this data is a professor at the University of Missouri.

The researcher’s signature below serves as a signature for each participant in the study. With the signature, the researcher has made it clear to the participant that:

-Participation in the research is voluntary and that they can stop at any time without punishment or repercussion to them. - The volunteer understands the purpose of this research and is okay with the minimal risk that the questions may pose. Minimal risk may include slight emotional discomfort that may accompany talking with a stranger or discussing certain aspects of body modification. - There is no harm to the participant for completing or not completing the study. - The researcher has offered contact information if they have any follow up questions. However, doing so may compromise their identity in this otherwise anonymous procedure. Signature: ________________________________________Date:_________________

Signature: ________________________________________Date:_________________

Signature: ________________________________________Date:_________________ Signature: ________________________________________Date:_________________ Signature: ________________________________________Date:_________________ * Notice: there are multiple signature places for multiple interviews. Each signature reflects consent given from a different participant. This is because no other participant’s will sign this, so confidentiality is not an issue. Using a single consent form allows the researcher to easily access consent data, save time, and resources.

CONSENT FORM TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH STUDY

Project Title: Cultural Significance of Body Modification

RESEARCH PURPOSE:

The purpose of this research is to identify and analyze the cultural significance of body modifications in a college

town for an undergraduate anthropology course research project. A body modification is a permanent physical

change to the body including piercings, tattoos, dermal implantations etc.

PARTICIPATION:

You are invited to participate in this study because you are part of the adult population living in a college town and

participated in a body modifying procedure or because you have an opinion on body modifications.

Your participation is voluntary. You have the option to not participate without negative consequence.

PROCEDURE:

Should you choose to participate, you will be asked a series of questions in an interview conducted by the

researcher. The interview will inquire about basic demographic information, the reasons for your body

modification/lack thereof, symbolic attributes to body modifications/lack thereof, and details concerning your

cultural/ethnic background. You may also be asked to provide other potential interview subjects that would be

helpful to this study.

The interview process will take less than an hour and depends on how much information you would like to provide

the interviewer with. If interview questions become uncomfortable, you may stop the process without penalty at any

time.

CONFIDENTIALITY:

Your identity and participation in this study will not be shared with any outside parties. Your identity will be coded

numerically and the information you provide will be stored in a password-encrypted drive.

The only identifiable information may include a description of your body modification.

WHO TO CONTACT ABOUT CONCERNS:

For questions or concerns regarding the research process or purpose you may contact:

The researcher: Sydney Smith 214-206-7680 sjsnt3@mail.missouri.edu

Course faculty leader: Dr. Mary Shenk 573-882-4731 shenkm@missouri.edu

PARTICIPANT SIGNITURE:

By signing below, I acknowledge that I read this consent form and agree to participate in this study. I have had all

questions regarding this research answered. I understand the voluntary nature of my participation.

_____________________________________________ ___________________

Subject Signature Date

Screen Shot of the Online Consent Script

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS DELETED FOR PRIVACY