Detroit is Conflict Graffiti from a Global Perspective

FAIN: FT-248889-16

John Lennon
University of South Florida (Tampa, FL 33620-9951)

The ethnographic and cultural analysis of conflict graffiti in Detroit and cities in the Middle East.

Detroit Graffiti: The Roots and Routes of Conflict Graffiti from a Global Perspective addresses these questions: what can graffiti tell us about the everyday resistive practices of citizens in post-bankruptcy Detroit and how do these practices compare to resistive graffiti practices in other conflict areas around the world? Using theoretical framing with ethnographic detail, I will live in Detroit for a month, interviewing native Detroit graffiti writers, photographing the city’s walls, and analyzing the materiality of protest in Detroit, exploring how paint on walls contextualizes, informs, and changes the spatial geography of the protest movements. I examine graffiti as an evolving language of protest that is rooted in the specific material culture of a particular area but is read, interpreted, and remixed by a global audience. My work in Detroit is part of a comparative study linking Detroit’s protest graffiti scene with similar scenes in other national and international cities.

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