著者

山越 英嗣

出版者

日本生活学会

雑誌

生活學論叢

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, pp.33-42, 2010

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Graffiti as a youth subculture was born in 1970s in New York. Then it spread out all over the world in the 1980-1990s. These days, we can see graffiti all over the place. However, the purpose of graffiti is not well known. It's not because graffiti writers did not have the chance to talk about themselves, but because they had a hard time explaining what they were doing. In some recent studies, it is theorized that graffiti is a resistance to the society and a kind of 'vandalism'. This article examines previous studies in two ways. One is field work in Shimokitazawa. I walked around the town and recorded the places where graffiti were written. The other is investigation of a social networking site. There are a lot of descriptions related to graffiti on the web. By mixing these two ways of investigation, I could find a new side to the phenomenon. Finally, I conclude that the difficulties in describing 'graffiti' are caused by the structure of the values surrounding graffiti culture.