Helsinki Graffiti Subculture Meanings of Control and Gender in the Aftermath of Zero Tolerance
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MALIN FRANSBERG Helsinki Grafti Subculture Meanings of Control and Gender in the Aftermath of Zero Tolerance Tampere University Dissertations 398 Tampere University Dissertations 398 MALIN FRANSBERG Helsinki Graffiti Subculture Meanings of Control and Gender in the Aftermath of Zero Tolerance ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Tampere University, for public discussion in the lecture room K103 of the Linna, Kalevantie 5, 33014 Tampere, on 30th April, at 12 o’clock. ACADEMIC DISSERTATION Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences Finland Responsible Professor Päivi Honkatukia supervisor Tampere University Finland Pre-examiners Docent Tarja Tolonen Professor Keith Hayward University of Helsinki University of Copenhagen Finland Denmark Opponent Professor Shane Blackman Canterbury Christ Church University United Kingdom Custos Professor Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen Tampere University Finland The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service. Copyright ©2021 Malin Fransberg Cover design: Roihu Inc. ISBN 978-952-03-1913-7 (print) ISBN 978-952-03-1914-4 (pdf) ISSN 2489-9860 (print) ISSN 2490-0028 (pdf) http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-1914-4 PunaMusta Oy – Yliopistopaino Joensuu 2021 Omistettu niille, jotka elivät nollatoleranssissa. iii iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Fifteen years ago, I could not have believed that I was about to start an academic career. For it was a cultural shock to attend the university as a young student in 2006. People there spoke in a different way, they were using strange words and manners that I was truly unfamiliar with. I often felt like an outsider because I did not know how to use academic jargon and those peculiar concepts that an intellectual language is so often demanded. My way of knowing and articulating how things go, how power, and social justice works, was rather learned on the streets among friends, who were in constant trouble with the long arm of the law. Yet, some fortunate befalls made me feel more comfortable in the academic world. In 2008, I was accepted for an exchange program at the Department of Criminology in Stockholm University and here my theoretical interest in critical criminology sparked. When I later discovered that I could combine this academic interest with urban ethnography on a methods course taught by Lena Näre and Elina Paju at the University of Helsinki, I knew what to write about. In 2011, I presented my idea at the graduate seminars for sociology students with Professor Harriet Strandell, who soon advised me to approach Professor Päivi Honkatukia to ask her willingness to supervise my study on young males’ train writing subculture in Helsinki. She agreed, and once I graduated, I was encouraged by Päivi to continue. With her help, I applied for the Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences at the Tampere University. I want to express my deepest gratitude to Päivi Honkatukia, who has supported me since the early stage of my research career and provided me with academic advice and strength in times when I was unsure if I could ever complete my doctoral research. Her critical reflections on the vast forms of social control that youth encounter in our society was in particularly inspiring for my work. I also wish to thank Päivi for her solid commitment to reading and commenting on my work at its every stage. I am honored that Professor Shane Blackman, with his expertise in subcultural theory, has agreed to be my opponent in the public defense of this dissertation. I am grateful for the pre-examiners’, Docent Tarja Tolonen and Professor Keith Hayward, valuable and constructive comments on how to improve the summary of this dissertation. I wish to thank Tarja Tolonen for her reflections on gender and v spatiality, and Keith Hayward for his profound knowledge of cultural criminology. I also want to thank Professor Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen for agreeing to take the role of custos. Along the way, I have had the privilege of receiving commentaries on my work in several academic communities. In an early stage of my PhD studies, I was invited by Päivi to join a national network of critical criminologists. Here, I met some of the criminological experts, such as Heini Kainulainen, Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi, Timo Korander and Helena Huhta. I want to express my deepest gratitude for this group of critical criminologists who was a tremendous inspiration at the beginning of my research project. I wish to thank the community of researchers at the Finnish Youth Research Network (FYRN) in Pasila, who provided me with an office and a creative working atmosphere. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff members at FYRN, who were always very helpful with all the managerial things. Thank you also for giving me the opportunity to be part of the research project Digital Youth in the Media City. Without this opportunity, I would not have had the pleasure of learning to know many great youth researchers in St. Petersburg. I would like to thank Professor Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen and Associate Professor Eeva Luhtakallio for organizing the seminars of the Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences at the Tampere University. Many thanks to the fellow PhD students in the seminars for always reading my papers and for bringing critical feedback on my work. Last, but not least, there is a group of graffiti and street art scholars out there who have inspired me a lot. It has been an honor to co-write a paper with Jonna Tolonen and Mari Myllylä. Thank you, Jonna and Mari, for your great sense of humor, restless irony, and critical thoughts. Special thanks to those who have read and commented on my papers: Nadya Vasileva, Jacob Kimwall, Erik Hannerz, Malcolm Jacobsson and Susan Hansen, who did enormous work in editing my troublesome English in this thesis. I am also extremely thankful for Susan’s supportive feedback at a stage when I was about to hand over my thesis for pre-examination. I was lucky to receive funding from several foundations. In 2014, with my first grant from Emil Öflundsstiftelse, I was able to buy a laptop for this project. In 2015, I received a one-year grant from Scandinavian Research Council for Criminology. In autumn 2017, with funding from Svenska Kulturfonden, I was able to visit the department Centre for Youth Research at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg. In 2018, I was fortunate to receive a two-year financial support from Tampere University. In 2020, a grant from Helsinki City helped me to complete this thesis. vi My family has supported me in many ways. I want to thank my mother Aila Markus, my father Klas Fransberg, and my two younger siblings. Mom, for always educating me and strengthening the rational side of me. Dad, for having the critical thought and the inspiration to always question authority. The small discussions we had in my tweens on how society works have undoubtedly influenced me to write this piece. Axel, for always giving a helping hand, but most of all because of showing what calmness in life is. And Asta, thank you for teaching me about what sensitiveness is. Thank you all for supporting me and letting me grow up in a family like ours and in a house called Toivo. Over the years there are many friends that have inspired me in my work. Many of you have been along since we started to explore the mystiques of urban life and some of you have regrettably passed away. I cannot mention you all, so I choose to express my gratitude for letting me be part of the best street team one can ever imagine. You know who you are. Thank you for all the joy and sorrow we shared. It is easy to be myself when spending time with you. For providing me a break in the mundane and for the pleasurable disobedience in endless nights, thank you Ellu and Fanni. For intimate compassion and believing in gender diversity, I want to thank Saara and Niina and our Femakko-klubi. You have proved that intellectual talk is not exclusive and that anyone can read Judith Butler. There is a particular place that has kept me alive throughout the demanding penning years, and that I liked to mention here. It literally kept me and my nearest fed, but also my mind in peace, and that is my colony garden in Itä-Pakila. The digging in the mud makes me smile and keeps me spending hours watching the greenery growing. This place, a rather clayey spot with plenty of authoritative female figures around, has taught me that dirty hands are equal to tired, yet incredibly strong bodies. Thank you, Peppi for being there. Ville, my best friend and life partner. Thank you for believing in me and in this research project. And, thank you for teaching me what runners’ high means. Getting high with you on trails in the forest is the best drug I have ever tried. I am truly lucky for having a home with you and with our beautiful cat Annie. Finally, I dedicate this dissertation to the Helsinki graffiti subculture and all the informants who took part in this research project. Nothing has taught me as much about urban life, the city scape, control, and social justice. It’s been a rough journey, but you kept me alive. I owe you the urban life you brutally but generously have cultured in me. Without you, I would not have been able to write this thesis. In Helsinki, March 2021. vii ABSTRACT This thesis by publication is an urban ethnographic study on the Helsinki graffiti subculture, consisting of this summary, and four peer-reviewed journal articles (Publications I – IV).