Aging Out of the Graffiti Subculture

• In Event: Alternative Perspectives to Understanding Persistence and Desistance from Offending

Abstract

Many studies have provided rich ethnographic accounts of graffiti writing subculture, highlighting the roles of masculinity, resistance, and other dynamics that help shape these subcultures. We examine the lives of a group of graffiti writers in a mid-sized city in southern Ontario,Canada. Our inquiry draws attention to the aging-out process of graffiti writers as they enter adulthood, seek employment and form relationships with non-graffiti writers, while at the same time striving to remain members of what is at its core a deviant subculture. Our analysis draws on life course, subcultural and drifts theories, illustrating the potential for combining these perspectives in future research on deviance in general.

Authors

• Steven Downing, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

• Laura May MacDiarmid, University of Guelph