“Kilroy lives here”

This article explores graffiti made by construction workers and its associated practices at a major construction site in Sweden. Research on how construction workers use literacy by taking part in literacy practices, doings involving writing, reading, or talking about texts, is scarce. This research gap is evident with regard to their doings with graffiti, potentially making this workplace phenomenon difficult to teach and put into context in vocational education and training (VET). The theoretical framework applied is the practice-based ecological view of literacy which allows analysis of how literacy practices are shaped by Discourses, combinations of saying, doing, and being things. Using an ethnographic approach, construction site graffiti was documented using photography (N = 92) and fieldnotes (25,000 words) during five months of fieldwork at a major construction site in Sweden. Data was analysed in three steps including pre-analysis, deductive analysis, and inductive analysis using the concept of literacy practice as an analytical tool. Results indicate that graffiti in the form of construction markings, memory notes, sketches, ownership labels, calculations, comments, doodles, political symbols, tags, and caricatures was found at this construction site and that they supported practices of aiding construction, maintaining autonomy, and playful bantering. These findings suggest construction site graffiti to be a versatile tool used both for production and for fun enabled by a transient workplace that is difficult to control with traditional managerial techniques. Graffiti practices are believed to reflect a unique occupational culture that value displays of craftsmanship, opposition, and wit. As graffiti constitutes an aspect of workplace literacy that is unlikely to be put into context in construction worker training, future research on its potential in VET is suggested.