Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art (Routledge International Handbooks Series) J.I. Ross (Ed.). London and New York: Routledge (2016) 492pp. £185/$235 (print); £41.99/$57.95 (e‐book) ISBN 9781138792937 (print hb); ISBN 9781315761664 (e‐book)

The Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art, edited by criminologist, Jeffrey Ian Ross, is an important addition to the growing field of graffiti and street art studies. Published in 2016, that is, a few months after the release of two edited volumes on the same topic (Lovata and Olton 2015; Youkhana and Förster 2015) and a year before our collection from the same publisher (Avramidis and Tsilimpounidi 2017), the Handbook takes its position in graffiti literature in a moment of intense production on the subject. In this period of high scholarly interest in the topic, the volume does a great job in filling a gap in graffiti scholarship by offering a reader book that summarises and brings together the – often dispersed – research published up to the date of its release. Since the aspiration of the editor is to provide an extensive overview of the field – as expressed both in the foreword and introduction (pp.xxviii, 6) – the volume has definitely succeeded in achieving its goal. At the same time, the book makes a contribution to the legitimisation of graffiti and street art scholarship – an aim that is more clearly stated in a later article that the editor co-authored with some of the contributors of the collection (Ross et al. 2017) – while also serving as a handy teaching tool for courses in various disciplines in social sciences (Ross and Lennon 2018). The Handbook consists of a robust foreword written by founding graffiti scholar, Jeff Ferrell, an eloquent introduction by the editor, and 35 individual chapters authored by experts in the field. The book is organised in four parts, each of which opens with a short introduction by the editor, providing an overview of the chapters while identifying the omissions in the respective section. Part One has ten chapters focusing on the history, types and protagonists of graffiti and street art. In this section, examples of ancient (Baird and Taylor), hobo (Lennon), freight train (Weide), gang (Phillips), prison (Wilson), female (Pabón), latrine (Trahan), yarn (Haveri), legal (Kramer), and Indian (Martin), graffiti are presented, showing that all these writing forms – regardless of their historical, social, and material contexts – share something in common. In so doing, this part addresses issues of definitions while challenging the established histories regarding the origins of contemporary graffiti writing. At the same time, it paves the way for a creative exchange between seemingly distant research strands. The six chapters of Part Two offer theoretical explanations and trace the motivations for graffiti and street art. The first three provide theoretical interpretations related to these practices and the city: graffiti and street art images – in their physical form – are appreciated as ornaments, that is, embedded in the architectonic structures that host them (Schacter); graffiti and street art, through various processes of appropriation and co-optation, are understood as a means of added value for specific places and new urban governance strategies (Brighenti); and, in a similar vein, they are seen as practices capable of producing specific images that can be used to promote particular ideas about place-making and city-branding (Evans). The other three chapters discuss issues related to the practitioners, such as the gendered identity building within the subculture (Macdonald), the potential subcultural career perspectives for graffers and street artists (Snyder), and the psychological factors that lead adolescents and young adults to engage in these practices (Taylor, Pooleu and Carragher). Part Three is the largest part of the volume and consists of twelve chapters examining the diverse regional and municipal variations of graffiti and street art around the globe. Examples from the USA (Austin; Piano), Canada (Wacławek), Chile (Palmer), the UK (Ross), France (Fieni), Portugal (Campos), Egypt (Abaza), Palestine (Peteet), Japan (Yamakoshi and Sekine), China and Hong Kong (Valjakka), are offered. The contributors to this section review the past and current protagonists of their local scenes while discussing symbolic pieces, dominant images, or specific norms shared in each case. The vast majority of the chapters adopt ethnographic methods to study graffiti and street art scenes at a city level, which are then generalised to regional, or even continental, scales in order to understand the prominence that particular areas enjoy in the graffiti world. This somewhat problematic move between scales is the result of the methodological limitations of ethnography and acknowledged by Ross – in the corresponding opening text of this section – who considers the insights stemming from every local scene competent, regardless of their limited geographical focus. Part Four explores the effects of graffiti and street art, that is, their societal perception and the responses of the public. The seven chapters of this section touch upon subjects related to authorities’ reactions, media representations, and institutional appropriations that these practices attract. They trace the responses to graffiti and street art coming from a variety of agents, such as municipal authorities (Ross), press (Kramer), art market (Bengtsen), film industry (Ross), moral entrepreneurs (Bloch), legal system (Schwender), and gallery world (Wells). The chapters examine various strategies of graffiti and street art management that span from legal reactions and law enforcement, to deterrence, removal, and diversion programmes. The offered approaches in this section often remain peripheral in the graffiti and street art discourse, despite the fact that they play a key role in shaping our understanding and appreciation of these practices (for example, graffiti and copyright law, especially in the graffiti world following the recent H&M v. Revok lawsuit). Ultimately, this last part engages with a core issue associated with graffiti and street art, that is, the recurring tension between their legal and illegal nature. The volume concludes with a useful glossary and chronology of graffiti and street art. One of the biggest strengths of the book is that it brings different types of graffiti together, thus moving beyond the post-1970s New York style writing form. Further, several important and recurring themes related to graffiti and street art are addressed by acclaimed scholars. One topic that might have deserved more space, however, is the significant role that new technologies play in reshaping these practices. The geographical coverage and multi-national focus of the volume is also noteworthy, despite the fact that it is Western-centred. Even though it remains on the side of social sciences, the book is a truly interdisciplinary one reflecting the multifaceted nature of graffiti and street art. The volume celebrates the different disciplinary starting points of those who examine these artforms, ranging from sociology, criminology, and art history, to legal, urban, and visual studies. Ross engages enthusiastically with the dynamic and constantly-evolving nature of graffiti and street art while capturing the urban processes, key agents and theoretical discourses that inform our understanding of these practices. The Handbook is a must read for every scholar interested in the subject matter and would appeal to anyone who would like a complete introduction to the key issues surrounding graffiti and street art in different historical, spatial and legal contexts.

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