This article discusses the cultures of apprenticed and self-taught tattoo artists. The article starts by defining the destination between participation and membership in the tattoo collectivity. The article goes on to say that by adopting a lens that focuses upon the ambiguity of culture allows us to distinguish between being members of a collectivity (that is, self-taught tattooists, apprenticed tattooists) and making participation in its associated cultures. Next, it says that the researchers used a different approach to make clear how participation matters than membership regarding tattoo artist culture and their identity. The article goes on to discuss the responses and experiences collected from six tattoo artists that have been interviewed.
