Political graffiti in the political symbolic space of Prague, Czechia

Abstract

Graffiti is an important theme for our understanding of subcultural urban space and the ‘shadows’ of the city. This paper examines their spatial concentration in Holešovice district of the Czech capital Prague. Four theories have been used to explain the spatiality of graffiti: territorial markers, broken window, spot theory, and political symbolic space. While the first three theories all explain the spatial distribution of graffiti, they are each limited when applied to political graffiti. Conversely, the theory of political symbolic space, based on David Harvey’s relative space and Henri Lefebvre’s representational space, helps explain the concentration of political graffiti.