Throw Word’

Graffiti, Space and Power in Kingston, Jamaica

Bibliographic Data

ID8901722
AuthorsR Jaffe (0000-0002-6115-2978, corresponding author), Kevon Rhiney (0000-0002-0428-0332), Cavell Francis
Year2012
Volume58
Issue1
Pages1-20
Publication date2012-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCaribbean Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-6495 • E-ISSN: 2470-6302
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00086495.2012.11672428
OpenAlexW1846626561
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited12

Introduction: Graffiti, space and powerA SPECIFIC JAMAICAN WAY OF expressing criticism is to 'throw word'. Similar to the African-American practice of 'signifying', this rhetorical device, developed in a context of power inequalities, allows critics to convey their disapproval of certain behaviour indirectly by speaking 'to the air' rather than to any one person. Those being reprimanded will be well aware that they are the intended authence but find it difficult to retort because, as the saying goes, Throw a stone in a pigsty, the one that squeals the loudest is the one that has been hit.1 This article examines textual graffiti in Kingston, Jamaica as a form of 'throw word', a way for socio-politically and economically marginalised citizens to air their often critical opinions of urban life. We explore how graffiti texts can be used to understand relations and contestations of power in urban space. The texts can provide insight into how certain urban actors give spatial expression to their concerns surrounding various issues relevant to the urban experience. We analyse the distribution of texts throughout the city and to what extent they offer a (not necessarily emancipatory) voice for marginalised groups, arguing that, in the final analysis, they reflect a conservative ideology that tends to bolster rather than undermine the dominant order in terms of political, class and cultural struggles.There is a growing body of literature on graffiti, particularly within urban geography.2 Most of these studies, however, have focused on large cities in the global north, such as New York and Philadelphia. Little is known about graffiti in cities in the global south, such as Kingston. Graffiti in Kingston is markedly different from that commonly referred to in the USA, where scrawled names ('tags') and brightly coloured murals ('pieces') reflecting an urban subculture of graffiti writers are the main focus of research. In contrast, the graffiti in Kingston is more political, publicly oriented and often intentionally provocative. For the purpose of this article, the use of the term graffiti refers to the textual street-oriented forms of graffiti generally seen around the city of Kingston, Jamaica.While geographers have long studied landscapes as texts,3 graffiti not only alters or edits the text of the cityscape. It also forms an independent body of texts or narratives that refer to each other as well as to the 'canvas' of the city on which they are literally inscribed; collectively, then, graffiti forms a discourse. The discursive nature of Kingston's graffiti is best understood through a broader urban perspective. Factors such as crime, poverty, garrison politics and public sexual mores4 contribute to the urban experience which finds discursive expression through urban phenomena such as graffiti.Contestations over urban space are a well-established focus within the literature on urbanisation, and qualitative approaches within this field have shifted towards studying the intimate connections of space with knowledge and power. Following authors such as Michel Foucault and Michel de Certeau,5 we are interested in the manifestation of power in space, not only through the use of 'spatial strategies' (in de Certeau's terms) or 'disciplinary diagrams' (as Foucault puts it) of surveillance and control by those in power, but also through the spatial and discursive tactics of economically and sociopolitically marginalised groups. This shift in emphasis also entails broadening the focus from struggles over access to and uses of spaces and places, to include the cultural politics of symbolic struggles over the meanings of places and socio-spatial boundaries.Recent shifts within the spatial structure of cities, linked to neoliberal policies, evidence the manifestation of power in space. The privatisation, regulation and militarisation of public space both reflect and contribute to power inequalities within the city

Art · Genealogy · Graffiti · Linguistics · Power (physics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Visual arts · Word (group theory · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · History · Philosophy · Public Spaces through Art · Urban Planning and Governance

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