Finding places for discursive spaces: claiming voice through graffiti

This paper is a study of graffiti as a very short text-type with a significant history and enormous potential for communication through its practice of transforming ordinary public spaces into a forum for social discourse. After a brief overview of some of the forms, functions and discursive modes of graffiti writing, especially in Anglophone culture, the study discusses the essentially dialogic nature of the graffiti text, where private voices become public and individual thoughts become collectivized. The manifestation of graffiti across cultures is seen to reflect the power of marginalized groups to claim a voice for the invisible and the inaudible by appropriating public spaces, physically and symbolically, for their discursive spaces. Graffiti are “little scratchings” which stake a claim to voice, precisely by finding places for discursive spaces