Graffiti, City, and Anthropology

• Authors: Barbora Půtová

Title variants

CS

Graffiti, město a antropologie

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The paper analyses and interprets graffiti as part of the urban public space. It focuses on the basic categories given by the motivation of their creators and the recipients’ ability to interpret and decode them. Special attention is paid to the discourses that are used not only to interpret, but also to determine the relation between graffiti and the public space and the degree of its inclusion or exclusion. The objective of the paper is to analyse graffiti from the perspective of anthropological concepts and categories, such as liminality, impurity and ritual. The paper includes a concept of no place that is not filled with meanings and can thus represent a spatial reference that is reflected in the mental map. The paper also accentuates the power context due to which graffiti may be viewed as communication of speech actions. Creation of graffiti (re)appropriates the counter-space that is not absorbed by the dominant standards. Within this meaning, graffiti represents a revolt against inferiority to the space of the majority society, as it generates an alternative space and creates new territories of shared communication. The paper describes how the creation of graffiti allows its makers movement within the liminal space, repeated performance and shared ritual act that may be part of the citizens’ right to change their city through art and visual production.

Keywords

EN

Graffiti; city; space; discourse; interpretation; anthropology

Discipline

• ANTHROPOLOGY: ANTHROPOLOGY

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 151 - 163

Contributors

author

Barbora Půtová