Come le donne, per sempre fratelli. Tatuaggio, genere, parentela nell'esperienza delle fa'afafine samoane

The paper analyses the ties between tattoo, gender, and kinship inward the social experiences of tattooed Samoan fa’afafine, namely people assigned male at birth who perceive themselves, behave and act as women. Within the Fa’a Samoa (the Samoan way or culture), regardless of the predisposition for a diverse gender identification, towards their sibling and their descendants fa’afafine keep the duties and responsibilities related to their assigned sex. By focusing on the intricate relation between gender and kinship in Samoa, this paper looks at the strategies adopted by fa’afafine to manipulate their gender through traditional tattoo in order to re-produce it.