Social uses of pain in different cultures and their presentations in current practices and body modifications

Abstract

This work presents the results of an investigation that was carried out in Mexico City with a group of young people, whose purpose was to explore the experience they had with pain in some corporal practices such as tattooing and suspension. The perception that each individual has of pain is crossed by social, cultural, religious, sensory and subjective factors, which influence the meanings attributed to it and the forms that each culture adopts to ritualize the practices they carry out. The question to be developed is: How has the perception of pain changed over time and how has it influenced the ways of interpreting it in these bodily practices that continue to be taken up today? The methodology was based on a qualitative analysis that considered the narratives of the subjects, in articulation with symbolic anthropology and Victor Turner's notion of ritual, where metaphors and imaginaries materialize the interpretation of these processes.