Voices of market bodies: a qualitative study on emerging meanings.

The focus of this research is on the voices of subjects extensively marked or that through Body Modifications (BM) aimed at building a body project. It develops in the field of BM (tattoos, piercings, and scarifications, among others) and is the outcome from the partial treatment of the results of interviews with 20 users and 20 professionals of BM. The research, of qualitative nature, took place in the communicational context of cyberspace, and the collection of information was done through Facebook chat by using a questionnaire and semi-structured interview. The analysis was based on the Grounded Analysis method, aiming at a data-based theory, following the random categorization of data collected. The results distinguish, as main reasons for the performance of the multiple BM observed, the taste for them, perceived as a form of art, as the expression of personal meanings, as the affirmation of the difference, and as an identity construction medium. There are few studies carried out in Portugal in this area, so this research has as the inherent advantage to remove reflection on the BM from the domain of pathologization and stigmatization that common sense and many analyses in Psychology and Psychiatry tend to attribute to these practices.