This research examines the role of graffiti in deeply divided cities, demonstrating how this practice simultaneously contests and reinforces the ethnicisation of place. Drawing on a spatial lens, the study advances existing scholarship on the relationship between place and ethnic segregation, arguing that anti-ethnonationalist and anti-racist graffiti can, within specific temporal and spatial contexts, generate what this research terms 'invented peaceplaces'. Invented peace-places are defined as physical spaces inscribed with meaning through graffiti and its spatial reverberations, fostering a collective sense of place rooted in the perceived rejection of spatialised ethnic exclusivity. Alongside this, the research demonstrates how graffiti equally functions as a vehicle for the ethnicisation of space through the assertion of ethnic belonging and territorial claim. A comparative case study approach centres on the Old City of Lefkosia in the Republic of Cyprus and the Ormeau Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. These two 'alternative' neighbourhoods are embedded within cities marked by protracted division yet distinguished by divergent histories and contemporary urban landscapes. The originality of this study lies in its sustained, ground-level engagement with these sites: all graffiti present in each location was systematically documented across a three-month period between 2022 and 2023. Twenty-four participants were recruited through snowball sampling for walking interviews, with eligibility contingent on a minimum of one year's residency in the study area, ensuring that interpretations of graffiti were grounded in lived spatial experience. The dissertation employs qualitative thematic analysis of both graffiti documentation and interview data, foregrounding local and situated readings of graffiti practice. Findings reveal complex, pluralised interpretations of graffiti and its placemaking function, resisting any singular or reductive account. The research corroborates and extends the emerging literature on graffiti's role in the reproduction of place in divided cities, illustrating the ways in which ethnonationalism and racism are simultaneously reproduced and contested through the inscription of urban space.
Space, place and graffiti in divided cities: everyday [re]productions of alternative place in Lefkosia and Belfast
Cowan, M. (Author). May 2026
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis