UCSF

The purpose of this study is to expand the knowledge base on the experience of living as an individual who engages in body modification. Body modification is the intentional and voluntary alteration of the body for non-medically necessary reasons and not meant to intentionally "harm" oneself. The study seeks to understand how individuals negotiate the personal, emotional, and social experience of engaging in body modification. The specific aims of the research are to:

1. Understand the place of body modification in one's life narrative, and how it can be reflective of major transitions and changes.

2. Explore subjective experience around the physical and mental health, social, and identity related experiences of people who engage in body modification.

3. Increase the knowledge base on how this practice shapes the social experiences of individuals who elect to modify (e.g., at work, with seeking medical or mental health care, in their peer group, with legal authorities, etc.)

4. Understand how those who engage in body modification practices negotiate pain and how pain impacted their experience.

The methodological approach used in this study includes both interviews and ethnographic immersion. The understanding of how these practice impact one's life is produced through a co-constructed coding rubric created by both the researcher and participant. The researcher works with the participant to represent their lived experience as a modifier by also drawing on their own experiences on the subject. The major contributions of this research is 1) an increased understanding of personal trauma, and its healing through modification and 2) the expression of stigma in medical realms that has previously been unexamined. Additional findings include notions of a priori social difference in the choice of modification that impacts stigma, continued stigma from legal representatives, and the intersectional nature of modified stigma with other social status categories. Finally, this work also further documents the general finding of increased acceptance of body modification in society.