ABSTRACT
The Nuutania prison is not far from the places where the inmates’ families and friends eat, sleep and work, but many doors shut the inmates off from the outside world. This chapter speculates on prison tattooing in the areas of spatiality, temporality, the bodies and the emotions of inmates. It encompasses the issues of masculinity, globalization, colonial history and morality. The chapter explains what tattooing as a way of manipulating the body means to the inmates in the process of value-making. It examines the way moral assessments become contingent in prison tattooing. The prison tattoo world is unique, but not secluded from Tahitian society, the Tahitian tattoo world and the global tattoo world. Gender, ethnic and age relationships beyond the prison are reflected in relationships within the prison. The chapter illustrates how Tahitian inmates manipulate their bodies under the control of State authority and establish their identities by focusing on their practice of tattooing in the Nuutania prison.
