Tattoo and meaning: about contemporary tattoo

Tattoo is a human practice with wide roots in tribal cultures. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gradually starts to expand in the West, initially associated with specific groups constituting sometimes a sign of marginality or differentiation from the mainstream of society. Facing the original tribal tattoo and the later one associated with the marginal, a boom in contemporary societies has occurred lately. This phenomenon can be inscribed within a diverse conglomerate of body modification practices, however, it has a very peculiar quality: tattoo holds a semiotic burden like none of those. This research focuses on the analysis of the meanings of tattoo for tattoo artists and tattooed people obtained in depth semi-structured interviews.