Graffiti: Cultural and Social Construction Stemming from Art or Vandalism?

Graffiti, according to the Oxford dictionaries (2011), consists of “writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place.” Within this broad definition, however, graffiti can be examined regarding its social and cultural implications: Locally, “street art/graffiti found in Vancouver, British Columbia reveals several different subcultures with stylistic differences linked by significant crosscurrents and forming a pervasive counter culture movement” (Rafferty 1991:277). Upon seeking graffiti on the west side of Vancouver, I have noticed that there are different forms of graffiti which cannot be conglomerated into the constraints of one general definition or category. Moreover, Halsey and Young (2002:165) note that graffiti need to be studied as not homogenous: Noting that graffiti is heterogeneous will facilitate the understanding of its underlying cultural and social aspects and implications. To distinguish between the different types of graffiti, Halsey and Young (2002: 167) note that there are multiple types of vandalism graffiti, like historical graffiti, racist graffiti, and latrinalia graffiti— all of which I have found to be extremely prominent and widespread in the washrooms at UBC, and, in contrast, there is artistic graffiti.

            A major theme relating to graffiti and its social and cultural implications that I noticed in my examination of Vancouver’s west side is the difference between creative and artistic graffiti versus vandalism graffiti. These differences have created the idea that “graffiti is both art and crime” which is evident in how people view graffiti, as either attractive or as a social decline (Halsey and Young 2002:165). To distinguish between the two, “graffiti vandalism” pertains to “scawlings that are motivated by a desire to mark territory, create notoriety, or show one’s defiance of the law and society” (Gomez 1993:635). For example, I took pictures of graffiti vandalism on a bus stop in Kerrisdale (Fig. 1) and in a ladies’ washroom at UBC(Fig. 2)—both of which seem to be ‘tag’ vandalism graffiti that are meant to defy society and mark territory (Gomez 1993:646). This kind of non-artistic vandalism graffiti is often associated with criminal activity and violence in a larger socio-cultural context (Gomez 1993:645) and also demonstrates that there is a counter-culture in Vancouver that defies the social and cultural expectations of the larger, dominant culture. Moreover, Halsey and Young (2002:170) note that graffiti culture is often stereotyped as being created by deviants or trouble makers who, as defined by public discourse, are likely unemployed or bored, are anti-social, or are associated with lower-income areas. However, they argue that these stereotypes ought to be cautioned when studying graffiti, as it is diverse and includes artistic graffiti as well.

            The other kind of graffiti, “graffiti art” exhibit characteristics that are normally termed “high art” or “folk art” and are often considered pieces because they “result from a desire to create artwork” (Gomez 1993:634). These art pieces often are created by artists who are manipulating mainstream cultural conventions to make parodies or express freedom (Rafferty 1991:277). Moreover, these pieces are often very elaborate and feature abstract signatures, human figures, creatures, and social-advocacy slogans, are created by the artist to build a portfolio, practice skills, or obtain employment, and are created in attempts to improve an artist’s community—not vandalize it (Gomez 1993:647). In general, I found vandalism graffiti more constrained in the Kerrisdale area, as it likely is removed shortly after it is created; however, examples of artistic graffiti seem to be more socially and culturally acceptable in this area of Vancouver, as they are allowed to remain intact without being erased or destroyed.

            For example, there is a very elaborate mural of graffiti art in the parking lot of the IGA near the corner of W 41^st Ave and Dunbar. The wall consists of three different murals: one of what appears to be a representation of an Asian language with the English words ‘will’ and ‘balance’ along with signature tags (Fig. 3), one of various characters from The Simpsons with signature tags (Fig. 4), and a mural of what is possibly Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama along with the words ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ with signature tags (Fig. 5). These three murals are all distinguished from each other and demonstrate the artistic diversity of Vancouver, as well as the city’s very diverse peoples and its multiculturalism. Furthermore, the murals also demonstrate aspects of globalisation in Vancouver, as artists are using symbols from around the world that are likely recognisable to most people. As a wider implication, Appadurai (1996:12) notes that reterritorialisation takes place simultaneously when cultural products become deterritorialised and globalised. With this framework, it is evident that culture in Vancouver is diverse and graffiti artists’ creativity incorporates reterritorialised aspects of cultures from around the world that have been integrated into Canadian culture more generally. This demonstrates that graffiti serve as a medium of cultural change and construction in congruence with globalisation, as well as multiculturalism. Artistic graffiti in Vancouver are therefore more socially and culturally acceptable than vandalism graffiti, which seem to promote a counter-culture that defies the ideals of the dominant culture.

Figure

Fig. 1 Vandalism graffiti on the seat of a bus stop on the corner of W 49^th Ave and W Blvd.

Fig. 2 Vandalism graffiti on the door of a ladies’ washroom stall in Buchanon B at UBC.

Fig. 3 Asian-inspired artistic graffiti, with English words and tags, in the parking lot of the IGA near the corner of W 41^st and Dunbar.

 

Fig. 4 Mural of graffiti inspired by The Simpsons, with tags, in the parking lot of the IGA near the corner of W 41^st and Dunbar.

Fig. 5. Mural displaying possibly Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama, with tags, and the words ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ in the parking lot of the IGA near the corner of W 41^st and Dunbar.

References Cited

Appadurai, Arjun

     1996   Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis and London:    University of Minnesota Press.

Gomez, Marisa A.

     1993   The Writing On Our Walls: Finding Solutions Through Distinguishing Graffiti Art         From Graffiti Vandalism. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 26(3):633-707.

Halsey, Mark and Alison Young

     2002   The Meanings of Graffiti and Municipal Administration. The Australian and New         Zealand Journal of Criminology 35(2):165-186.

Oxford Dictionaries

     2011   Graffiti. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/graffiti?view=uk, accessed        February 6, 2011.

Rafferty, Pat

     1991   Discourse on Difference: Street Art/Graffiti Youth. Visual Anthropology Review          7(2):77-84.

Jai Ho YouTubeizing: Facilitating the Imagining of Culture

Arjun Appadurai’s (1996) “Global Ethnoscapes” provides substantial insight into the notion that “the link between the imagination and social life...is increasingly a global and deterritorialized one” (Appadurai 1996:55). Moreover, Appadurai argues that media affect the imagination in social life so that people are able to fantasize and experience other cultures in a deterritorialized, globalised world (Appadurai 1996:53-54). As a case study regarding the effects of deterritorialisation on the ability of people around the world to imagine other cultures, the song “Jai Ho” from the movie Slumdog Millionaire provides insight into how cultures are partaking and interacting in globalisation through the media in the forms of film, music, dance, and the internet—primarily YouTube. The original Jai Ho video (YouTube 2011a) that was created specifically for the movie Slumdog Millionaire has spread throughout the world via the internet and YouTube to the homes of people of different cultural backgrounds: When searching for “Jai Ho” on YouTube, I received approximately 6,150 search results. This number is staggeringly large and demonstrates that people of different cultures around the world have had the opportunity to imagine a cultural aspect of a different part of the world, Mumbai, due to global deterritorialisation. In this blog entry, I focus on a comparison relating to cultural and social significance between the original Jai Ho video (YouTube 2011a) and a re-creation video of the Jai Ho dance by a couple who appear to be of Western culture (YouTube 2011b).

            The original, official version of the Jai Ho video has been viewed approximately 1,500,000 times (YouTube 2011a), and has respectively affected the imaginations of those viewers. According to Appadurai, “the imagination has now acquired a singular new power in social life...More persons in more parts of the world consider a wider set of possible lives than they did before” (1996:53). Upon viewing the Jai Ho video, one is capable of imagining what life is like for people living in Mumbai and what it is like to experience the culture of another people—in this case, Indian culture. For example, people in various locations are able to imagine what life is like in terms of dance, clothing, music, and social structure in India. However, as Appadurai (1996:54) cautions, this is not mitigating the fact that there is social disparity around the world: People are more able to judge their own social position by comparing themselves with what they can imagine other people in other parts of the world are like in terms of social position.

            Although the world is becoming deterritorialised, one must keep in mind that the process of reterritorialisation simultaneously takes place, and that when people imagine other cultures, they are able to do so by incorporating other cultural aspects into their own culture (Inda and Rosaldo 2002:12; Appadurai 1996:32). For example, the second YouTube video that I discuss is of a Western couple who are dancing along with the official Jai Ho video on their television in the background (YouTube 2011b). This couple is obviously in a better social position than those who are living in the slums of India; however, they are able to imagine the culture of those living in the slums of India by listening to the Jai Ho music as well as learning Bollywood style dancing.  While imagining this deterritorialised, globalised aspect of Indian culture, the couple is simultaneously reterritorialising the Jai Ho dance: It is clear that they are doing it in their own culture’s setting, in Western clothes, and have changed the dance slightly, and likely inadvertently, by adding more ‘pop’ to their moves—similar to that of Western hip-hop. Interestingly, this video has been viewed more times than the official Jai Ho video—approximately 1,870,000 times. This re-make video is also further deterritorialised and globalised, as people around the world are able to imagine what this couple’s culture is like, and viewers can further imagine how Indian culture has influenced them, and in turn, imagine what Indian culture is like from the original dance moves and music that prevail in the video. Reversely, people in India are able to see how people in the Western world have imagined Indian culture by watching videos like these on YouTube.

            Appadurai’s (1996:55) argument that deterritorialisation and globalisation facilitate the imagining of other people’s social and cultural lives is rather provocative and can be applied to various products, like YouTube videos of Jai Ho dancing from Slumdog Millionaire, that circulate around the world. Clearly with globalisation and deterritorialisation comes the shrinking of the world, and the notion that cultures and cultural products are more accessible and readily circulated. Through this circulation, people can imagine what another culture is like, and through this imagining, people are able to better see social disparity around the world (Appadurai 1996). This kind of imaginative flow is evident in videos like of the official Jai Ho dance and replicated dances of it, like that of the Western couple. As demonstrated, the imaginative flows cycle back and forth between cultures of origin and cultures of reception in a continuous, seemingly infinite manner.

References Cited

Appadurai, Arjun

     1996   Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis and London:    University of Minnesota Press.

Inda, Jonathan Xavier and Renato Rosaldo

     2002   Introduction: A World in Motion. In The Anthropology of Globalization. Jonathan        Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, eds. Pp 1-34. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

YouTube

     2011a   Slumdog Millionaire – Official Jai Ho Music Video (HD).          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRC4QrUwo9o, accessed February 4, 2011.

     2011b   Slumdog Millionaire Dance—Jai Ho.       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7AuQKFlhXI, accessed February 4, 2011.

Mediation and the Impact of Globalisation: Cultural Variations in Television

William Mazzarella (2004) discusses the connections between culture, globalization, and mediation, and what implications may be developing as we move towards a more globalised, mediated world.  He defines mediation as “the [process] by which a given social dispension produces and reproduces itself in and through a particular set of media” (Mazzarella 2004:346). Through this mediation, anthropologists are facilitated in studying the cultural flows that are transferred through increased globalisation. Moreover, Mazzarella takes particular interest in mediation because it constructs culture and affects the way that people imagine their own culture in comparison with that of others. Mediation, therefore, is reflexive in representation and allows us to become conscious of the various representations of our own culture that can be viewed by anybody in the globalised world. Mediation as a reflexive process is exemplified by Mazzarella with things like the cinema and theatre through which people are able to represent their own culture through performance, which is then in turn mirrored back to them (Mazzarella 2004:357). The impact of globalisation on processes of mediation is extensive: Globalisation has facilitated flows between cultures through mediation in ways that are creating a shrinking world, which is capable of seeing representations of several cultures, including one’s own culture.

            Television can be seen as an example through which anthropologists can examine and study the impact of globalization on processes of mediation. Through globalisation, various television shows have been adapted to be played in multiple countries around the world, and in congruence with their underlying cultures. For example, there are various versions of The Office, which originated in the UK (Fig. 1). The British version of The Office is a comedy which reflects British culture to various cultures around the world through mediation and globalisation, as well as reflexively back to people in Britain who identify with British culture so that they can see their own representation. Furthermore, with globalisation, other countries have adapted their own version of The Office.

            The American version of The Office, for example, was and is created by people who are representing their own culture through acting and production (Fig. 2). Aspects of American culture are then mirrored back to those involved in the production of the show, as well as those who identify with American culture, or North American culture more generally. With globalisation, people have the opportunity to watch various versions of The Office and see how their culture is represented in comparison with other cultures around the world, which further allows people to define their own culture by imagining the differences of others. For example, by contrasting the British and American versions of The Office, people can clearly see the difference between types of cars, licence plates, driving regulations, reference to food chains, movies, types of humour, linguistic features and slangs, dress, and so on. Moreover, Canadians, who arguably have a somewhat similar culture to Americans, are able to identify strongly with many similarities, but are also able to simultaneously define themselves as different from Americans through differences as well. Through these differences that are evident in the globalised, mediated flows of a television show, people can recursively (re)construct their own culture and imagine others. Mazzarrella’s (2004) interest in mediation and how it affects cultural construction and representation in a globalised world can clearly be applied to several examples, like television and The Office, and proves to be an interesting notion through which anthropologists can study culture and cultural construction.

Fig. 1 The Cast of The Office (UK Version) presenting their culture through television (Ponder Over Yonder 2007).



Fig. 2 The Cast of The Office (American Version) presenting their culture through television (TV Blanket ND).

References Cited

Mazzarella, William

     2004   Culture, Globalization, Mediation. Annual Review of Anthropology 33:345-367.

Ponder Over Yonder

     2007   British Wit vs American Humour. http://ponderoveryonder.blogspot.com/2007/02/british-wit-vs-american-humour.html,   accessed February 1, 2011.

TV Blanket

     ND   TV Blanket. http://www.tvblanket.com/tv_shows.html, accessed February 1, 2011.

Setting the Grounds for Cholera: The Media’s Negligence of Haiti’s Poverty

In the New Yorker article “Alms Dealers” Philip Gourevitch (2010) argues a pessimistic view of the influence of the media on Biafra regarding funding. In congruence with his argument, but in a different context, I argue that the media was also partially a negative influence in the case of Haiti’s cholera epidemic after the devastating earthquake which struck on January 12, 2010 (BBC News). The media was complicit in facilitating the conditions in Haiti which led to the cholera epidemic that was reported to have broken out in October of 2010 (CDC). Upon viewing several online newspaper articles dating from the day after the earthquake in Haiti, January 13, 2010, it is clearly evident that a lot of the Western media was biased towards the West and placed its interests towards Westerners and Haitians affiliated with the West above those who were not. This negligence of impoverished Haitians could have been complicit in denying appropriate coverage of those who were eventually affected by the cholera outbreak, which in turn could have ultimately facilitated lack of financial and social support to amending things like sanitation, water supply, and health care for the Haitians affected by poverty.

            One of the major ways in which the Western media prevented attention to alleviating other underlying issues, like sanitation, in Haiti was by protecting its own Western consumers. For example, the BBC news article “Haiti devastated by massive earthquake” protects its viewers from the atrocity of the earthquake in Haiti. In this article, there is a short video clip which presents some of the horrific activity in Haiti; however, there is also an advisory saying, “Guidance: This video contains some disturbing images” (BBC News)(Fig. 1) so that some viewers can choose to ignore it. Moreover, the article is laid out with headings so that readers can pick and choose what they want to read. Both of these examples set the grounds for viewers having the ability to ignore anything unsettling or stark that was and is going on in Haiti. In essence, this article facilitates ‘not in my backyard’ notions amongst viewers, as they are able to socially distance themselves from Haiti and take comfort in that distance. Furthermore, the article does little to capture the views of actual Haitians in distress; instead, it shifts focus once again back to its Western audience by asking, “Have you been affected by the earthquake?” If attention was drawn to aspects of Haiti’s situation that were unsettling and concern was given to how the earthquake affected Haitians in Haiti, perhaps more financial and supportive aid from viewers of the media would have been given. Moreover, if attention was given to the lives of people in Haiti, viewers could have ultimately had the opportunity to see that there were other problems, like issues with water supply and sanitation that needed to be resolved as well.

            Another way in which the media neglected impoverished Haitians who were susceptible to cholera is evident in how it focused on foreigners who could have been in Haiti and needed to be rescued immediately. For example, the BBC article describes foreigners from China, Jordan, Brazil, and France who may have been affected by the earthquake. A similar trend is evident in other articles, like in The Star, which chose to report on how Canadians affiliated with Haiti were affected (Woods et al. 2010). This article mentions Stephen Harper’s stance, that the earthquake was “an enormous disaster in a country that already has too many problems” (Woods et al. 2010). It also very briefly alludes to the fact that the Canadian government was aware of the problems in Haiti; however, the authors of the article chose to side step this and continue with the majority of the article focussing on Canadians. By doing this, readers could have potentially assumed that the situation was relatively under control and that they ought to shift focus towards foreigners ‘stuck’ in Haiti. For example, the article mentions how two RCMP Mounties were missing in Haiti and expresses sympathy to Toronto’s Haitian community. Further evidence of this trend is demonstrated in a CBC article which describes how the earthquake has affected Haiti-born, Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean (CBC News). Despite the fact that all of these individuals mentioned above deserved attention, negligent attention was given to the possible 3 million Haitians (BBC News) who were affected by the earthquake as a trade off.

            In conclusion, it seems as though the Western media that was produced on the day after the earthquake portrayed Haiti as a lost cause, and that the only hope was to save foreigners in Haiti from Haiti. Furthermore, the CBC article chose to focus on this dismal view by including only one of Stephen Harper’s quotes regarding the earthquake—that Canada would try to “help those people who can be saved” (CBC News). By portraying Haiti as a salvage situation and by neglecting to adequately cover issues like poverty and sanitation in favour of Western affiliation to Haiti, the media presented lacking attention to attempts of making Haiti a safe place that would flourish without disease like cholera. Overall, it is evident that, possibly, the media’s negligence of impoverished Haitians partially contributed to the dismal attempts that were made to promote better sanitation and health care, which could have ultimately mitigated or prevented the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

Fig. 1 Disclaimer protecting its audience from the disaster and impoverished situation in Haiti (BBC News).

References Cited

BBC News

     2010   Haiti devastated by massive earthquake. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8455629.stm,           accessed January 15, 2011.

CBC News

     2010   Haitian earthquake a catastrophe: Jean.      http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/13/haiti-governor-general.html, accessed            January 15, 2011.

CDC

     2010   Cholera Confirmed in Haiti, October 21, 2010.     http://www.cdc.gov/haiticholera/situation/, accessed January 15, 2011.

Gourevitch, Philip

     2010   Alms Dealers. New Yorker Oct 11, 2010:102-109.

Woods, Allan, Richard J. Brennan, Tonda MacCharles, and Andrew Chung

     2010   Canada responds as 100,000 feared dead in Haiti earthquake.             http://www.thestar.com/news/world/haiti/article/750150--canada-responds-as-100-000-     feared-dead-in-haiti-earthquake, accessed January 15, 2011.