‘My body is a journal, and my tattoos are my story.' Exploring the motivations and meanings of tattoos using a multi qualitative-method approach

The purpose of the study is to explore the motivations and meanings of tattoos with the use of a multi-method approach that involves ethnographic interviewing, photo-elicitation and participatory photography. This qualitative investigation focuses on a total of six individuals, three females and three males that were recruited through purposive sampling. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to analyse interview transcripts and polytextual thematic analysis was used to analyse the images of tattoos. The results yielded five themes: Representation of relationships, aesthetic appeal and self-expression derived from interpretative phenomenological analysis and representation of the self and remembrance of life experiences were derived from polytextual thematic analysis