ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the nature of the contemporary urban space, and the cultural debates and contexts surrounding graffiti's place in it. It aims to reveal graffiti's contribution to understanding the urban environment as text and texture, and its role in linking identity and place-making. The chapter explores the meanings of 'writing the street' and 'literary graffiti'. In addition, through drawing on material culture studies, it can be argued that graffiti represents 'everyday materiality' and a fusion of the ordinary with the philosophical. The chapter looks at how graffiti is represented in selected fictional texts (poetry, fiction for young adults, psycho-geographical narratives) and how this reflects the ideological dimensions of urban graffiti cultures. Informed by cultural geography, it is also interesting to interpret graffiti as a means of mapping urban space. The chapter concludes that Banksy's injunction to 'stop leaning against the wall – it's wet' draws attention to the materiality and provisionality of writing in public urban space.
