You think it, they ink it: Interactive service encounters in the tattoo industr

In this dissertation I use interview data with tattoo artists and tattoo consumers in order to build upon my early personal experiences and better theorize how service interactions between tattooists and their clients are enacted and understood by both parties. I understand the interactive service interaction that takes place between a tattoo artist and client as a source of meaning-making for both the client, who is engaging in consumptive identity formation, and the artist, who is enacting his or her own occupational identity and reputation through work. I argue that clients have distinct typology of narrative needs that they bring into these interactions and expect to enact though the service interaction. Tattoo artists recognize and understand these expectations, and categorize their clients into a typology of needs from their vantage point. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).