The sun beats down on the bustling streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter, a touristic neighbourhood lined with traditional shophouses. A roll-up door covered in a collection of tags serves as the backdrop for a discussion between a street vendor and customer over the price of fresh pineapple. From observations around Hanoi, it is clear that graffiti, in the shape of tags, throws, and pieces, has become an omnipresent feature. This would be unsurprising in many other cities around the world, but our interest was piqued by the fact that this is a socialist state where the central regime is known to closely monitor public space use, while relentlessly pushing a "civilised city" discourse (Coe, 2015). "Tags" -often executed quickly in mono-colour with spray paint or paint marker -are the most prevalent and fundamental form of graffiti in Hanoi (and worldwide), a stylised signature that engraves a writer's chosen name on the urban landscape (Brewer & Miller, 1990). Larger "throws" are slightly more time-consuming outlines of a writer's name in bubble-style letters, often using two contrasting colours for outline and fill, while "pieces" involve intricate designs including cartoon-like characters, three-dimensional effects, and colour transitions and can take several hours to complete (Macdonald, 2001). These

No abstract