Teaching and Learning Guide to Accompany Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation

Abstract

The authors develop four exercises to further explore themes that are discussed in the Waldner and Dobratz article “Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation (Sociology Compass 7: 377–389),” including Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo), From Famous Political Speech (“Ich Bin Ein Berliner”) to Graffiti: “Ich bin Berliner”, “Protest, Violence, and Graffiti in Greek Politics,” and “Political Speech or Just Tagging: Billboards and Culture Jamming.” The authors encourage students to explore them such as motivations for graffiti, the difficulty in discerning writer intent, the use of graffiti as a form of political protest, and the historical and geographical context of graffiti. The authors provide links to YouTube videos and supplementary readings.