On September 6, 2023, Dr. Christian Chun delivered a presentation at the 14th Linguistic Landscape Workshop (LL14) in Madrid. The conference, which featured a hybrid format, showcased his exploration of critiques of capitalism within the subversive linguistic landscapes of graffiti and street art across urban areas in Los Angeles, London, and Boston. His presentation was titled Imaginaries of Alternative Worlds in Urban Landscapes.

Here is the abstract of the presentation:

This talk presents examples of critiques of capitalism in the subversive linguistic landscapes of graffiti and street art in Los Angeles, London, and Boston in urban spaces that have been dominated by capital. Drawing upon research in urban studies, urban geography, ethnographic discourse analysis, and linguistic landscapes and the theoretical work of Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptual triad of representations of space, representational spaces and spatial practices, and Soja’s (1989, 2010) notion of the “socio-spatial dialectic, I explore the visual topographies of capitalism: the architecture, residential and store signs, public murals, statues and graffiti that depict and/or represent some aspect of the economy, whether it features corporate culture, consumer lifestyle and culture, and critiques or celebrations of capitalism. By drawing on the photographs I have taken in these cities, I address the following questions: How do these sociopolitical texts create, shape, and define counter-hegemonic and anti-capitalist imaginaries and practices in public, institutional, and commercialized spaces? To what extent are anti-capitalist graffiti allowed in certain places by the powers that be as a non-threatening space for dissenting voices and thus as a safety valve for opposition to the ruling class? But in calling for another world, how would these graffiti prefigure and encourage people into fighting for another world? In asking these questions, I explore how such spaces including linguistic landscapes that have been at times transient can now enter into academic (such as here) and archival spaces including social media prompting further reflection, discussion and possible action.

keywords: linguistic landscapes, capitalism, urban studies