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20. “Reality Ends Here”: Graffiti as an Artifact
- State University of New York Press
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CHAPTER 20 “Reality Ends Here” Graffiti as an Artifact DEAN SCHEIBEL The original graffito is now gone. It was painted over. Then it reappeared. However, eventually they tore down the old film school and built a new one. And yet, the graffiti lives on. The graffiti has been transformed. But it will never die. The graffiti has taken on new forms, in new contexts, and means new things to the students and professors at the film school. This study is about a piece of graffiti, and its life as an artifact. Artifacts are the products of people and are phenomena “ripe with human meanings” (Jorgensen, 1989, p. 92). Artifacts include such things as tools, art works, clothing, buildings, official records, personal documents, business reports, and videotapes (see Dipert, 1993; Hodder, 2000; Jorgensen, 1989; Stohl, 2001). Although typically encountered in the course of doing participant observation, artifacts “serve as a distinctive basis for inquiry in and of themselves, not just as a source of support for other findings” (Jorgensen, 1989, p. 93; see also Dipert, 1993; Hodder, 2000). Thus, artifacts can be considered as central to ethnographic research as other types of data. In discussing the significance of artifacts, Stohl (2001) states that “all organizational artifacts are seen as communicative manifestations of culture” (Stohl, 2001, p. 346). Yet Stohl also questions the value of artifacts, stating that the “microanalytic focus [of artifacts] . . . does little to help us understand the links between culture, organization, and communication” (p. 347). In contrast, the current study assumes that artifacts are invaluable when interpreted in the context of other artifacts, and in conjunction with data gathered through participant observation and interviewing. 219 As artifacts, written texts are particularly important to the study of communication , and various types have been examined, including corporate “house organs” (e.g., Cheney, 1983), “fake IDs” (e.g., Scheibel, 1992), policies and brochures (Clair, 1993), and, of central concern to the current paper, graffiti (e.g., Conquergood, 1994; Rodriguez and Clair, 1999; Scheibel, 1994). Graffiti are artifacts. As such, graffiti are “mute evidence” that “endures physically and thus can be separated across space and time from its author, producer, or user” (Hodder, 2000, p. 703). Such texts are valuable to qualitative research in that “the information provided may differ from and may not be available in spoken form, and because texts endure and thus give historical insight” (Hodder, 2000, p. 704). To interpret artifacts, such as graffiti, it is necessary to understand them “in the contexts of their conditions of production and reading” (Hodder, 2000, p. 704). Thus, “as the text is reread in different contexts it is given new meanings, often contradictory and always socially embedded. Thus, there is no ‘original’ or ‘true’ meanings of a text outside specific historical contexts” (Hodder, 2000, p. 704). The interpretation of artifacts is complex and multifaceted in that artifacts are not only capable of being manipulated and altered, but also of “being used and discarded, reused and recycled” (Hodder, 2000, p. 704). This is important in that the interpretation of graffiti texts and other artifacts may implicate and reflect issues of “ownership.” The idea of context itself is problematic. Clearly, artifacts must be interpreted within contexts that they are found, and those contexts change. We as researchers decide on the boundaries of context when we interpret artifacts. Thus, the interpretation of artifacts may rest in “situating [artifacts] within varying contexts while at the same time entering into a dialectic relationship between those contexts and the context of the analyst” (Hodder, 2000, p. 705). The current study of an artifact that came to life via graffiti is framed by an “ethnography of expression” perspective (Clair, 1996, 1998). This perspective embraces the communicative and expressive practices as central. Moving freely from place to place, ethnographies of expression “displace ” the practices that were once viewed as tied to a specific location. . . . Meanings and practices change, develop, disappear, and reappear as they strain, struggle, squeeze, slip and slide among the practices that create cultural meanings, and the meanings that create, sustain, and sometimes challenge the practices. (Clair, 1996, pp. 9–10) Thus, the current study examines a single expression that is a piece of graffito that is an artifact. In so doing, the emphasis is on the phenomenon, not the organization in which the artifact is embedded. However, the artifact and the organization —text and context—are inseparable. 220 Dean Scheibel [54.160.243.44] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:27 GMT) Graffiti at the University of...