Graffiti Art and Advertising Re Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation State

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Geopolitics

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Graffiti, Art, and Advertising: Re-Scaling Claims toSpace at the Edges of the Nation-State

Kenneth D. Madsen

To cite this article: Kenneth D. Madsen (2015) Graffiti, Art, and Advertising: Re-Scaling

Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation-State, Geopolitics, 20:1, 95-120, DOI:10.1080/14650045.2014.896792

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Geopolitics , 20:95–120, 2015Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1465-0045 print / 1557-3028 onlineDOI: 10.1080/14650045.2014.896792

Graffiti, Art, and Advertising: Re-Scaling Claimsto Space at the Edges of the Nation-State

KENNETH D. MADSEN Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Newark, OH, USA

Physical barriers are an increasingly popular political mechanism

for central government control over the flows of goods and people at

borders. This medium also, however, serves as a canvas for unsanc-

tioned expressions of belonging. Just as graffiti and art are deployed

in the urban landscape as unconventional means of claiming

space, they are utilised on international border barriers to contest

prevalent political winds and re-claim local and alternative senses

of who belongs and what is deemed important in debates over

border policy. This paper considers unauthorised text and visual

imagery on the border barriers of the Arizona-Sonora section of

the US-Mexico boundary as a therapeutic reaction to a state-dom-

inated border policy which downplays local impacts. It is argued that such imagery serves to re-scale border space and thereby re–

capture a sense of belonging by those whose roles are marginalised

by national politics and the neoliberal global economy.

INTRODUCTION

Local border communities have gradually lost flexibility over the last century in their interactions across international borders. This process has acceleratedin recent decades as central governments have increased their presence andtightened control over these spaces, which are seen as critical to nationalsecurity. Among the Tohono O’odham of southern Arizona and northernSonora, for example, cross-border networks have been progressively con-strained by and divvied up between the US and Mexico.1 In a study of onesouth Texas community the closeness between two neighbouring bordertowns has been portrayed as succumbing to increasing border barriers and

Address correspondence to Kenneth D. Madsen, Department of Geography, The OhioState University, Newark, OH 43210, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/fgeo.

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96 Kenneth D. Madsen

other security measures.2 Residents of bi-national communities – those areas with residents in close proximity living on the opposite side of a boundary – find it increasingly difficult to interact with family and friends, go shopping,or participate in social or civic events across the border. Longer waiting lines,

additional documentation, and greater security checks discourage casualcrossings and news of violence in Mexico or poor treatment of Mexicansin the United States provides additional deterrence to such interaction.

Once a detail of little concern nationally, local crossings and interactionshave become intimately tied up with greater national and international eco-nomic and security concerns.3 Although academic geographers have ques-tioned the inevitability of the nation-state system which is premised on theconcept of central government sovereignty ,4 from a local perspective thesetheoretical ponderings have little currency and power and control continuesto reside with central governments and supra-national market forces. This

situation leaves local communities grasping to make sense of their status asfront and centre in the international flows of goods and people, yet sidelinedin terms of relevant policy input and traditional local cross-border relations.

In recent decades there has been a global resurgence in the constructionof border barriers,5 a phenomenon also clearly evident along the Arizona-Sonora boundary. Construction of fencing to deter human crossings herecan be traced back to the 1930s and 1940s in urban areas. Barrier structureslocated in rural areas at this time was still motivated largely by the need tocontain and protect livestock from the spread of disease. Fence constructionin this stretch was revived in urban areas in the 1970s with a heavy-duty metal mesh design, which was in turn upgraded with re-purposed military tarmac in the 1990s.6 Over time these formats were slowly extended intorural areas, with new and replacement construction accelerating with theSecure Fence Act of 2006.7

Technologies of control constructed by the state to further its interests,8

border barriers are often demanded by domestic political constituenciesinterested in protecting the privileged status quo as manifest in jobs orcultural integrity .9 In Arizona and elsewhere along the southern US bor-der activist groups have assembled to assist with detecting illegal entries.

More importantly, however, these groups seek to call attention to the needto fully seal the border and in many they have found a sympathetic audi-ence. Yet despite extensive construction, the political environment in whichborder barriers are built provides little consensus on the topic and theirproliferation is simultaneously contested by both domestic and internationalconstituencies that denounce such construction.10

Border walls and fences are issues of great interest to central govern-ments, but as with many national concerns their placement is set in specificlocales and has complications for local residents that simply do not registerin a significant way in national conversations. Local residents are often more

attuned to the negative consequences of border policies without directly


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Re-Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation-State 97

reaping many of the benefits hoped for by proponents of more secure bor-ders. Local residents live first-hand issues that are off the radar screen of national debates: less local business from across the border, environmentalramifications of illegal traffic and enforcement, more cumbersome crossings

for daily tasks, and even restricted mobility within their own country.Local residents may hope for many of the same benefits prioritised innational debates – protecting workers, controlling the flow of drugs andother contraband, sovereignty, security – but disagree that tighter borders which fail to account for local impacts are appropriate ways to accom-plish that goal. Local concerns on the constructing side of border barriersare taken into account to some degree as part of the greater body politic when formulating central government policies, but discrepancies in politicalclout and the demonisation of local cross-border ties ultimately dismiss many local apprehensions over barrier construction in favour of national interests.

Despite advocating for maintenance of cross-border connections – oftenthe main thrust of border resident concerns – local interests are balancedagainst more highly prioritised national security issues. Various communitieshave different perspectives on this issue, of course, and even within a givencommunity there is hardly conformity of opinion. Yet even when local com-munities argue for more security to protect themselves from illegal traffic,how that gets implemented is balanced against secondary national criticismsof too much overt militarisation and the protection of civil rights. Either way national perspectives persistently outrank local concerns in terms of idealsand actions.

While governments of countries whose populations are targeted by fences and walls may occasionally voice concerns over these structures,11

out of deference to political sovereignty they are generally quiet in termsof overt activism. After all, the barriers are not constructed on their soil andconflict would have limited impact. As a result the urge to protest publi-cally is stifled in order to maintain a positive working relationship on issuesof mutual interest. While this helps explain the lack of a national voicefrom the targeted side of border fences and walls, also missing from thepublic discussion is the perspective of local residents on the targeted side

of these structures. Lacking formal channels for expression, in some wayslocal residents on the targeted side follow the trajectory modelled by theircentral governments – accepting the inevitable largely in silence. At best,collaboration with and representation through sympathetic counterparts incommunities just across the border or more far-reaching anti-barrier groupson the constructing side happens unofficially. There is no direct channel forimpacting border policies which have such a great impact on their lives.

Where providing a solid surface, however, the barriers themselves haveinadvertently provided a forum for public display of alternative viewpointsin the form of graffiti and unauthorised public art.12 Given their unauthorised

nature, such messages are generally unrestricted by international diplomatic


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etiquette or even a need to be acceptable to broader society. By virtue of location, accessibility, and familiarity this forum for protest favours and istargeted by local border communities. Nonetheless, messages with originsoutside the immediate borderlands – generally those representing non-

mainstream political perspectives on the constructing side – comprise animportant element of what is found here as well. I assert in this paperthat graffiti and art on border barriers provides a means for both groupsto think through and resist an exclusive national understanding of power.Concerns voiced in the landscape in this way provide a means for bordercommunities and others to temporarily gain the upper hand in the lopsidedgeopolitical power relations which generally relegate their concerns to thesidelines. Sometimes anonymous and largely urban, along the US-Mexicoborder graffiti and art is also largely internal to local communities as it ismostly found on the targeted side of the fence and therefore hidden from

view by a broader audience that could have some impact on border bar-rier policy. Nonetheless, as a political statement such work often gains a wider audience in the press and on the web which enhances its potential toinfluence others.13

As I argue in this article graffiti, art, and even commercial advertisingon border barriers all serve an important function in highlighting local com-plications of a border policy dominated by national interests. This re-scalingof the issues also serves a cathartic function for local communities, both forthe artists and those who come in contact with their messages. After com-menting on my research methods and theoretical framework, I will briefly consider the distinction between graffiti and art as one largely influenced by political perspective. I then support my assertion of such work as politically and socially therapeutic for local communities and those with anti-barrierpolitical perspectives with reference to literature largely grounded in psy-chology. I then turn more directly to the idea of graffiti (and by extensionbarrier art and advertising) as a form of political protest and discussion of specific ways in which such work on Arizona-Sonora border barriers resistsexclusive national control of border policy.

METHODS AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

As a scholar of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands I have closely followeddevelopments in border barrier construction since 1998. The present workemphasises a landscape interpretation of a particular local response (graf-fiti, art, and advertising) to the rise of border barrier construction in the lastseveral decades. Early research undertaken as part of my M.A. thesis,14 for-mal interviews of thirty border residents in 2010 regarding their thoughts onUS-Mexico border fencing, intermittent fieldwork among local border com-

munities on other topics, and ongoing dialogue with local residents further


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inform the ideas presented in this paper. Although informed by field interviews and interactions that included some visits with people responsible forthe text and visual imagery found on border barriers, this is not a paper thatpresents a literal understanding from the perspective of artists. The interpre-

tations presented here are the author’s in light of the context and effectiveimpact of graffiti, art, and advertising.15

In presenting different perspectives on space at the border – the agency of local communities, regional and national voices, and a broader frameworkof control and resistance in the context of border barriers and unauthorised visual messages – this paper considers dynamics at multiple levels to betterunderstand borders.16 Attempts to re-orient attention to what a group or individual feels is important in debates over border issues, especially in regardsto local concerns, is what I refer to in this paper as a “re-scaling” of claims tospace at the edges of the nation-state. Re-scaling calls attention to the state of

exception claimed by central governments to support contemporary borderpolicies17 – exceptions which disproportionally affect border residents whileoften being ignored or glossed over by others.

I frame my argument in terms of scale because graffiti, art, and adver-tising on border barriers shift discussion over this symbol of state power18

towards a greater consideration of its local ramifications. These mediumsalso re-configure borders and border policy to a more immediate and locally lucid level of human understanding. Although our specific examples aredistinct in that I focus on a wider array of actors who have a medium incommon rather than the political ambitions of a single artist, the re-scalingprocess is similar to Smith’s concept of jumping scale.19 Interestingly bothmovements are inspired by and coalesce around art as a force for socialchange. And just as the homeless vehicle discussed by Smith may not beperceived by many viewers as art, neither do many people include graffiti oradvertising in such a category. My preference for the term “re-scaling” ratherthan “jumping scale” reflects a subtle understanding of this process bring-ing different levels of interaction and influence together and capturing theirinherent integration. Furthermore re-scaling as envisioned here responds tomanifestations of the national and global at the border rather than requiring

local individuals advocate for themselves on a national or global stage.Insofar as local entities initiate and direct public discussion on pol-icy and its impacts, graffiti, art, and advertising on border barriers actually reverses the dominant appropriation of space wherein constructing centralgovernments impose greater security for national purposes in these locations.In this sense the process of re-scaling is not only a top-down phenomenon,but also a bottom-up process – re-scaling works “up” as well as “down” whatis traditionally conceived of as the hierarchy of scale. Top-down scalar pro-cesses have been perceived as dominant in the past and criticised for thatreason,20 but are viewed here as simply one way in which power works at

international borders.


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Although I utilise the terminology of scale, in many ways my approachto understanding these processes follows Marston et al.’s discussion of a flatontology which argues that the national is not a distant entity from whichthe local is removed and unable to concretely interact. In a flat ontology

“national” and “global” decisions are made and take place locally somewhereand recognising this dynamic can be empowering in terms of resistance as itprovides additional opportunities for intervention.21 Graffiti artists take this astep farther by interacting with the manifestation of seemingly distant policieson their own turf rather than engaging abstract policy decisions in distant(albeit “local” to someone) places.22 Whether those who inscribe messageson the Mexican side of US border barriers create effective entry points forthemselves in the larger debate over border security or simply chip away at the local foundations of national power in a larger hierarchy of scale23

is a greater theoretical debate that this paper does not seek to resolve. The

argument could certainly be made, however, that such individuals are not somuch “re-scaling” these issues as “un-scaling” them.

Finally, it should be noted that re-scaling as discussed in this article isto be distinguished from the rescaling literature wherein it is argued that thenational is being superseded by local and global forms of power, a viewthat has been critiqued Mansfield.24 Re-scaling here is a specific means of contesting the role of state and national political interests in local lives ratherthan something indicative of broader shifts in power or a theoretical situat-edness that downplays the role of national efforts. Following Mansfield, thisstudy recognises both the local and the national as inter-related dimensionsof each other.25

GRAFFITI AS PUBLIC ART

At its most basic level, graffiti is an inscription of text or graphics – usually anonymously – on a publically accessible surface.26 On an existential levelit proves the writers existence, even though it is generally encountered by others only incidentally .27 On a political level, graffiti has alternately been

described as a form of “anarchistic resistance” and “an assertion of a right tobe-in-place.”28 For Cresswell and other geographers graffiti poses the biggerquestions of ‘Who gets to say that certain meanings are appropriate?’ andultimately ‘Whose world is it?’ and ‘Who belongs?’29 In their groundbreakingessay, Ley and Cybriwsky discussed how inner city youth use graffiti as oneof the few outlets available to them to lay claims to belonging in the urbanlandscape.30 Moreau and Alderman recognised graffiti as an alternate meansof communication for disenfranchised individuals to question establishedpower and authority.31 In their study of anti-graffiti initiatives, graffiti wereperceived as a threat to the status quo and anti-graffiti efforts ultimately

served to reinforce exclusionary representations of society.


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Graffiti is characterised by its subversive nature. Written to be publically visible, outdoor graffiti usually defaces the property of others and lacks offi-cial authorisation. Although it is ultimately ephemeral and can be removedor written over, graffiti or its traces are nonetheless a very durable act of vio-

lation and repeat graffiti in the same location is common. Given its generalprohibition by authorities, it is also usually a spatial rather than synchronousconfrontation. In recent decades graffiti has largely become associated withgangs marking and defending their territory in an urban environment.32 Eventhough much of it is written by individuals and groups with no such crimi-nal affiliation,33 graffiti is generally a criminalised form of communication.34

This criminalisation is ironic given that the surfaces where graffiti appearsget appropriated for such purposes in many cases because these locationsare not highly valued by society .35

Public art, by contrast, generally seeks authorisation and inclusivity and

pursues acceptability by authorities and a broader cross-section of society. Whereas art in general may also confront and confound expectations inorder to make a point, public art tends to emphasise the positives ratherthan challenge the negatives in society. In most cases public art is located inspaces more highly accessible, trafficked, and valued than where graffiti isfound. When in a street setting likely to host to graffiti, murals – a particulartype of public art – are often used to reinforce social control and approvedlandscape messages while deterring more spontaneous artwork even if itsometimes imitates graffiti’s style (Figure 1).36

While for most people the distinction between graffiti and public art isclear, this is not always the case. For some people and in some circumstancesthese categories blur. David and Wilson wrote that “when inscriptions ceaseto be seen as polluting, they cease to be graffiti, instead becoming public artor street decoration in the eyes of controlling institutions.”37 In that sense wemight consider some of the graffiti and unauthorised artwork on the Mexicanside of US border barriers to be a form of public art with broad social appeal. Whether spontaneous or planned it is tolerated by Mexican authorities whocontrol effective access to sites on the south side of US border barriers evenif they technically have no jurisdiction over such structures. The messages

on the Mexican side of the barriers are generally welcomed for their politicalcontent and aesthetics by authorities and residents. While barrier artwork has a greater and less objectionable presence

along the Mexican side of the border, in the sense that it is done withoutpermission of property owners it can continue to be classified as a formof graffiti. Alvarez stated that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security regularly removes graffiti on the US side,38 but given the enormity of thesurface area, the relative lack of contact US populations have with the wall,and the likely futility of such efforts, this is perhaps not always a priority. While new barrier styles can provide physical openings for increased control

over artwork on the Mexican side of the border barriers, removal remains a


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FIGURE 1 This artwork along the pedestrian walkway exiting north of the Douglas, Arizonaport-of-entry not only beautifies an otherwise nondescript utilitarian space, it helps pre-emptunauthorized graffiti and its inherent message of disrespect for the established order in a placedesigned to epitomize control and the rule of law. Artwork has also been commissioned atother ports of entry and in nearby Naco decorative murals have been authorized on the borderbarriers themselves. (Jan. 2010)

All photographs by the author.

relatively low priority for the Border Patrol unless it actively interferes withenforcement activities or safety.39

Graffiti art on border barriers is a liminal category between casually subversive graffiti thrown up quickly and anonymously and public art or othercommissioned works which are planned out, credited to known artists, andapproved by public authorities and property owners. As with more elabo-rate urban pieces, graffiti art on border barriers often incorporates elements

of both of these categories, falling closer to the graffiti end on the spectrumfor some people and decorative neighbourhood enhancement for others.The blurring of these two categories lends legitimacy to the graffiti and streetcredentials to the art. Regardless of where it lies on the spectrum betweengraffiti and high art, however, graffiti art often has an overt political messageand even when lacking intentionality makes claims to space and belongingand shifts attention to an alternative understanding of the role of borderbarriers.

In functional terms the border barriers themselves can also be con-sidered a form of graffiti on the landscape by those who disagree with

its presence.40 Like graffiti as more widely understood, it disrupts the


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surrounding environment’s serenity to confront the reader and send a mes-sage – in this case condemning and criminalising the passing flows it witnesses. The federal government may be the controlling landowner, buttraditional local interactions and visual environments get interrupted. Similar

to other forms of graffiti, barrier supporters seem to have felt that their per-spective was not being heard and as such it needed to be engraved in thelandscape. In this respect the border fence is as much message as form andelicits support from the public in its efforts to control movement by clar-ifying what is allowed or prohibited. Beyond the border, popular politicalsentiment in constructing countries often appreciates the structures for theirsecurity role both in practice and rhetoric regardless of aesthetics. In an ironicreversal of positions vis-à-vis more traditional graffiti, however, the subalternis more likely to see the border barriers as futile efforts and decry them asscars on the landscape. One’s politics define what they perceive as graffiti.

For the purposes of this paper it is not necessary to make a definitivedistinction between graffiti and public art on border barriers. Indeed, they may even be considered two sides of the same coin. More important is therecognition that both are an alternative political means of communication. Advertising will be introduced later as a parallel means of claiming spaceand re-scaling one’s attention with regard to these structures.

GRAFFITI AS COPING MECHANISM

Agreeing with geographers discussed earlier, Hanauer wrote that “graffiti hasbeen shown to be a natural outlet for marginalized groups to express theirinternal sense of identity and injustice.” Hanauer takes his analysis a bit fur-ther, however, in understanding graffiti as the “psychological embodiment”of the writer’s self-image and a source of self-empowerment.41 Writing froma clinical perspective, Boldt and Paul maintain that

creating art itself has communicative power and is an attempt to beunderstood. From the earliest markings found in the caves of Lascaux to yesterday’s graffiti still wet on the sides of subways, visual art has apowerful way of evoking thought and emotion in the viewer, holding within it joy, pain, love, hate, and life waiting to be consumed, or aperson’s hope to speak in ways he or she could not manage otherwise.42

In reflecting on her life’s work using art therapy with children, Edith Kramerfurther stated the following with regards to young adults:

I think that only if they feel that they can have some impact on theenvironment can they really feel that they’re growing. Art therapists needto move much more out into the community, into the empty lots, and

build things with found objects, and make murals on the brick walls. The


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young adult has to somehow feel that he’s in command of a little partof the world, at least some part of the world, and not only the symbolic world on a piece of paper. That’s also good, but a wall would be better.43

Kramer was not advocating illegal graffiti, but her point about public arthas validity for the present work. Participation in a public hearing or a let-ter to the editor may get one’s perspective heard among a select group of people and even add it to a permanent record, but ultimately such venuesare mediated by others.44 Graffiti, by contrast, communicates one’s messageuncensored and with greater immediacy and depth. On border barriers it isalso surprisingly durable given the low priority accorded its removal. I con-tend that this type of self-validation – controlling and communicating one’smessage in their own “little part of the world” – is therapeutic not only forcontrolled counselling situations, but also those who feel disenfranchised in

other ways.Several studies have discussed the connection between politically moti-

vated graffiti and mourning in the case of graffiti in Tel Aviv appearing at thesite of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995.45 Hanauerspecifically concluded from his analysis of this event that there is “evidencethat graffiti has significant therapeutic potential as a mode of response totrauma and issues of identity negotiation.”46 In terms of graffiti and unau-thorised art on border barriers, expressing perspectives which have beensuppressed or dismissed by oneself or others substitutes for a more substan-tial breaching of the barriers and allows a similar element of healing to take

place in the face of disruption inflicted on local communities.47 Border resi-dents are largely passive recipients of enforcement-based border policies andby means of such an unauthorised reaction artists push back against an exter-nally imposed structure in a very tangible way in order to advocate for localand other alternative concerns. Even when noticeable responses are lacking,graffiti and graffiti art in this context are opportunities to vent. Seizing theopportunity to present their message on the very materiality of policies thatthey are protesting48 is cathartic for those who feel disenfranchised by theseforces.

CONTESTING SPACE AND GEOPOLITICAL PARADIGMS WITH GRAFFITI

Peteet found that during the First Intifada in the early 1990s graffiti inthe occupied West Bank represented a form of resistance in dominant-subordinate relations between Palestinians and the occupying Israelis whocensored their communication. “Taking to the walls,” Peteet wrote, “was asort of last-ditch effort to speak and be heard.” For the censored Palestinians

it also served as internal dialogue between political factions.49 Along the


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FIGURE 2 Study area map.Cartography by the author.

contemporary Israeli security barrier Jones has described graffiti as illustratingthe ‘broken windows theory’ in reverse: “The paint symbolizes the complete

failure of the Israeli state to control activities along the border and to controlthe imagination of the population.”50 The importance of writing on barriersis more than just effective dialogue or communication in the Arizona-Sonoracontext considered here as well (Figure 2). Graffiti and unauthorised publicart are concrete acts of incremental resistance and one of few avenues topublicly contest border barriers and policies that are available to residentson the Mexican side of the border. One of the ways local border residentsand outside groups voice their concerns, then, is by talking back. Graffitiand art serve as attempts to re-insert local and alternative claims to placeat a time when national and global forces dominate in the yin and yang of simultaneously fortifying and working across borders.

In considering Australian aboriginal place markings at the time of European Contact, David and Wilson argued that express political contentis not required for graffiti to be considered a territorial claim or resistanceto encroachment by others, but rather placement alone can be considereda clear indication of such.51 In that sense all unauthorised artwork on bor-der barriers can be considered an inherently political act that contests theexistence and/or manner of implementation of those barriers (Figure 3). Although some graffiti may have more substantive and obvious political con-

tent, simply by defacing US government property – and more specifically atool used to prohibit undocumented and illegal cross-border traffic – bor-der barrier graffiti sends a message of contempt and disrespect. Graffiti is amedium well-suited to giving voice to local individuals and groups as it relieson a physical presence as a locus of transgression to express one’s perspec-tive. In this sense graffiti and art, particularly on the Mexican side of the bor-der barriers, represents a form of reverse marginality whereby the periphery has the upper hand in terms of daily life and therefore strategic resistance.52

As a form of protest border barrier graffiti and politicised art may seemfutile to outsiders just as urban graffiti seems by many to accomplish little

of substance beyond visual pollution of the urban fabric. From an artistic


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FIGURE 3 Although the content of this geometric artwork in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonoradoes not explicitly contest U.S. border policies, such images still challenge claims to spaceby visually appropriating the local manifestation of distant border policies and U.S. federalhegemony over the border for other purposes – in this case Mexican public art. (Jan. 2004)

perspective, however, such creative actions draw attention to the impact of barriers in a very dramatic fashion. Street artist Ron English has describedhis artwork on the Israeli security barrier as a mode of communication thatprioritised an act of creation over other more destructive acts of resistance.Furthermore, art is a medium that in many ways speaks louder and lastslonger than a violent protest.53

A unique aspect of graffiti on border fences is that it represents dialoguenot with policy makers or a distant electorate, but the landscape embodimentof policy – the border barriers themselves. Guarini has stated that the Berlin Wall was the loudest “no” that could be communicated – yet its power to for-bid was ridiculed by Western graffiti.54 Alvarez follows this in understandingUS barrier construction, graffiti, and art as visual proclamations and com-mentaries about US border policy etched in the landscape. As Alvarez stated

in the title of her work, it is “La Pared Que Habla” – The Wall that Speaks .55

And it does so in both directions 24/7. Drawing on the performative aspectsof border walls explored by Brown, Hidalgo states that “art draws attentionto the controversies surrounding the walls, while the contested nature of the walls draws attention to the art.”56 In many ways the barriers also serveas a visible focus for resistance which stands in for more intangible powerrelationships and border policies.57

While its effectiveness in thwarting flows is debated, the fence as ameans of communicating federal policy to deter entrance by migrants andsmugglers from Mexico is clear. The protest messages of graffiti and other

unauthorised artists, by contrast, is largely imperceptible by those to whom


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it is addressed even if it is gratifying – indeed, therapeutic – for individualsinvolved in the process or who pass by on a daily basis. Even when notimmediately changing the trajectory of US border policy, however, as a way to counter claims to space graffiti remains a powerful medium to

incrementally contest distant federal policies. Most importantly in terms of the arguments in this paper, it re-orients one’s attention and perspective,subverting the intent of the surface on which it is placed. The graffiti – as well as unauthorised art and advertising – allows members of and advocatesfor local communities and migrants to assert their voice. These visualmediums challenge casual acceptance of policy implementation amongthe local population in an era of globalisation when local communities ingeneral are seeing increases in outside influences and border communitiesin particular are experiencing growing demands for visible security measuresby interior residents. Recognising that on border and security issues national

priorities trump local needs, in some small measure barrier graffiti and arthelp to return a sense of place and control back to border communities in atime when their political clout is being eroded. This dynamic is particularly strong on the Sonoran side of the US-Mexican border. Given greater inputon policy, less direct contact with the border, and a closer patrolling of thefence from the US, the Arizona side has less graffiti, but where present itserves a similar purpose.

Just as graffiti elsewhere reflects dialogue between competing politicalperspectives or claims to space,58 graffiti here more specifically engages con-temporary US policy with messages of opposition. For local border residents writing such graffiti or displaying political art on the border barriers expressesa desire to get attention for their concerns, and prompts a re-thinking of theissues that should be balanced when formulating and carrying out borderpolicies. Although not their primary concern, regional and national interestgroups also play off the theme of local division as a means to accom-plish their own goals of critiquing border policy. While the goals of bothgroups are sometimes complementary, they are frequently distinct in detailand scope. Whereas border residents are more concerned about their com-munities and quality of life – whether infringed on by law enforcement or

cross-border flows originating from elsewhere – others use these themesas springboards to provide support for their own critiques of border policy which is more broadly concerned with human rights, immigration, drug pol-icy, and globalisation. Although the press or a national lobbying campaigncould have a wider reach and therefore greater impact, such approachesrequire extensive time, networks, finances, and idealistic compromises to yield results. As a result some regional and national interest groups havejoined alongside or partnered with individuals and groups in local commu-nities in utilising graffiti and art on border barriers to express their message.Certainly there is something very immediate, emotional, and compelling

about the dressing down of border policies themselves.59

In reference to


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the Israeli Separation Barrier, one man is reported to have remarked to theartist Banksy that he made the wall look beautiful. Upon Banksy expressinghis appreciation for such support, the local individual continued, “We don’t want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall, go home.”60 This comment reflects

not only divergent approaches over engagement or confrontation, but also atension that outside entities – even if sympathetic – have taken it upon them-selves to speak on behalf of border residents and perhaps even squeezingout local voices in the process.61

When local costs and benefits are considered by a sympathetic outsidegroup, it is generally in the context of making an argument for national poli-cies, a means to an end to change people’s perspective on national issues.The consideration of the local scale in these situations adds poignancy, butis ultimately ephemeral in focus – the emphasis remains on summary statis-tics worthy of national consideration or examples that reinforce a particular

alternate national perspective (Figure 4). By contrast, a more fundamental re-scaling of the issues by local interests comments less on the pros and cons of border policies nationally than the social and psychological impact on localcommunities (Figure 5). Both approaches utilise a personal and heartfeltunderstanding of the issues and can appeal to another type of re-scaling as well, one that usurps rather than downsizes a national perspective on thebasis of faith. Given the absence of a national political agenda, however,such religious overtones seem to be more pronounced in the local versionof this landscape.

FIGURE 4 By drawing attention to an increase in deaths as migrants are diverted to moredangerous terrain, the use of crosses in a high-traffic commercial neighborhood of Nogales,Sonora challenges the exclusive national economic orientation of border policies with starkpersonal examples, almost bypassing the local to re-scale at the level of the body. Thesedeaths may happen on the border, but the emphasis remains on a national discussion of issues. (Feb. 2010)


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FIGURE 5 This single cross with a bilingual appeal for prayer is located in a low-trafficresidential neighborhood in Nogales, Arizona. Although the religious imagery is similar tothat in Figure 4, it is more local in origin and focus. This landscape at once captures thehuman impact of deaths on the ground, the spiritual hereafter by which national policies andactors will ultimately be judged, and a more cosmic but ultimately very personal re-scaling of the issues for migrants, traffickers, and law enforcers alike. (Feb. 2010)

Authority and the rule of law, economic costs and benefits, the envi-ronment, the social impact of border policies, civil rights, and even the very

definition of community are framed differently at different levels. Whereasnational discussions may balance the positives and negatives of immigrantlabour or legalisation of drugs, for example, local discussions weigh thebenefits of cross-border shopping against being a through-way for undocu-mented people and other places’ drug problems against being ground zerofor a turf battle by narco-traffickers. Similarly, interior residents prioritisenational territory in defining community while border residents may priori-tise proximity and the dynamics of hybridity. For border and cross-bordercommunities, local issues have international consequences and implicationsthat interior communities have the luxury of ignoring. For them the local

scale is inherently international in scope and the international scale is decid-edly local in its impact. One of the goals of local residents is to affirm thatinterconnectivity rather than deny it.

COUNTERING EXCLUSIVE NATIONAL CLAIMS TO THE ARIZONA-SONORA BORDER

Under the contemporary nation-state system, central governments gener-

ally maintain claims to sovereignty and control at international borders, yet


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several efforts have countered such presumed exclusivity in recent years.State-level initiatives such as Arizona’s S.B. 1070 and private organisationssuch as the Minutemen and the American Border Patrol have challenged thecentral government’s monopoly over the border. Even as these movements

push for stricter border controls they undercut exclusive federal authority todefine the problem by demanding to be a part of that effort. These move-ments do not necessarily, however, seek to shift discussion of border controlaway from its national perspective which emphasises economic, social, andpolitical benefits of federal border policy to the country as a whole. For bothsets of actors, such benefits override the negative impacts of passing trafficon and newly introduced divisions between border communities.62

In a very different way policy tours made by national political figuresalso bring national policy down to its local manifestations. When such atten-tion incorporates a local perspective it is often with the goal of finding a way

to make existing national policies more effective rather than fundamentally challenge those policies and may or may not lead to mitigation or compensa-tion for situations where costs and benefits weigh differently at the local scalethan they do for national interests. In part to keep the focus on the nationallevel in terms of central authority and pre-empt a re-scaling of border issues,the US government has responded to concerns over federal border policy with the creation of BORSTAR (the Border Patrol’s search, trauma, and rescueunit), community relations programmes, and even lawsuits against state-levelinitiatives such as Arizona’s S.B. 1070.

In terms of re-scaling with graffiti and art, efforts are largely undertakenby those within local communities and sympathetic outside groups. In SanLuis Río Colorado where traffic waiting to cross into Arizona idles parallel tothe border, largely ornamental murals painted at every intersection63 createda sense of place in the 1990s and 2000s that welcomed new traffic joiningthe queue, punctuated the wait, and projected a positive visual image of theborder to the main thoroughfare two blocks south. Even as less elaborategraffiti tags popped up in-between, murals at intersections dominated thatpromoted local attractions and healthy lifestyles, honoured the local envi-ronment, portrayed the area’s indigenous heritage, and acknowledged the

border as a transit point for migrants. In Agua Prieta, vegetation fulfils a sim-ilar role of beautification at intersections. Douglas/ Agua Prieta otherwise has very little graffiti or art on the border barriers given a wrought iron/picketstyle of fencing originally designed to be more open and attractive than thestandard military landing mat used elsewhere in the late 1990s.

Communities also re-scale claims to space along Arizona-Sonora borderbarriers by using it as a billboard of convenience. Such an approach is motivated less by a desire to cover up or confront the barriers than it is by thecommercial opportunities it presents. Ignoring the barrier in this way refusesto give the fence legitimacy by engaging in an argument over border con-

trol at all. Such advertising can also be interpreted as celebrating freedom


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of movement for capital rather than lamenting the mobility problems bor-der constraints pose for local residents and passing migrants. In many waysadvertising on border barriers focuses on the opportunities provided by neoliberalism rather than its downsides. Originally less prolific than graffiti

or art, commercial messages have come to dominate the border barriers inSan Luis Río Colorado over the last decade (Figures 6 and 7) at the expenseof much of the earlier artwork.

Commercial messages seem to have as much to do with convenienceand marketing as expressing a counter-claim to border space, but the mes-sage is also unmistakable that these advertisements and the products they represent are at least as important a component to the border communi-ties as the surfaces on which they are posted. Commercial messages aretherefore also an important means by which Mexican border communitiesincrementally respond to the barriers by turning their own backs on US

border policy. Just as national US policy overwhelmed those local bordercommunities with insertion of the border barriers in the first place, they havein turn scaled down the barriers by appropriating them for local commercialusage unrelated to border law enforcement.

Mexican political advertisements also spring up from time to time on thebarriers. In the late 1990s in particular when Naco, Sonora, was an isolatedstronghold of the Partido Acción Nacional the party’s acronym, candidates,and trademark light blue and white colours dominated the barriers duringelection season (Figure 8). Through these murals, political inclusion and

FIGURE 6 In this image commercialism merges with Mexican nationalism to appropriate theborder wall for a very particular artistic purpose – advertising. As traffic approaches the port-of-entry to cross into the U.S. drivers and passengers in San Luis Río Colorado are urged topurchase and consume Mexican products. Such advertisements shift attention away from U.S.

national border enforcement to Mexican national economic concerns. (Jan. 2004)


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FIGURE 7 As advertising expands in San Luis Río Colorado it has reached well beyond thedowntown area and even to areas outside of town where the border wall is visible fromfaster traffic on Mexican Highway 2 farther away. While specific Mexican local businesses aremost prominently featured, Arizona merchants are also beginning to advertise on these borderbarriers. Daewoo Electronics has a presence in a local industrial park and an extensive seriesof advertisements here oriented toward brand-name recognition. (Jan. 2013)

FIGURE 8 This now faded political advertisement in Naco, Sonora was an early methodof re-scaling that shifted attention away from U.S. national policies of exclusion to politicaldiscussions relevant internally to Mexican communities. (Feb. 2010)

exclusion was re-defined on the border barriers by local entities and onMexican terms instead of by the United States – the fence was both re-scaledand appropriated for another country’s national interests! Interestingly such

advertisements are similarly situated as can be observed in San Luis Río


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Colorado and Agua Prieta – at street intersections that provide visibility fromlarger thoroughfares several blocks away.

If in San Luis Río Colorado and elsewhere graffiti, art, advertising, andeven landscaping serve as a series of decorative bandages on the scabs and

severed arteries of a community, in Nogales these features are more likean autographed body cast proclaiming one’s injury for all to see. Re-scalingefforts in Nogales have appropriated the wall to display support for the localcommunity from family and friends. Nogales is the Arizona-Sonora bordercommunity where creative works on border barriers are most influenced by alternative regional and national voices, in large part driven by proximity tonearby and largely politically liberal Tucson.

As a city with a strong bi-national history and greater cross-bordereconomy and social life than elsewhere, Nogales, Sonora’s attempt at aes-theticisation failed miserably by comparison to elsewhere. This was most

notable in an attempt to expand the tourist district to the border fencearea in the late 1990s. Leisure tourists were increasingly put off by newsabout border violence, but the harshness of the solid border wall that wasput in place at that time did not help them feel re-assured either. The re-purposed landing mat was claustrophobic and perhaps visitors felt unsafein the constrained back-alley environment it created – their home was nolonger within visual distance. Furthermore, Sonoran residents themselveslamented the loss of interaction with their neighbour. No amount of cover-ing the wall with decorations or using it as a display case for tourist goodsmade up for that. This was highlighted in a 2009 artwork by University of Arizona professor Alfred Quiroz who bolted an 18-metre digital vinyl photo-graph of Nogales, Arizona side to the southern side of the fence, providingthe fleeting illusion that there was no barrier.64 Today the area at one timedesignated for tourist-oriented vendors has transitioned to a bus stop mak-ing it an ideal placement for critical political commentary (Figure 9). Suchmessages continue well beyond the bus staging areas to a residential neigh-bourhood to the west with modest through traffic (Figure 10).65 The primary viewers of these messages are Mexican nationals. In terms of visitors to thecountry, as the tourist gaze dried up on the Mexican side it was replaced

by a slow trickle of adventure tourists, political voyeurs, and anti-fenceactivists.It remains to be seen how new fence construction in Nogales and else-

where will change future dynamics of graffiti, art, and advertising on borderbarriers. New styles that restore a degree of cross-border visibility and reducethe surface available for such uses are being developed with bollard-style andother vertically spaced forms of fencing increasingly replacing solid stretchesof fence in urban areas. These new structures are designed to be moredurable, more difficult to climb or burrow under, and open up the view of activity from across the border to facilitate US law enforcement. As a side

effect, however, there is less surface area on which to declare one’s thoughts


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FIGURE 9 Bus stop along the border in Nogales, Sonora. The large text on the border barrierproclaims in Spanish that “walls turned on their side are bridges.” (Feb. 2010)

FIGURE 10 Essentially an outdoor art gallery for artists critiquing the impact of U.S. border

policies and warning migrants about the risks of crossing, this stretch of border barrier facingNogales, Sonora – as well as those areas shown in Figures 4 and 11 – was removed in 2011to make way for a more durable and transparent form of fencing. (Feb. 2010)

in a highly visible manner and attached artwork has the potential to bemore easily removed from the US side. This will not stop graffiti and mes-sages of resistance or re-scaling from popping up, of course, but certainly has implications in terms of visibility by others and may be problematic formore formal art-work that could be seen as affecting the integrity of the


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FIGURE 11 In a stretch of the border along the Tohono O’odham Nation long before anythingother than a barbed wire fence existed to serve as a barrier here, a single signpost providedspace for an indigenous counter-claim to U.S. and Mexican sovereignty. In multiple languages,it appears to say “This is O’odham (Native American) land here.” (June 2004)

structure or the field of vision. Indeed, graffiti can take hold in the smallestof places (Figure 11). This reflects not only the cathartic power of resistance,but more fundamentally the need for local individuals and communities tomake sense of policies and practices with distant origins as they intersect with their lives. In the neoliberal era national and international issues oftenco-opt or overshadow the local. Border barrier graffiti and graffiti art provide a way to directly engage with and talk back to distant policies that haveaffected their lives. The enduring significance of graffiti and artwork is recog-

nised in attempts to salvage artwork as old barriers are replaced by newerdesigns66 and even in parallel rival landscapes that recognise its strength andhave adopted its form (Figure 12).

CONCLUSION

Whether engaging political commentary with graffiti and artwork to high-light the severity of US policy, covering the barriers up to improve thelocal landscape, or ignoring its presence, as an alternative perspective for


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FIGURE 12 By commemorating their role in the construction of border barriers near Naco, Arizona, National Guard units use border barrier art in a very different way. Their logosdemonstrate local-scale support from the interior, emphasize national solidarity, and serve topre-empt claims to re-scale the barriers as a local border issue. (May 2009 & Feb. 2010)

understanding border policies graffiti, art, and advertising on border barri-ers directly confront emblematic landscape manifestations of policy. Whilegraffiti and art are found largely on the Mexican side of the border bar-riers, rendering them largely inaccessible to targeted US politicians andpolicymakers, such re-scaling efforts are more widely distributed on the weband in print. In their original form these landscape-based messages are alsosometimes fleeting. Many of the works discussed in this paper are aging oralready replaced by new construction. Much of the material inscribed on theborder barriers is not particularly new in the debate over border policy, butthat is only one potential role such messages can serve. These creative worksalso provide an outlet and focal point for the frustrations of those who arepolitically marginalised.

Border barrier graffiti and art oblige one to incorporate a local perspec-tive on national border policies. In the process claims to space and belongingare re-scaled and actors are urged to re-evaluate what is important amongcontradictory objectives and implications. These mediums incrementally con-test and re-claim local communities from an acquiescent position of exclusivedomination by national US politics and policy to a shared space with both

national and local features. By attempting to situate national issues in a localgeographic context, the local is placed alongside the national as an indis-putable element in contemporary border policy. It is at this juncture thattheir different spatial points of view are most apparent and confrontation isrealised, setting the stage for potential resolution from a local perspective.Border barrier graffiti, art, and advertising provide glimpses into how thelocal situates itself in relation to national border policy and attempts to pri-oritise its concerns as an important component of national discussions on thisissue. The medium also provides insight into how national individuals andgroups utilise local perspectives in support of their own alternative national

or international agendas.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank those who gave feedback on earlier versions of thispaper, including Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, Johan Schimanski, and André

Novaes. Thanks also to the innumerable border residents I have met andcorresponded with who helped contribute to this publication. Exploringthese landscapes in the field I owe a particular debt of gratitude to DanielD. Arreola, Patricia Lazo, Teresa Leal, and Sam Saunders. Internal researchfunding from The Ohio State University at Newark is appreciated as well.

NOTES

1. K. D. Madsen, ‘The Alignment of Local Borders’, Territory, Politics, Governance 2/1 (2014) pp.

52–71.2. A. E. Martinez and S. W. Hardwick, ‘Building Fences: Undocumented Immigration and Identity

in a Small Border Town’, FOCUS on Geography 52/4 (2009) pp. 48–55. For additional vivid examples of the experiences of local individuals living along contemporary border barriers see M. Di Cintio, Walls:Travels Along the Barricades (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Goose Lane Editions 2012).

3. T. A. Klug, ‘The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the Making of a Border-Crossing Culture on the US–Canada Border, 1891–1941’, American Review of Canadian Studies 40/3(2010) p. 317; Madsen (note 1).

4. For example, J. Agnew, ‘Still Trapped in Territory?’, Geopolitics 15/4 (2010) pp. 779–784; H.Bauder, ‘Toward a Critical Geography of the Border: Engaging the Dialectic of Practice and Meaning’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101/5 (2011) pp. 1126–1139.

5. É. Vallet and C.-P. David, ‘Introduction: The (Re)Building of the Wall in International Relations’, Journal of Borderlands Studies 27/2 (2012) pp. 111–119; S. Rosière and R. Jones, ‘Teichopolitics:

Re-Considering Globalisation Through the Role of Walls and Fences’, Geopolitics 17/1 (2012)pp. 217–234.

6. K. D. Madsen, The U.S.-Mexico Border Fencescape Along the Arizona-Sonora Boundary , M.A.thesis, Geography (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1999), pp. 62–75. The re-purposed tarmac has beenthe primary barrier format that attracts graffiti, art, and advertising. Today it is slowly disappearing givenmore durable and high-tech forms of construction.

7. K. E. Till, J. Sundberg, W. Pullan, C. Psaltis, C. Makriyianni, R. Z. Celal, M. O. Samani, and L.Dowler, ‘Interventions in the Political Geographies of Walls’, Political Geography 33 (2013) pp. 53–65; R. Jones, Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in The United States, India, and Israel (London: ZedBooks 2012) pp. 45–50.

8. S. Alatout., ‘Walls as Technologies of Government: The Double Construction of Geographies of Peace and Conflict in Israeli Politics, 2002–Present’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers

99/5 (2009) pp. 956–968.9. Rosière and Jones (note 5).10. K. D. Madsen, ‘Barriers of the US-Mexico Border as Landscapes of Domestic Political

Compromise, Cultural Geographies 18/4 (2011) pp. 547–556; R. R. Sauders, ‘Whose Place Is This Anyway?The Israeli Separation Barrier, International Activists and Graffiti’, Anthropology News 52/3 (2011) p. 16.

11. Such concerns, when expressed, would most likely occur behind the scenes through diplomaticchannels rather than through a public confrontation. The extent to which this occurs varies by nationaland international context, of course.

12. I included barrier artwork in a category of fencing called “improvement” whereby local forcesmade do with what they were dealt by the constructing central government to make border fences and walls more aesthetic or pleasing to local residents. See Madsen (note 6).

13. For example, see photograph of Alfred Quiroz’s artwork displayed in Agua Prieta, Sonora,in D. Cook and L. Jenshel, ‘Our Walls, Ourselves’, National Geographic (May 2007), available at

, accessed


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30 Jan. 2014. Web publicity is even more prolific and enduring, see Billyjam, ‘GuerrillaStreet Artist Ron English Takes Risk with Daring US/Mexico Border Art Prank’, 7 April2011, available at , accessed 30 Jan. 2014; Border Bedazzlers,Bisbee, Arizona, and , accessed 30 Jan. 2014; S. Nicol, ‘Art Against the Wall’, 28 Sep. 2008, available at , accessed 30 Jan. 2014; Erase the Border,, accessed 30 Jan. 2014; T. Varela, ‘Arte Público Yonke, Ciudad a Cuerpo’,18 Dec. 2012, , accessed 17 May 2013 (no longeravailable, although the trailer can be found at ,accessed 30 Jan., 2014). A web search using , , or similarkey terms will also yield a variety of images and commentary on this subject. The power of graffiti’s wider visibility on the web in terms of social and political commentary is also well illustrated through the work of Banksy, whose works have a strong internet presence well beyond the artist’s official website, accessed 4 Feb. 2013 (as of 30 Jan. 2014 one can only access the home page of this site).

14. Madsen (note 6).15. For an interpretation of graffiti that utilises a similar landscape lens see K. Whalen, ‘Defacing

Kabul: An Iconography of Political Campaign Posters’, Cultural Geographies 20/4 (2012) pp. 541–549.16. E. Brunet-Jailly, ‘Borders, Borderlands and Theory: An Introduction’, Geopolitics 16/1

(2011) pp. 1–6. See also E. Brunet-Jailly, ‘Theorizing Borders: An Interdisciplinary Perspective’, Geopolitics 10/4 (2005) pp. 633–649.

17. Till et al. (note 7); Jones (note 7) pp. 21–24, 110–118.18. P. Pallister-Wilkins, ‘The Separation Wall: A Symbol of Power and a Site of Resistance?’, Antipode

43/5 (2011) pp. 1851–1881.19. N. Smith, ‘Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of

Geographic Scale’, Social Text 22 (1992) pp. 54–81.20. T. J. Taylor, ‘A Materialist Framework for Political Geography’, Transactions of the Institute of

British Geographers NS 7/1 (1982) pp. 15–34; S. A. Marston, J. P. Jones III, and K. Woodward, ‘HumanGeography Without Scale’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 30/4 (2005) pp. 416–432.

21. Marston et al. (note 20) pp. 424–426.

22. Even local public hearings on these issues held in close physical proximity can be inaccessibleif an international border intervenes and serves as a deterrent to attendance and in this sense scale stillmatters at borders.

23. In terms of chipping away at the local manifestations of production, Woodward et al. argue thatthis is ultimately what resistance is about: K. Woodward, J. P. Jones III, and S. A. Marston, ‘Of Eagles andFlies: Orientations Toward the Site’, Area 42/3 (2010) pp. 277–278.

24. B. Mansfield, ‘Beyond Rescaling: Reintegrating the ‘National’ as a Dimension Of Scalar Relations’, Progress in Human Geography 29/4 (2005) pp. 458–473.

25. Ibid. In her discussion of the continued relevance of the national, Mansfield briefly discusses(p. 470) an example where actors sought to emphasise an environmental issue’s local or national aspectsto their advantage. It is in this sense that the present paper examines re-scaling as a form of politicalaction.

26. D. Hanauer, ‘A Genre Approach to Graffiti at the Site of Prime Minister Rabin’s Assassination’, inD. Zissenzwein and D. Schers (eds.), Present and Future: Jewish Culture, Identity and Language (Tel-Aviv:Tel-Aviv University Press 1999) p. 174.

27. Ibid., p. 175.28. J. Ferrell, Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality (Boston: Northeastern

University Press 1997) p. 187; B. David and M. Wilson, ‘Spaces of Resistance: Graffiti and Indigenous PlaceMarkings in the Early European Contact Period of Northern Australia’ in B. David and M. Wilson (eds.), Inscribed Landscapes: Marking and Making Place (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press 2002) p. 42.

29. T. Cresswell, In Place /Out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press 1996), p. 61; T. Moreau and D. H. Alderman, ‘Graffiti Hurts and theEradication of an Alternative Landscape Expression’, Geographical Review 101/1 (2011) p. 108; see alsoC. McAuliffe and K. Iveson, ‘Art and Crime (and Other Things Besides. . .): Conceptualising Graffiti in theCity’, Geography Compass 5/3 (2011) pp. 128–143.


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30. D. Ley and R. Cybriwsky, ‘Urban Graffiti as Territorial Markers’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 64/4 (1974) pp. 491–505. Appropriate to this article, street gangs used graffiti todraw attention to their boundaries.

31. Moreau and Alderman (note 29).32. Ley and Cybriwsk (note 30).33. See R. Reisner, Graffiti: Two Thousand Years of Wall Writing (New York: Cowles Book Company

1971).34. Moreau and Alderman (note 29); Ferrell (note 28), esp. ch. 4.35. M. Halsey and B. Pederick, ‘The Game of Fame: Mural, Graffiti, Erasure’, City: Analysis of Urban

Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 14/1-2 (2010) p. 97.36. Moreau and Alderman (note 29) p. 109; Halsey and Pederick (note 35); P. J. Craw, L. S.

Leland, Jr., M. G. Bussell, S. J. Munday, and K. Walsh, ‘The Mural as Graffiti Deterrence’, Environment and Behavior 38/3 (2006) pp. 422–434. In the case of memorial graffiti at the site of Yitzhak Rabin’sassassination, its erasure was justified only with the establishment of a permanent memorial that docu-mented a sampling of the original graffiti. See D. I. Hanauer, ‘Silence, Voice and Erasure: PsychologicalEmbodiment in Graffiti at the Site of Prime Minister Rabin’s Assassination’, The Arts in Psychotherapy 31/1(2004) pp. 29–35.

37. David and Wilson (note 28) p. 43; for more on the debate over graffiti as crime versus art see

also McAuliffe and Iveson (note 29).38. M. Alvarez, ‘La Pared que Habla: A Photo Essay about Art and Graffiti at the Border Fence in

Nogales, Sonora’, Journal of the Southwest 50/4 (2008) p. 303.39. Personal communication, Public Affairs Officer, Tucson Sector, U.S. Customs and Border

Protection, Sep. 2012.40. Inspired by Alvarez (note 38) p. 286.41. Hanauer, ‘Silence, Voice and Erasure’ (note 36) p. 34; see also D. B. Brewer, ‘Hip

Hop Graffiti Writers’ Evaluations of Strategies to Control Illegal Graffiti’, Human Organization 51/2(1992) pp. 188–196.

42. R. W. Boldt and S. Paul, ‘Building a Creative-Arts Therapy Group at a University CounselingCenter’, Journal of College Student Psychotherapy 25/1 (2010) p. 41.

43. J. McMahan, ‘An Interview with Edith Kramer’, American Journal of Art Therapy 27/4(1989) pp. 107–114.

44. Iveson similarly argues that while commissioned murals provide a graffiti artist with morelegitimate visibility, they do so “on someone else’s terms.” See K. Iveson, Publics and The City (Malden,Massachusets: Blackwell 2007) p. 135.

45. A. Klingman, R. Shalev, and A. Pearlman, ‘Graffiti: A Creative Means of Youth Coping withCollective Trauma’, The Arts in Psychotherapy 27/5 (2000) pp. 299–307; Hanauer, ‘Silence, Voice andErasure’ (note 36); Hanauer, ‘A Genre Approach to Graffiti’ (note 26).

46. Hanauer, ‘Silence, Voice and Erasure’ (note 36) p. 33.47. For an interpretation of the breaching of the Berlin Wall as cathartic see German psychotherapist

J.-J. Maaz, Der Gefühlsstau: Psychogramm einer Gesellschaft (Berlin: Argon Verlag 1990) p. 152, as citedin Di Cintio (note 2) pp. 11–12. The phrase “Hoping to heal the divide between Mexico and the UnitedStates an inspired group of artists turn the border wall into a giant canvas” (italics added) is specifically used to describe a short documentary feature about the Border Bedazzlers, a group based in Bisbee,

Arizona, that started organising painting expeditions with Mexican children several years ago to painton the south side of the border wall outside of the two Nacos. See G. Jackson, ‘Border Bedazzlers’,29 Jan. 2014, available at , accessed 30 Jan. 2014.

48. A. Szary, ‘Walls and Border Art: The Politics of Art Display’, Journal of Borderlands Studies 27/2(2012) p. 215; see also Di Cintio (note 2) p. 124.

49. J. Peteet, ‘The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada’, Cultural Anthropology 11/2(1996) pp. 139–159.

50. Jones (note 7) p. 180.51. David and Wilson (note 28); see also R. Guarini, ‘Introduction’, in F. Alacevich and A. Alacevich,

The Lost Graffiti of Berlin: The Writing on the Wall (Turin: Gremeses International 1991) p. 11; Cresswell(note 29); Di Cintio (note 2) pp. 122–124.

52. N. Parker and N. Vaughan-Williams et al., ‘Lines in the Sand? Towards an Agenda for CriticalBorder Studies’, Geopolitics 14/3 (2009) pp. 582–587.


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53. R. English, ‘Foreword’, in W. Parry, Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine (Chicago:Lawrence Hill Books 2010) pp. 6–7.

54. Guarini (note 51) p. 8.55. Alvarez (note 38).56. W. Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (New York: Zone Books 2010); A. Hidalgo, ‘Spray

Paint on the Border Wall: Challenging the Waning Sovereignty of the Nation-State’, Claremont Journal of Religion 2/1 (2012); Jones (note 7) pp. 174–180 also discusses the performative function of the barriers.

57. Pallister-Wilkins (note 18); Jones (note 7) pp. 179–180.58. In addition to Peteet (note 49), see A. Miklavcic, ‘Slogans and Graffiti: Postmemory Among

Youth in the Italo–Slovenian Borderland’, American Ethnologist 35/3 (2008) pp. 440–453; Ley andCybriwsky (note 30); L. Nandrea, ‘‘Graffiti Taught me Everything I know about Space’: Urban Frontsand Borders’, Antipode 31/1 (1999); Alvarez (note 38).

59. After Alvarez (note 38) p. 284.60. Sauders (note 10); see also W. Parry, Against the Wall: The Art of Resistance in Palestine

(Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books 2010) p. 10.61. For an example of divergent perspectives between Palestinian residents of the West Bank and

outside artists see Parry (note 60) p. 10; for concerns over non-Palestinian artists commodifying the barrierin Israel and potential confusion of the barrier as the essence of oppression rather than a symbol of the

broader processes of bordering that it represents see Di Cintio (note 2) pp. 111–112.62. K. D. Madsen, ‘Local Impacts of the Balloon Effect of Border Law Enforcement’, Geopolitics

12/2 (2007) pp. 280–298.63. Many of the early murals in San Luis Río Colorado were painted by schoolchildren as part of a

summer youth activity coordinated by a local pediatrician; see Madsen (note 6) p. 85.64. C. Calamaio, ‘Art Breaks Down “Invisible” Border’, Border Beat: U.S. Border News, Insight

& Resources (17 March 2009), available at , accessed 30 Jan. 2014.

65. This stretch of fencing is the focus of Alvarez (note 38).66. For example, M. Regan, ‘Barrier Rebuilt: As a New Wall Is Built through Nogales,

Well-Known Art Is Being Relocated or Destroyed’, Tucson Weekly , 23 June 2011, available at, accessed 30 Jan. 2014; A. Florido, ‘Old Border Fence To Get A Second Life’, KPBS , 23 Jan. 2012, available at , accessed 30 Jan. 2014; J. Clark,‘Binational Effort Helps Rescue Border Fence Mural’, Nogales International , 20 June 2011, avail-able at , accessed 30 Jan. 2014.

Documents

Graffiti Art and Advertising Re Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation State