The Silent Narrative of Walls: Palestine’s Graffiti 2020 – 2022 “Ramallah as a Case رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

The phenomenon of Graffiti in Palestine has raised a plethora of questions among the younger generation, who are more accustomed to the digital world. They question the motives behind Graffiti creation, its interpretation and impact on the collective experience of the recipients. Moreover, they contemplate the methods and contexts of graffiti creation determined by the repressive power struggles imposed on the daily lives of Palestinians by the Israeli Occupation. Therefore, this study explores the impact of graffiti in the Palestinian context and its relation to identity within the city of Ramallah. It accentuates the cultural significance of Graffiti in a society where public spaces are used as platforms for declarations of resistance, self-expression, and national identity declarations. This study aims to define graffiti and its role in Palestine, examine its evolution and significance in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, demonstrate its communicative effectiveness, and provide resources on civil resistance within the Palestinian struggle, while concentrating on Ramallah city as an area of study. Thus, the researcher applied the Content Analysis approach followed by Critical Discourse Analysis on the collected samples to understand their ideologies, values, and trends. A total of 525 photograph samples were gathered from 39 different streets in Ramallah between October 2020 and October 2022. In order to establish a cohesive analysis of the data and draw conclusions between different elements such as power relations and subcultures and their influence on graffiti production, the researcher analyzes the graffiti murals based on the place of production, graffiti’s main categories, the artistic form, and content within the photographed samples.