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Graffiti, Art, and Advertising: Re-Scaling Claims to Space at the Edges of the Nation-State

Physical barriers are an increasingly popular political mechanism for central government control over the flows of goods and people at borders. This medium also, however, serves as a canvas for unsanctioned expressions of belonging. Just as graffiti and art are deployed in the urban landscape as unconventional means of claiming space, they are utilised on international border barriers to contest prevalent political winds and re-claim local and alternative senses of who belongs and what is deemed important in debates over border policy. This paper considers unauthorised text and visual imagery on the border barriers of the Arizona-Sonora section of the US-Mexico boundary as a therapeutic reaction to a state-dominated border policy which downplays local impacts. It is argued that such imagery serves to re-scale border space and thereby re-capture a sense of belonging by those whose roles are marginalised by national politics and the neoliberal global economy.