The graffiti in Bangalore, Cape Town, and Buenos Aires is incredibly varied and diverse. Although I had doubts about finding enough dissimilarity to make valid contrasts, the most challenging part of this anthropological lens assignment was narrowing down the differences and choosing a focus. Based on my observations and discussions, I've analyzed the graffiti I've seen in the context of the development of social movements and popular transformations in cities. Graffiti is a part of public space in almost all urban contexts, but it differs based on a city's social, political, and cultural history and the dynamic of present changes. Graffiti can be a form of street art, used to express the artist's vision and talents, but it can also be full of political significance, used by the people as a form of visual resistance.
Upon my arrival in Bangalore, I was initially disappointed to encounter an urban landscape that seemed devoid of graffiti. I found a few examples of painted signs for political rallies that didn't align with the notion of graffiti that I had previously conceived- bright spray painted designs featuring gang tags and slang. In Cape Town, I discovered much more of what I considered to be "typical" graffiti and came across many examples of incredibly intricate murals along with simple scrawled tags. In Buenos Aires, the presence of graffiti is almost overwhelming. It's everywhere- in parks, on public and private structures, on historic buildings, on medians, etc. There are plenty of highly detailed graphics, but also lots of stenciled pieces and many small images that seem to be no more significant than mindless doodles. Much of the graffiti here is stacked with social and political meaning, though, from slogans protesting the kidnappings of the previous regime to anti-Iraq war messages to "Vegan or die" signs (most surprising in such a meat-centered country).
Across the globe, graffiti is seen as a form of vandalism and is illegal in most places (including all three cities I visited this semester). This art form has been associated with subcultures (such as hip hop and punk (Estevao 2008)) and minority groups, but has become more mainstream in the last decade as companies such as IBM and Sony have featured graffiti art in their advertising campaigns (Singel 2005). In Buenos Aires, graffiti was very popular in the 90s and early 2000s; its manifestation coincided with the emergence of hip hop culture in Argentina, but also closely followed punk rock and "cumbia" (Columbian music) trends and the ongoing rebellion against the remnants of the military dictatorship in the 70s and 80s (Estevao 2008). Much of the graffiti that is painted today in Buenos Aires is related to band names and football clubs, or even newly released movies as I saw with a Batman inspired tag. My 84-year-old host mother said, "Kids are doing it. They are buying spray paint and covering the walls with it because they're bored. It doesn't mean anything anymore." Although my host mum cannot see any valuable meaning in the street art she sees, other groups of people can; the meaning of the graffiti is constructed through "shared values" and "models of behavior" among and between groups who use graffiti art to communicate and express their talents and beliefs (Ritsema).
After noticing an abundance of graffiti during my neighborhood day in San Telmo, I returned to a spot on Av. Defensa to engage more closely with the social and material elements of the street art. I noticed plenty of small images, including smily faces, "so and so loves so and so", and phrases in Spanish, many of them politically oriented. I also saw lots of stenciled designs, which I did not encounter in either Cape Town or Bangalore. Most of the stenciled images included political and social messages; stenciled graffiti is a relatively easy, rapid way to reproduce slogans and graphics, especially when law enforcement is a concern (Norman 2003). Along a set of steps leading to an apartment complex the words "Opuesto Rock" were written at least a dozen times ("opuesto" means opposition). There were also several large, colorful murals; one featured a crazed-looking canine with a soccer ball for a nose and an oblong green figure with a gaping mouth that chewed three yellow bones. This green figure had the name of a website-www.grolov.tk-written on the blue shirt sleeve covering its left arm, but when I tried to find the site I didn't receive any hits.
My analysis in Argentina encouraged me to link hip hop and politics, which has provided an interesting new framework for the graffiti that I've already observed in Bangalore and Cape Town. According to Haupt (2001), hip hop is composed of five elements of popular culture: "Break dancing, rapping/emceeing, dj-ing, graffiti art, and knowledge of self" (146). Haupt emphasizes that 'knowledge of self' is "an ideology that advocates the pursuit of spiritual and intellectual upliftment along the lines exemplified in the ideals of black consciousness." In this view, hip hop is regarded as a black phenomenon; what's interesting is the attention payed to black consciousness, implying collectivity, which can be compared to popular mass social movements in Argentina and elsewhere. Mumford (2003) writes, "One may describe the city, in its social aspect, as a special framework directed toward the creation of differentiated opportunities for a common life and a significant collective drama" (94). Citizens of the city are linked largely because of their sharing of space, and graffiti is quite a noticeable addition to said space. Haupt's mention of "spiritual and intellectual upliftment" could also relate to any population that is struggling to overcome a form of social and/or political repression.
Hip hop and rap music first arrived in the Cape Flats in the early eighties, shortly after this new type of "black music" surfaced on the American pop culture scene (Nkonyeni 2007: 85). The two graffiti designs that I observed in Cape Town were painted in 2007 and 2008, based on the dated signatures ("tags") that were scrawled next to the images by their artists. When I told my host parents in the Bo Kaap where I was doing my observations, my host mother chimed in, "Oh, they hang out there a lot." When I asked who they were, she replied, "Street children. And vagrants. They're always sitting around on that block." I asked her who specifically does the graffiti. She took a minute to answer. She finally said, "I'm not really sure. I think it's just people wandering about. And talented youngsters. It's illegal here, so if the police see someone making graffiti, they will be arrested."
I also spoke with the host-relative of another student on this program who would probably disagree with my host mum's point of view that graffiti is made by people just "wandering about." When I first met Mohammed* (name has been changed), he asked where exactly I was staying in the Bo Kaap. When I told him which house was mine, he asked, "Have you seen the arch near your house?" I responded that I had, and he informed me that it used to be his crew's "graffiti spot." Although Mohammed is colored rather than black, his dress and mannerisms emit the essentialized identity of hip hop culture: he listens to rap and hip hop music, refers to his friends as "homies", and wears a large belt buckle with a digital screen that scrolls his name. He told me that he and his crew had stopped spraying graffiti over the arch because someone had painted a mural over it. He said, "And now that spot is theirs."
Interestingly, Mohammed saw his graffiti as a type of territorial marker; it created a sense of place. The arch is private property, but while it was covered in their graffiti it "belonged" to Mohammed and his crew. His graffiti also became a form of communication, which is also indicative of the other graffiti that I've seen, in both Bangalore and Buenos Aires. Whether the conveyed message is political, social, or personal, graffiti can give the artist a sense of power over and entitlement to the space he or she decorates. Jackson writes, "Dialogue and debate have emerged over entitlement to urban space and the meaning particular parts of the city now hold for those given a voice in the narration of its history" (2003: 61). This is especially relevant when considering groups that have been underrepresented or repressed, such as black and colored people in South Africa or poor and politically subjugated groups in Argentina. The history of Bangalore lacks not only a history of hip hop, but also a history of recent popular social/political movements that mobilized the masses, which may account for the lack of "typical" graffiti. Since discrimination based on caste has now been outlawed, a graffiti culture may emerge based on the social uprising of previously suppressed peoples.
In some parts of the world, graffiti is becoming accepted as an art form, rather than just pure vandalism. In February of this year, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC displayed the Smithsonian's first exhibit of street art. Frank Goodyear, one of the exhibition's curators, said, "We are not glorifying the illegal activity, but we are acknowledging the larger impact that this street tradition has had in contemporary art" (Blumberg 2008). Some graffiti artists have become famous and now travel to different countries to paint on walls, fences, and underpasses, despite the illegality of their art form. The lens through which I examined graffiti was more local, based on individuals and groups who are painting graffiti in cities, influenced by cultural and political ideologies and causes. Kaiser writes of Buenos Aires, "Taking to the streets is aimed at conquering and remapping cultural, political, and ideological zones that are never void, but loaded with presences, symbols, and meanings" (2008: 172). Graffiti seems to epitomize the concept of "taking to the streets," as the artists leave their mark in the hopes that someone who walks by the wall, building, train car, or whatever else they have branded with their spraypaint or stencil, will read their message and be inclined to take notice of its implications.
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