“Pay attention asshole . . .”: contested place: the dialogue of graffiti in a contemporary urban community

Submission note: A thesis submitted in full fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts to the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This thesis explores the central research question: “What is the dynamic social and political role of “graffiti” in the neighbourhood of Fitzroy, and how is this expressed in the practice and aesthetic expression of graffiti as contested in urban public space?” Graffiti is a dynamic form of expression that is performed and negotiated amongst numerous competing social groups. Such expressions and relations were experienced and recorded during eighteen months of fieldwork in Melbourne’s inner-north suburb of Fitzroy and are described both historically and through numerous fieldwork vignettes. At the heart of graffiti is a contest over what might be described as “public space” and contemporary theoretical perspectives on “space” are explored to assist in understanding the dynamic social practice that is graffiti. This contestation is based around distinct yet overlapping aesthetic and moral values. This includes between graffiti writers themselves and different forms of graffiti, and at a more fundamental level, between graffitists and the state, including legal ideas of ownership. Despite increasing acceptance of graffiti in recent years, ongoing negotiations of individual and group expression within contested and politicized “public” space ensures the ever-changing mode of visual expression within the urban environment. Graffiti has become part of the social fabric of Fitzroy and can be seen as a dynamic arena of social and political expression and contestation around the visual expression of identity in “public” yet sometimes privately owned space.