ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how graffiti triggers conflicting conceptions of civic participation and empowerment, by highlighting the on-going contestation of democracy involved in the local politics of public spaces. Graffiti has several ways of performing politicized interventions in public spaces, first by raising critical consciousness, what specialists of Brazil have called, after Paolo Freire, conscientizacao. The convergence in the provocativeness of the messages is striking, whether they are about sexuality, religion, the war in Iraq, or freedom of expression. Through a humour which is frequent in political graffiti, the juxtaposition of the two captions reactivates the political pertinence of a topic that has all but disappeared from the political debate. Mark Halsey and Alison Young identify four types of anti-graffiti policy: removal, criminalization, 'welfarism', and acceptance of graffiti culture. The politicization of graffiti in San Francisco shows how public spaces become the locus of democratic contestation.
