The discursive construction of the separation wall at Abu Dis: Graffiti as political discourse

Hanauer, David I.

doi:10.1075/jlp.10.3.01han

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 10:3 (2011) ► pp.301–321

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download PDF

The discursive construction of the separation wall at Abu Dis

Graffiti as political discourse

David I. Hanauer | Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Published online: 31 October 2011

https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.10.3.01han

The article analyses the discursive function of graffiti on the separation wall in the contested space of Abu Dis on the boundary between Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories. This study explores the role of graffiti as micro-level, political discourse designed to influence national and international actions concerning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over national borders, self determination and human rights. The data for this study consisted of photographic documentation of the Abu Dis graffiti. This data was analysed for its linguistic and informational characteristic, its political functions, and discursive construction. The results of the study reveal that the separation wall is constructed in five different ways that directly interact with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The graffiti on the wall at Abu Dis is a microcosm of the broader conflict and offers an insight into the different chains of political discourse in action in the discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Keywords: graffiti, separation wall, Palestinian-Israel conflict, political discourse

References (22)

References

Alderman, Derek., & Ward, Heather. 2008. Writing on the Pywood: Toward an Analysis of Hurricane Graffiti.Coastal Management, 351, 1–18.

Alonso, Alex. 1999. Territoriality among African American Street Gangs in Los Angeles. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Department of Geography, University of Southern California.

Barni, Monica, & Bagna, Carla. 2009. A Mapping Technique and the Linguistic Landscape. In Elana Shohamy, & Durk Gorter (eds.), Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York: Routledge, 126–140.

Blume, Regina. 1985. Graffiti. InT. Van Dijk (ed.), Discourse and Literature. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 137–148.

Conquerwood, Dwight. 1993. Homeboys and Hoods: Gang Communication and Cultural Space. Working Papers, Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, Northwestern University.

Ferrel, Jeff. 1995. Urban Graffiti: Crime, Control and Resistance. Youth & Society, 27 (1), 73–92.

Gross, Daniel, & Gross, Timothy. 1993. Changing Visual Patterns and the Rhetorical Implications of a New Form of Graffiti. A Review of General Semantics, 50 (3), 251–264.

Halper, Jeff. 2005, January. The Matrix of Control. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from Israel Committee Against House Demolitions: [URL]

Hanauer, David. 1998. A Genre Approach to Graffiti at the Site of Prime Minister Rabin’s Assassination. In David Zissenzwein, & David Schers (eds.), Present and Future: Jewish Culture, Identity and Language. Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Press, 89–97.

. 2004. Silence, Voice and Erasure: Psychological Embodiment in Graffiti at the Site of Prime Minister Rabin’s Assassination. Psychotherapy in the Arts, 311, 29–35.

International Court of Justice. 2004. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Hague: International Court of Justice.

Keck, Margaret, & Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. Activists Without Borders. New York: Cornell University Press.

Kostka, Robert. 1974. Aspects of Graffiti. Visible Language, 81, 369–375.

Le Bars, Stephanie, & Van Renterghen, Marion. 2004. Walking the Wall. Index on Censorship, 33 (3), 66–77.

Pennycook, Alistair. 2009. Linguistic Landscapes and the Transgressive Semiotics of Graffiti. In Elana Shohamy, & Durk Gorter (eds.), Linguistic Landscapes: Expanding the Scenery. New York: Routledge, 302–312.

Peteet, Julie. (1996). TheWriting on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada. Cultural Anthropology, 11 (2), 139–159.

Pullan, Wendy. 2004. A One-Sided Wall. Index on Censorship, 33 (3), 78–82.

Rogers, Richard. & Ben-David, Anat. 2005, October 18. Coming to Terms. A Conflict Analysis of the Usage in Official and Unofficial Sources, of Security Fence, Apartheid Wall and Other Terms for the Structure between Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from Govcom: [URL]

Scheibel, Dean. 1994. Graffiti and the “Film School” Culture: Displaying Alienation. Communication Monographs, 6 (1), 1–18.

Scollon, Ronald & Scollon, Suzanne. (2003). Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. London: Routledge.

Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Wodak, Ruth. 2006. ‘Doing Politics’: The Discursive Construction of Politics. Journal of Language and Politics, 5 (3), 299–303.

Cited by (64)

Cited by 64 other publications

Order by:

Chan, Gloria Hongyee & T. Wing Lo

2025. A Mixed Methods Analysis of Political Graffiti: Demonstrating Integration Through Joint Display Using Lennon Wall Hong Kong as an Example. Journal of Mixed Methods Research

Hanna Lantto, Paula Sjöblom, Jaana Vaahtera & Minna Hjort

2025. Kieli maisemassa, maisema kielessä: Tutkimuksia Turusta,

Liao, Ran & Brian Hok-Shing Chan

2025. “Graffiti” on protective gear in China's Covidscape: Mediated actions, affective regimes and resemiotization. Language & Communication 105 ► pp. 37 ff.

Rossita, Mellysa Dwi & Ulyati Retno Sari

2025. Social identity on public landscapes: language mixing and cultural expressions of the graffitis in an Indonesian sport center. Conference on English Language Teaching ► pp. 91 ff.

Yang, Zi & Lawrence Jun Zhang

2025. Examining the Impact of Digital Linguistic Landscapes on Students’ motivation, and Self‐Perceived Achievement in Second Language Writing. International Journal of Applied Linguistics

Arias Álvarez, Alba

2024. Linguistic landscapes of activism. Journal of Language and Politics 23:6 ► pp. 896 ff.

Arias Álvarez, Alba

2025. Graffiti as a voice for marginalized and active communities: the case of Lavapiés, Madrid. Lengua y migración 1:17 ► pp. 31 ff.

Arias Álvarez, Alba

2025. Graffiti and Urban transformation: the ideological discourse in the semiotic landscape of the Asturian Mining Valley . Social Semiotics ► pp. 1 ff.

Belinskaya, Yulia & Olga Kolokytha

2024. From outlaw art to urban euphoria: Graffiti legitimization processes from within. Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 11:2 ► pp. 171 ff.

Bird, Gemma & Jelena Obradović-Wochnik

2024. Archives of border crossing: Crafting emotional proximity and distance on the walls of Athens. Journal of International Relations and Development 27:2 ► pp. 226 ff.

Bragaglia, Francesca

2024. Another sign on the wall: Graffiti slogans between dissent and post-political dynamics. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 42:7 ► pp. 1224 ff.

Byrne, Steven & Erika Marcet

2024. La lluita continua : socio-political debate and the linguistic landscape of a Catalan city . Social Semiotics 34:1 ► pp. 113 ff.

Demaj, Uranela & Mieke Vandenbroucke

2024. The geosemiotics of ethno-political graffiti in Kosovo: polyphony, emplacement and heteroglossia. Social Semiotics 34:5 ► pp. 937 ff.

Mohammed Al-Rikaby, Ali Badeen

2024. The aesthetic values of the semiotic choices in Arab protests. Journal of Language and Politics 23:2 ► pp. 261 ff.

Saeed, Zafran, Dr. Said Imran & Dr. Syed Sabih ul Hassan

2024. Critical Discourse Analysis of Discursive Strategies Employed in Unga Speeches of Imran Khan: A Socio-Cognitive Perspective. Journal of Policy Research 10:2 ► pp. 107 ff.

El Nossery, Nevine

2023. Bahia Shehab: The (In)visible Cairo Street Artist. In Arab Women's Revolutionary Art [Communication, Culture, and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa, ], ► pp. 23 ff.

Hasan, Dana & Sahera Bleibleh

2023. The everyday art of resistance: Interpreting "resistancescapes" against urban violence in Palestine. Political Geography 101 ► pp. 102833 ff.

Kohn, Ayelet

2023. Props as visual arguments in the political speeches of Binyamin Netanyahu. Social Semiotics 33:2 ► pp. 373 ff.

Miranda Correa, Melisa

2023. Contextual graffiti and collective action frames at the Chilean social outbreak in 2019. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 9:4 ► pp. 387 ff.

Morady Moghaddam, Mostafa & Neil Murray

2023. Linguistic Variation in Iranian University Student Graffiti: Examining the Role of Gender. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 52:3 ► pp. 721 ff.

O’Farrell, Liam & Katrín Oddsdóttir

2023. ‘Where is the new constitution?’ Activist art and the politics of space in Iceland. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 41:7 ► pp. 1333 ff.

Ayaydin, Deniz Berfin

2022. What does Caravaggio have to do with “muzz” influx into Europe? Controversial street murals in Brussels and the question of political street art. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 14:1

Hána, David & Jan Šel

2022. Political graffiti in the political symbolic space of Prague, Czechia. Urban Research & Practice 15:5 ► pp. 679 ff.

Kim, Sungwoo & In Chull Jang

2022. A trajectory of a mediational means in protest: the hand placard in South Korea’s Candlelight Protests. Social Semiotics 32:2 ► pp. 205 ff.

Meyenburg, Imko

2022. “Brexit Means Brexit!”: Investigating the Production of Social Phenomena in Political Discourses. Symbolic Interaction 45:4 ► pp. 570 ff.

Milani, Tommaso M.

2022. Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel and the mediatization of street art. Social Semiotics 32:4 ► pp. 545 ff.

Pennycook, Alastair

2022. Street art assemblages. Social Semiotics 32:4 ► pp. 563 ff.

Alayan, Samira & Lana Shehadeh

2021. Religious symbolism and politics: hijab and resistance in Palestine. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44:6 ► pp. 1051 ff.

Zhang, Hong & Brian Hok-Shing Chan

2021. Protest graffiti, social movements and changing participation frameworks. Journal of Language and Politics 20:4 ► pp. 515 ff.

Randour, François, Julien Perrez & Min Reuchamps

2020. Twenty years of research on political discourse: A systematic review and directions for future research. Discourse & Society 31:4 ► pp. 428 ff.

Vogel, Birte, Catherine Arthur, Eric Lepp, Dylan O’Driscoll & Billy Tusker Haworth

2020. Reading socio-political and spatial dynamics through graffiti in conflict-affected societies. Third World Quarterly 41:12 ► pp. 2148 ff.

Aguilera-Carnerero, Carmen

2019. Urban Wall Monologues: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Graffiti in Granada. In Fuzzy Boundaries in Discourse Studies, ► pp. 77 ff.

Debras, Camille

2019. Political graffiti in May 2018 at Nanterre University: A linguistic ethnographic analysis. Discourse & Society 30:5 ► pp. 441 ff.

Molander, Susanna, Ingeborg Astrid Kleppe & Jacob Ostberg

2019. Hero shots: involved fathers conquering new discursive territory in consumer culture. Consumption Markets & Culture 22:4 ► pp. 430 ff.

Murphy, Joanne & Sara McDowell

2019. Transitional optics: Exploring liminal spaces after conflict. Urban Studies 56:12 ► pp. 2499 ff.

Ogunfeyimi, Adedoyin

2019. Memorializing Violence: Identity, Temporality, and the “Vulnerability” of a Mythical Figure in State Graffiti. Rhetoric Review 38:3 ► pp. 338 ff.

Perrez, Julien, François Randour & Min Reuchamps

2019. De l’uniformité du discours politique : analyse bibliométrique et linguistique de la catégorisation des discours politiques. CogniTextes 19:Volume 19

Themistocleous, Christiana

2019. Conflict and unification in the multilingual landscape of a divided city: the case of Nicosia’s border. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 40:2 ► pp. 94 ff.

Bilkic, Maida

2018. Emplacing hate. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 4:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Fransen-Taylor, Pamela & Bhuva Narayan

2018. Challenging prevailing narratives with Twitter: An #AustraliaDay case study of participation, representation and elimination of voice in an archive. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 50:3 ► pp. 310 ff.

Awad, Sarah H., Brady Wagoner & Vlad Glaveanu

2017. The Street Art of Resistance. In Resistance in Everyday Life, ► pp. 161 ff.

Bates, Benjamin R.

2017. Participatory Graffiti as Invitational Rhetoric: The Case of O Machismo. Qualitative Research Reports in Communication 18:1 ► pp. 64 ff.

Lehec, Clémence

2017. Graffiti in Palestinian Refugee Camps: from palimpsest walls to public space. Articulo – revue de sciences humaines 15

RISKEDAHL, DIANE

2017. Graphic Identity in the Scriptorial Landscape of Lebanon. City & Society 29:1 ► pp. 127 ff.

Riskedahl, Diane

2022. Transgressive Arabic discourse in Lebanese political protest. Multilingua 41:2 ► pp. 233 ff.

Riskedahl, Diane

2023. Playing with Accents in the Khede Kasra Campaign in Lebanon: Multimodality in Visual Politics. In Visual Politics in the Global South [Political Campaigning and Communication, ], ► pp. 29 ff.

Seloni, Lisya & Yusuf Sarfati

2017. Linguistic landscape of Gezi Park protests in Turkey. Journal of Language and Politics 16:6 ► pp. 782 ff.

Zhang, Gehao

2017. Fengshui your graffiti: embodied spatial practices in the ‘city of gambling’. Cultural Studies 31:6 ► pp. 918 ff.

Hanauer, David I.

2015. Occupy Baltimore: A Linguistic Landscape Analysis of Participatory Social Contestation in an American City. In Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, ► pp. 207 ff.

Messekher, Hayat

2015. A Linguistic Landscape Analysis of the Sociopolitical Demonstrations of Algiers: A Politicized Landscape. In Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, ► pp. 260 ff.

Rubdy, Rani

2015. Conflict and Exclusion: The Linguistic Landscape as an Arena of Contestation. In Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, ► pp. 1 ff.

Rubdy, Rani

2015. A Multimodal Analysis of the Graffiti Commemorating the 26/11 Mumbai Terror Attacks: Constructing Self-Understandings of a Senseless Violence. In Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, ► pp. 280 ff.

Seals, Corinne A.

2015. Overcoming Erasure: Reappropriation of Space in the Linguistic Landscape of Mass-Scale Protests. In Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, ► pp. 223 ff.

Seals, Corinne A.

2017. Analyzing the linguistic landscape of mass-scale events. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 3:3 ► pp. 267 ff.

Shiri, Sonia

2015. Co-Constructing Dissent in the Transient Linguistic Landscape: Multilingual Protest Signs of the Tunisian Revolution. In Conflict, Exclusion and Dissent in the Linguistic Landscape, ► pp. 239 ff.

Vickers, Caroline H., Christopher Lindfelt & Marsha Greer

2015. The co-influence of the natural, built, and linguistic landscape: indexing security. Language Policy 14:1 ► pp. 25 ff.

Zaimakis, Yiannis

2015. ‘Welcome to the civilization of fear’: on political graffiti heterotopias in Greece in times of crisis. Visual Communication 14:4 ► pp. 373 ff.

Youkhana, Eva

2014. Creative Activism and Art Against Urban Renaissance and Social Exclusion – Space Sensitive Approaches to the Study of Collective Action and Belonging. Sociology Compass 8:2 ► pp. 172 ff.

Kohn, Ayelet & Hananael Rosenberg

2013. Collapsing walls and the question of commemoration: graffiti in the Israeli withdrawal, August 2005. Social Semiotics 23:5 ► pp. 606 ff.

Kohn, Ayelet & Hananel Rosenberg

2013. Collapsing walls and the question of commemoration: graffiti in the Israeli withdrawal, August 2005. Policy Studies ► pp. 1 ff.

Waldner, Lisa K. & Betty A. Dobratz

2013. Graffiti as a Form of Contentious Political Participation. Sociology Compass 7:5 ► pp. 377 ff.

Ten Eyck, Toby A & Brette E Fischer

2012. Is graffiti risky? Insights from the internet and newspapers. Media, Culture & Society 34:7 ► pp. 832 ff.

[no author supplied]

2025. Minority Languages and Language Ideologies. In The Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes and Multilingualism, ► pp. 193 ff.

[no author supplied]

2025. Emergence of the Field. In The Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes and Multilingualism, ► pp. 15 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.