Graffiti: A subculture alive within the legal. A pluralistic study of the regulations within Swedish graffiti and the influences of formal law.

Abstract: The world of graffiti is an immense social construct which stretches to every corner of the globe. To many, graffiti may seem to be the simple act of applying paint to a surface, often depicting names or letters. In Sweden, graffiti’s acceptance has gained grounds as of late with the riddance of zero tolerance policies and the opening of several legal walls around the country. However, the legal walls may not have had their intended effect. As graffiti artists seek to challenge the law for sport, excitement and danger, legal walls fail to offer aspects which many writers seek. While graffiti writers challenge formal law, their regard for the stipulations within their own field are rarely crossed. Graffiti offers immense depth both artistically as well as normatively. Writers offer a unique perspective into the urban. Using a third eye, writers communicate through tags and murals which offer immense information to those experienced enough to decipher them. As writers take ownership of space, often overlooked due to bureaucracy, they understand the city and formal law with from a practical perspective. Through ethnography and interviews, this thesis researches three larger cities in Sweden, Malmö, Lund, and Gothenburg. This thesis attempts to analyze the normative stipulations of the graffiti subculture using Moore’s semi-autonomous social fields. It provides a nuanced perspective of the effects of formal law and municipal policy have on the field. Moreover, the thesis attempts to present the normative stipulations while discussing their significance within the field as well as what affects this. Conclusively, the study sheds light unto the value of murals and tags as well how these may be understood from the perspective of writers. The theory of legal pluralism will additionally be developed by discussing the unique properties presented by the graffiti subculture.