Parámetros de calidad comercial de la palta

There are two main claims woven into the line of argument in the thesis, which respond to the dominant ways in which representations of violence are perceived, particularly through graffiti and street art. Although often framed through the notion of subversion or appropriation, I present a more nuanced account of the relationship between graffiti and violence to explore what these cultural forms reveal about imaginaries of violence.

The first claim posits that the diverse forms of graffiti and street art in the urban visual landscape of Bogotá collectively offer an insight into violence, despite belonging to different subcultural practices and whether or not they are technically illegal or illicit productions. In particular, I move beyond therather simplistic dichotomy whereby graffiti and street art in Bogotá are perceived as either popular subversions or state sanctioned forms of artistic expression by recognising that the meaning of graffiti and street art is constructed through both the production and reception of these forms and depends on its spatial-temporal context. Although I pay attention to the similarities and the differences between them, I also argue that they work together to produce the insights into violence that I explore in the empirical chapters, particularly when

recognising violence in its direct, structural and cultural forms, and through the implicit and explicit politics of graffiti and street art. The second claim centres on the multiple

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(narratives of) violences in Colombia and insists that they should be positioned along a continuum, recognising the relationships between the direct, structural and cultural forms of violence described above. Moreover, I explore the politics of these

relationships by offering some insights into how they are negotiated in and through the imaginary. In particular, I advance the argument that social imaginaries are marked by contradictions and complexities, showing that there are multiple imaginaries of violences that are in competition with one another in Bogotá, and, more to the point, that the potential political effects of representations of violence are ambiguous.

Before turning to the analysis in chapters 4-6, though, I explain the theoretical framework that guides the study in chapter 2 and the methodology in chapter 3. As indicated above, there is a complex interplay between violence, imaginaries and urban space, which graffiti and street art expose in a variety of ways. In order to recognise this variety, a number of conceptual clarifications need to be made. In particular, violence is recognised as comprising multiple forms that can overlap, reproduce each other or disguise one another and so should be situated along a continuum and identified in a broad range of everyday spaces. The concept of the imaginary provides a means of reflecting on the ways in which such violences are seen and imagined in everyday life. It is a way of thinking about the social world as it refers to collective representations and shared ways of seeing, but power dynamics are embedded in them, which means that questions related to agency and structure also arise. Finally, the conceptual approach to urban space aims to complement these discussions of power, agency and diversity by exploring the city as a space of heterogeneity. Of particular importance is the notion that the heterogeneity of urban society produces a struggle over ways of seeing violence in everyday life, and that this struggle is articulated through visual claims to the right to the city. In chapter 3, I explain my methodological approach and highlight the mixed methods that I used to investigate the different spaces through which urban imaginaries could be glimpsed, and graffiti and street art could be analysed. These methods proved crucial to understanding the nuances of urban imaginaries of violence, particularly through the self-identification of the subjects involved in the study. Nevertheless, the study also presented complex challenges, on which I offer a personal reflection.

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The subsequent empirical chapters are organised according to three case studies that highlight significant spaces within the city in relation to graffiti and street art, and in relation to violence. Chapter 4 focuses on Calle 26, a major transport route in the city centre and the site of official and unofficial representations of collective memory and of peace, to explore the everydayness of political violence in urban imaginaries. While narratives of political violence are common in memory discourses in Colombia, I focus on the representation of state violence and the victimisation of civilians, which appear in commemorative pieces of graffiti and street art. That the state has endorsed some of these representations, particularly through arts council funding opportunities, reveals complex cultural politics that graffiti and street artists must negotiate. Furthermore, the interpretations of such explicitly political graffiti and street art reveal both a recognition of the critical agency of city dwellers and concern regarding the ambiguous effects of recognising that political, and especially state, violence are part of everyday life – drawing attention not only to the direct violence of the conflict but to the violence of normalising it. The explicitly visible representation of violence that is concentrated in the city centre contrasts with the graffiti and street art in more peripheral or marginalised spaces of the city and in chapter 5, I focus particularly on the visual landscapes of La Perseverancia and Ciudad Bolívar. There, graffiti and street artists draw on the notion of public space as one of encounter and appropriation, and beautify the neighbourhoods as a way of challenging the everyday violence of stigma and prejudice that manifests itself in spatialised forms of segregation in the city. However, the impact of criminal networks, state absence and corruption also contribute to the politics of representation, and talking to graffiti and street artists revealed a more complex picture of how artists perceive and experience censorship, the ways in which they negotiate depicting more explicitly critical messages, and their expectations of aesthetic transformations in the neighbourhoods. Indeed, I argue that urban imaginaries of these different areas are marked by the tendency to either demonise or romanticise them. In Chapter 6, a similar process of romanticisation and demonization can be identified through the

interpretations of graffiti and street art in La Candelaria, the historic centre of Bogotá where the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty are brought to the fore. In many ways, graffiti and street art are celebrated and endorsed by the mainstream media, state institutions and the wider public. The fact that a common trope of these forms of

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cultural expression is a critique of the everyday violence of indifference and inequality suggests that this wider engagement with graffiti and street art could have the potential to shift imaginaries towards recognising such violences. Nevertheless, I show that the praise of graffiti and street art has produced another kind of aesthetic hierarchy, functional to hegemonic notions of taste and art, whereby only some forms of graffiti and street art – which can also be interpreted as only some graffiti and street artists – are celebrated, while others are denigrated. This dynamic exemplifies some of the normative assumptions about citizenship, appropriate behaviour and aesthetic desirability that are woven through urban imaginaries of public space and that reproduce violence and inequality.

In chapter 7, I conclude by reflecting on the findings of the thesis and on what they suggest about broader urban imaginaries of violence in Bogotá. I also highlight the key contributions of the thesis to understandings of the complex dynamics between violence, aesthetics and urban space and suggest avenues for further research. In particular, I argue that the subtle reproduction of visual complexes calls for a more nuanced reading of cultural representations or expressions of violence and the ways in which they are governed in cities, which supports the focused consideration of the thesis on the ways in which people negotiate and produce imaginaries in everyday life.

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Chapter 2

Theoretical framework

Figure 2 Error in the pavement

In this chapter I present the theoretical framework that guided the study. First, I consider the multiple violences that are present in everyday life in Bogotá and argue that they should be recognised as positioned along a continuum, whereby different forms of violence cannot be easily separated and are shown to have a broad social impact. Secondly, I situate the analysis of violence within the conceptual field of the imaginary, which is presented as a structuring space but also a space for creativity and agency. In particular, I highlight the ways in which graffiti and street art are often

presented as having the potential to transform dominant ways of seeing. Thirdly, I locate the analysis of violence and imaginaries within the context of urban space, which not

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only influences the forms of violence that are present in the study, but also highlights the struggle over different ways of seeing violence. Accordingly, I conceptualise the city as a space of heterogeneity and inequality where there are complex power dynamics at play, which I frame through the right to the city, and to which graffiti and street art respond. I conclude with a reflection on the applicability of these concepts in relation to the research presented here, arguing against what I see as a tendency to make

assumptions about the political implications of graffiti and street art.