The Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art integrates and reviews current scholarship in the field of graffiti and street art. Thirty-seven original contributions are organized around four sections: History, Types, and Writers/Artists of Graffiti and Street Art; Theoretical Explanations of Graffiti and Street Art/Causes of Graffiti and Street Art; Regional/Municipal Variations/Differences of Graffiti and Street Art; and, Effects of Graffiti and Street Art. Chapters are written by experts from different countries throughout the world and their expertise spans the fields of American Studies, Art Theory, Criminology, Criminal justice, Ethnography, Photography, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Visual Communication. The Handbook will be of interest to researchers, instructors, advanced students, libraries, and art gallery and museum curators. This book is also accessible to practitioners and policy makers in the fields of criminal justice, law enforcement, art history, museum studies, tourism studies, and urban studies as well as members of the news media. The Handbook includes 70 images, a glossary, a chronology, and the electronic edition will be widely hyperlinked.

Discussions of street culture exist in a variety of academic disciplines, yet a handbook that brings together the diversity of scholarship on this subject has yet to be produced. The Routledge Handbook of Street Culture integrates and reviews current scholarship regarding the history, types, and contexts of the concept of street culture. It is comprehensive and international in its treatment of the subject of street culture. Street culture includes many subtypes, situations, locations, and participants, and these are explored in the various chapters included in this book. Street culture varies based on numerous factors including capitalism, market societies, policing, ethnicity, and race but also advances in technology. The book is divided into four major sections: Actors and street culture, Activities connected to street culture, The centrality of crime to street culture, and Representations of street culture. Contributors are well respected and recognized international scholars in their fields. They draw upon contemporary scholarship produced in the social sciences, arts, and humanities in order to communicate their understanding of street culture. The book provides a comprehensive and accessible approach to the subject of street culture through the lens of an inter- and/or multidisciplinary perspective. It is also intersectional in its approach and consideration of the subject and phenomenon of street culture.

Graffiti and street art images are ubiquitous, and they enjoy a very special place in collective imaginary due to their ambiguous nature. Sometimes enigmatic in meaning, often stylistically crude and aesthetically aggressive, yet always visually arresting, they fill our field of vision with texts and images that no one can escape. As they take place on surfaces and travel through various channels, they provide viewers an entry point to the subtext of the cities we live in, while questioning how we read, write and represent them. This book is structured around these three distinct, albeit by definition interwoven, key frames. The contributors of this volume critically investigate underexplored urban contexts in which graffiti and street art appear, shed light on previously unexamined aspects of these practices, and introduce innovative methodologies regarding the treatment of these images. Throughout, the focus is on the relationship of graffiti and street art with urban space, and the various manifestations of these idiosyncratic meetings. In this book, the emphasis is shifted from what the physical texts say to what these practices and their produced images do in different contexts. All chapters are original and come from experts in various fields, such as Architecture, Urban Studies, Sociology, Criminology, Anthropology and Visual Cultures, as well as scholars that transcend traditional disciplinary frameworks. This exciting new collection is essential reading for advanced undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics interested in the subject matter. It is also accessible to a non-academic audience, such as art practitioners and policymakers alike, or anyone keen on deepening their knowledge on how graffiti and street art affect the ways urban environments are experienced, understood and envisioned.

Dynamically written and richly illustrated, the Routledge International Handbook of Visual Criminology offers the first foundational primer on visual criminology. Spanning a variety of media and visual modes, this volume assembles established researchers whose work is essential to understanding the role of the visual in criminology and emergent thinkers whose work is taking visual criminology in new directions. This book is divided into five parts that each highlight a key aspect of visual criminology, exploring the diversity of methods, techniques and theoretical approaches currently shaping the field: • Part I introduces formative positions in the developments of visual criminology and explores the different disciplines that have contributed to analysing images. • Part II explores visual representations of crime across film, graphic art, documentary, police photography, press coverage and graffiti and urban aesthetics. • Part III discusses the relationship of visual criminology to criminal justice institutions like policing, punishment and law. • Part IV focuses on the distinctive ethical problems posed by the image, reflecting on the historical development, theoretical disputes and methodological issues involved. • Part V identifies new frameworks and emergent perspectives and reflects upon the distinctive challenges and limits that can be seen in this emerging field. This book includes a vibrant colour plate section and over a hundred black and white images, breaking down the barriers between original photography and artwork, historic paintings and illustrations and modern comics and films. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists, visual ethnographers, art historians and those engaged with media studies.

Visual culture has become one of the most dynamic fields of scholarship, a reflection of how the study of human culture increasingly requires distinctively visual ways of thinking and methods of analysis. Bringing together leading international scholars to assess all aspects of visual culture, the Handbook aims to provide a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the subject. The Handbook embraces the extraordinary range of disciplines which now engage in the study of the visual - film and photography, television, fashion, visual arts, digital media, geography, philosophy, architecture, material culture, sociology, cultural studies and art history. Throughout, the Handbook is responsive to the cross-disciplinary nature of many of the key questions raised in visual culture around digitization, globalization, cyberculture, surveillance, spectacle, and the role of art. The Handbook guides readers new to the area, as well as experienced researchers, into the topics, issues and questions that have emerged in the study of visual culture since the start of the new millennium, conveying the boldness, excitement and vitality of the subject.

Bonadio brings together experts to provide the first comprehensive analysis of issues related to copyright in street art and graffiti. This book sheds light on the legal tools available for artists and offers policy and sociological insights to spur further debate. It will appeal to legal scholars and law practitioners around the world.

This pivot analyzes the historical emergence of legal graffiti and how it has led to a new ethos among writers. Examining how contemporary graffiti writing has been brought into new relationships with major social institutions, it explores the contemporary dynamics between graffiti, society, the art world and social media, paying particular attention to how New York City’s political elite has reacted to graffiti. Despite its major structural transformation, officials in New York continue to construe graffiti writing culture as a monolithic, criminal enterprise, a harbinger of economic and civic collapse. This basic paradox – persistent state opposition to legal forms of graffiti that continue to gain social acceptance – is found in many other major cities throughout the globe, especially those that have embraced neoliberal forms of governance. The author accounts for the cultural conflicts that graffiti consistently engenders by theorizing the political and economic advantages that elites secure by endorsing strong 'anti-graffiti' positions.