Ethnic Tattoos -- Motivations for a Practice among Young Adults

For the past 10 years or so, young French people have been increasingly interested in tattooing. The motifs most largely chosen are undoubtedly ethnic. This article focuses on the major motivations which lead young people to borrow signs from other cultures, which they display as key features of their identity. Placing the spotlight on five broad types of motivation which are interwoven, the floor is given to individuals bearing these ethnic marks in an attempt to understand the role of the "poetic savages" in the quest to find one's self. In spite of the approximations that this poetry engenders, young French people, whether they are of foreign origin or not, appear to find other viewpoints by which they identify themselves & through which they can express both their individuality & their open-minded attitude to diversity in the world. Adapted from the source document.