Oct 7, 2020 / InfUr Webinar 1 / Kurt Iveson Keynote Lecture: Elite informality in action: the governance of graffiti in Sydney

Week # 1 / Keynote

KURT IVESON, University of Sydney

Elite informality in action: the governance of graffiti in Sydney

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Discussions of urban informality have increasingly drawn attention to various ways in which it is deployed by elite, as well as marginalised, urban actors. This presentation will give an account of elite informality in action, drawing on research into the governance of graffiti in Sydney. While attempts to either erase graffiti or give it a proper place could be seen as efforts to assert a formal order against the informal appropriation of space by graffiti artists, in fact the authority of urban authorities is frequently enacted through informal practices that themselves seek to evade or work around the rules and the law.