Introduction

We, the editors of this volume, share an interest in the varied functions and contexts of graffiti. We come from differing training and experience: Lovata is an anthropologist/archaeologist; Olton is an art historian. When we began to formulate this book, we found ourselves separately teaching about images, culture, and graffiti in the explicitly interdisciplinary Honors College at the University of New Mexico. The Honors College asks faculty to generate their own curricula based on individual experience. No specific text lists are required, nor are specific courses taught unless faculty in the College proposes them. We were asked to be experts and use our expertise as we saw fit. We—as our own entries in this volume show—were separately interested in understanding the practice and function of graffiti. Our individual circumstances also showed us that the topic was much larger than any single field or methodological approach. In our ensuing conversations, it became clear that each of us was synthesizing diverse resources, diverse data, and diverse approaches to the study of graffiti, and pushing our students to do the same. Juxtapositions of graffiti, images, and texts stirred multiple questions, research projects, and understandings. Separately, we concluded that graffiti— a form of expression both ancient and modern, public and private—is a medium of communication that crosses boundaries among academics, cultural theorists, public policy experts, and laymen. Understanding graffiti requires a broader perspective of the contexts of this expression, as well as more inclusive working definitions of its forms, both in research and in teaching.