Derek Roberts

The Copperbelt University · Dag Hammarskjöld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Spurred on by increasing participation rates, scholarship on tattoos in Western societies has increased noticeably in recent decades. Often focusing on members of the middle class, scholars have assumed that the increasing number of people with tattoos is evidence of mainstream acceptance. In the following article, I critically evaluate claims of t...

While it has been suggested that tattoos and piercings have gone mainstream, there remains a body modification subculture dedicated to more extreme forms of modification than permitted by the majority of society. I present data from an ethnographic study of the subculture, focusing on various attempts to uphold group boundaries in a virtual communi...

This article contributes to the debate on the relevance of subculture as a theoretical concept for understanding groups in contemporary Western societies. Utilising data from a virtual ethnography of body modifiers, the article challenges the dominance of post-subcultural approaches. The body modification subculture discussed in this article has no...

Body modification has a long and varied history across the globe. In recent decades, practices like tattoos and piercing have become more widespread in Western societies. Some people have even suggested that body modification has become an accepted form of self-expression. I began my ethnographic research on body modification with an interest in fi...

Detroit has become the preeminent example of an American city that has struggled with the nation’s transition into a post-industrial society. Although some scholars have addressed the multifaceted structural forces leading to inner-city decline, the public discourse often promotes more simplistic explanations. The NVivo was used to perform content...

Metro Detroit has long been one of the most socially divided metropolitan regions in the United States. While the north-western suburbs are among the wealthiest in the nation, the region’s urban core has struggled with the nation’s post-industrial transition. Despite benefiting from various intra-regional ties, people from Metro Detroit’s suburbs o...

Zambia is a very young nation in the midst of economic and political turbulence. The current trials are exacerbated by a youth bulge. Zambian youth have been exposed to a globalising world, and their expectations often exceed the current realities of the country. The country's economy has been decimated by daily power outages and falling copper pri...