Public Spaces, Stigmatization and Media Discourses of Graffiti Practices in the Latin American Press: Dynamics of Symbolic Exclusion and Inclusion of Urban Youth
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Public spaces, stigmatization and media discourses of graffiti practices in the Latin American press: Dynamics of symbolic exclusion and inclusion of urban youth Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Soziologie am Fachbereich Politik- und Sozialwissenschaften der Freien Universität Berlin vorgelegt von Alexander Araya López Berlin, 2015 Erstergutachter: Prof. Dr. Sérgio Costa Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Fraya Frehse Tag der Disputation: 10 Juli, 2014 2 Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 5 Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 7 Zusammenfassung ............................................................................................................ 8 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 9 Do cities still belong to us? ........................................................................................... 9 Chapter I ......................................................................................................................... 14 Youth: A social construction of otherness .................................................................. 14 Graffiti as social practice......................................................................................... 24 Chapter II ........................................................................................................................ 41 Spatial socialization, criminological verstehen and the public sphere ....................... 41 Interim Summary..................................................................................................... 62 Chapter III....................................................................................................................... 66 Following stories in media: Discourse analysis .......................................................... 66 Methodological approach of the research ............................................................... 74 Chapter IV ...................................................................................................................... 84 Graffiti as social practice in Costa Rica ...................................................................... 84 The discourses of graffiti practice in La Nación newspaper ................................... 86 A. From graffiti production as political communication to vandalism/criminality 87 B. Aesthetic and social value of street art/graffiti productions: From unauthorized to commissioned/sponsored graffiti ........................................................................ 99 Silences and absences in the themes about graffiti in La Nación ......................... 115 Chapter V ...................................................................................................................... 118 Graffiti, pichação and pixação as social practice in Brazil ....................................... 118 The discourses of pichação/pixação production in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo ...................................................................................................................... 122 A. Stigma and criminalization concerning the practice of pichação/pixação ..... 123 B. Social protest and alternative aesthetics concerning the practice of pichação/pixação ................................................................................................... 132 C. Anti-pichação strategies between 2001 and 2010 .......................................... 140 The discourses of graffiti and street art production in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo ...................................................................................................................... 144 3 A. Aesthetic and commercial value of street art/graffiti productions: From unauthorized through commissioned/sponsored graffiti to “art products” ........... 145 B. Social value of (hip-hop) graffiti and street art production ........................... 150 C. Anti-graffiti and anti-street art strategies between 2001 and 2010 ................ 157 Chapter VI .................................................................................................................... 163 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 163 Discourses against unauthorized graffiti productions, tagging culture and pichação/pixo ........................................................................................................ 164 From the right to the city / the right to the (urban) protest to the commodification/institutionalization of graffiti as a social practice ..................... 169 Perceptions of otherness: Periphery, “low art” and worthless social practices ..... 175 Further theoretical and empirical research ............................................................ 186 References .................................................................................................................... 189 References of quoted articles: La Nación (Costa Rica) ............................................ 201 References of quoted articles: Folha de São Paulo (Brazil) ..................................... 204 Annex ........................................................................................................................... 208 4 Acknowledgements The development of this research has been possible thanks to the efforts and contributions of several persons and organizations. First of all, the project of this dissertation was granted a scholarship by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), through its division for Central America. I would like to thank Irena Rusak, Veronica Metje, Alexander Au, Carmen Gleisenstein, and all my other DAAD collaborators in both Costa Rica and Germany. For their advice on theory and on the revision of the proposal, I am grateful to Nora Garita, Randall Blanco and Manuel Solís, professors at the Department of Sociology of the Universidad de Costa Rica. Ana Lucía Fernández contributed with the bureaucratic task of preparing the application for funding. Jorge Sanabria-León also reviewed the project and recommended me for this scholarship. This research has relied on several theoretical approaches available only in German, and for this reason, I sincerely thank Katrin Witteborn, Dolores Kübler, Sylke Strehle and Marian Eick – as well as other colleagues at InterDaF Leipzig – for providing me the necessary discipline and motivation to face the vastness of the German language. Several people contributed with empirical and theoretical information about graffiti and youth culture in general. I am grateful to Estibaliz Hidalgo, Karine Steinvorth, Ezequiel Meza, Diego Ballesteros, Gisela Ferraro, Adam Groffman, Annika Buchholz, Marta De Maradiaga, Silvia Munoz, Luis Soto, Amanda Rodríguez, Carolina Quesada, Amandine Bourg, Andrés Goméz-Peña, Susana Soto, Marcia Cyranka, Rocío Guzmán, Rodolfo Guzmán, Rosa Iris Cervantes and all other friends who provided me links, images, texts and other material or emotional support for the writing of this dissertation. My informal discussions with Daniel Haussmann have proven invaluable for both the theoretical and methodological approaches of this study. I thank Thomas Ehrlich Reifer (University of San Diego) for the references on hip-hop culture. Jeffrey Lesser (Emory University) contributed with references to remarkable texts on youth cultures and the city. 5 My colleagues at the Lateinamerika-Institut (Freie Universität Berlin) were particularly important in this process, both for their pertinent questions as well as for the time dedicated to the reading and discussion of drafts. I would like to thank Claudia Maldonado, Jorge Atria, Krista Lillemets, Javiera Cienfuegos, Renata Motta, Kaciano Barbosa, Ernesto Mieles and Airton Mueller. Sérgio Miguel Franco provided me with his research on graffiti and pichação in São Paulo, a text that without a doubt has left its mark on this research. Djan Ivson Silva granted me access to the documentary Pixo, and among other pixadores, he contributed with first-hand information about the practice. Penelope Krumm was in charge of the titanic task of proofreading and editing and her comments and observations improved the quality of this dissertation as a whole. For their supervision, comments and extraordinary patience in the development of the theoretical and methodological strategies of this dissertation as well as in relation to the bureaucratic tasks involved in the process, I express sincerest gratitude to Manuela Boatcă, Fraya Frehse and my Doktorvater Sérgio Costa. I also thanks my parents, Eduardo Araya and María Antonieta López, for all the sacrifices and efforts they faced to give me an education. 6 Abstract This dissertation focuses on the discourses about graffiti practices (including tagging culture and pichação/pixação) in two Latin American newspapers, namely La Nación in Costa Rica and Folha de São Paulo in Brazil. Considering ongoing processes of physical and symbolic exclusion directed towards urban youth, these discourses seem to be anchored in broader discussions regarding both the public sphere (in Habermas’s sense) and shared public spaces. This research approaches “graffiti” in its multiplicity, emphasizing the diversity of (young) producers