More than just skin deep: Charlotte Dann wins prestigious British Psychological Society award

Charlotte Dann, Lecturer of Psychology and PhD researcher, has been awarded the British Psychological Society’s ‘Psychology of Women Section’ (POWS) Postgraduate Student Prize.

Charlotte was awarded the POWS prize for a paper based on her thesis topic of women and tattoos. The paper – which she will present at the annual POWS conference this week – looked at the class representations of tattooed women. As part of her prize, Charlotte received a year’s subscription to the POWS Review and Feminism & Psychology journals, as well as free registration and travel expenses for the POWS annual conference.

“The paper arose from the analysis of my overall thesis, which explores constructions and representations of tattooed women in the UK,” explained Charlotte.” Some interesting, though harmful, discourses centred on tattooed mothers emerged, concerning aspects such as class and ‘chav’ culture, and excess.”

“I presented a poster of my very early thesis work at the Psychology of Women Section conference in 2014, so I am very excited to be able to now present a paper on more substantial analysis from my work.”

Charlotte’s PhD research is investigating femininities and identity of tattooed women in the UK. Her work is exploring issues such as the pathologisation of women with tattoos, the impact of tattoos on women’s employment, and how tattoos are used as a method of expression, identity and communication.

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