Embodied vulnerability: Semiotic landscapes of suicide

A recent move in semiotic landscape studies is to examine how those placed on the margins of society counteract such regulation by using the semiotic landscape as a platform to enact regimes of voice and agency where scholarly attention has begun to study the spatial representations of vulnerability and how individuals othered by these processes fight back (see for example Milani & Levron, 2019; Moriarty, 2019). Drawing on Butler’s (2004) work on corporeal vulnerability, the aim of this paper is to put forward embodied vulnerability as a useful lens for examining semiotic landscapes of vulnerability. The aim of this paper is to put forward skinscape as a resource for embodied vulnerability through the prism of youth suffering from suicidal behaviour in the Republic of Ireland. In drawing on a skinscape images and tattoo narratives, this paper will show how those engaging in suicidal behaviours draw on tattoos as a form of embodiment of their vulnerability that leads to healing and comfort.