ancient cities

328 Graffiti
writers seeking fame (now frequently contracted
out to specialist graffiti removal companies by public
and private urban authorities); and censorship
of graffiti publications and websites. In many cities,
vast resources are devoted to various combinations
of these graffiti prevention measures.
When the effectiveness of these measures is
assessed at the local scale, there may be some evidence
of success in reducing or eliminating graffiti.
However, if we measure efforts to prevent graffiti
on a wider metropolitan or even global scale, they
have certainly failed to stem the widespread
growth of graffiti. Considered at this wider scale,
it would appear that the waging of wars on graffiti
has led to the mutation, rather than eradication, of
graffiti writing practices. Writers have developed
new styles and techniques designed to evade or
outmaneuver the efforts of urban authorities. The
rapid growth of sticker and stencil graffiti toward
the end of the 1990s, for instance, was in part a
response to antigraffiti measures—both stickers
and stencils can be designed and executed in
advance of their application to a surface, thus
reducing the risks associated with graffiti by markedly
reducing the time it takes to “get up.”
Similarly, new forms of graffiti-proof glass resistant
to ink and paint, which is used on trains and
bus stops, are now frequently adorned with etched
tags cut into the glass itself. Indeed, some graffiti
observers and scholars have pointed out that one
irony of the currently dominant approach to graffiti
prevention is that it has tended to lower the
quality of graffiti by pushing writers toward styles
that can be quickly executed.
Graffiti as Art
Efforts to curb graffiti are limited in their success
by the capacity of graffiti writers to evade
them. In addition, certain styles of graffiti have
been embraced in both the marketplace and the art
world. Established graffiti writers are often commissioned
to do work to lend street credibility to
advertising campaigns or to lend an urban edginess
to film and television sets. Contemporary art galleries
in many cities have sponsored exhibitions
of work by graffiti writers. And, of course, paint
manufacturers stand to gain from the ongoing proliferation
of graffiti, and many have developed
products specifically designed for graffiti writing.
Furthermore, there has been substantial (if uneven)
support for the provision of legal graffiti spaces in
many cities, and often, this support comes from state
or state-funded agencies who work closely with
young people. Here, however, there is an important
distinction to be made between those who support
the provision of legal graffiti spaces as a different
means to address the graffiti problem (i.e., as a way
to reduce graffiti), and those who argue that the way
graffiti is framed as a problem is itself problematic
(e.g., where legal graffiti spaces are provided as a
means to improve the quality of graffiti).
Different positions in political debates over the
construction and solution of the “graffiti problem”
are informed by different understandings of
graffiti writers and their motivations. Are writers
simply antisocial vandals, as some would have it,
or are their motivations more complicated?
Sociologists and others tend to disagree. Richard
Sennett, for instance, sees no more in graffiti than
a “smear of the self”—a narcissistic concern with
displays of individual identity that seek no genuine
engagement with a wider public on issues of substance.
Others like Nancy Macdonald and Kevin
McDonald, who have undertaken ethnographic
research with graffiti writers, see more complex
negotiations of age, class, and gender in the graffiti
scenes they have studied.
Yet others have sought to understand graffiti
scenes as counterpublic spheres through which different
ways of inhabiting and mobilizing urban
space have been constructed. These latter perspectives
present a picture of graffiti writing as a fundamentally
social, rather than antisocial, practice.
That is to say, they portray graffiti scenes as collectives
engaged in their own discussions over the
aesthetic and ethical values of different graffiti
styles and practices. This is not necessarily to position
the graffiti writer as some kind of folk hero
but rather to assert that the writing of graffiti is
not simply a form of mindless vandalism attributable
to dysfunctional individuals.
The Writers Speak
Of course, graffiti writers themselves are not passive
spectators in such debates. In particular, they continue
to debate whether or not there can be any such
thing as legal graffiti. These debates tend to hinge on
whether the essence of graffiti lies in its legal status,