Graffiti as an art of resistance: a study of North African street walls

This thesis examines the topic of resistance and agency through graffiti performances of the 2011 protests in Tunisia and Egypt. It joins recent theories of street art, performance, and resistance, to show how the graffiti of the protests perform resistance. More specifically, this thesis focusses on the configuration of socio-political transformation brought about by individuals and collectives’ graffiti performances. The research focuses on the performative ways in which subaltern people attempt to bring about a change in their countries. This study adopts an interdisciplinary and pragmatic approach where different concepts and theories are joined to encourage a new understanding of street art and resistance within the North African protests. The thesis analyses various graffiti pieces from Tunisia and Egypt. The graffiti pieces are collected from various online sources such as Google Image, Pinterest, Flicker, and Tumblr. Overall, this thesis suggests that the graffiti performances of the protests are a medium of socio-political agency and resistance.