Manoeuvres of dissent in landscapes of annexation
Building on semiotic landscapes research, the present paper seeks to expand the existing field with its
exploration of protest through the lens of turbulence (
Stroud, 2015a). While making
visible the fabric of resistance in semiotic landscapes of annexed Crimea, the ethnographic engagement with the interactional and
visual data provides insights into small-scale performative acts of protest. It shows that protest evolves as a manoeuvring act
across a minefield of possibilities and constraints and manifests itself materially and discursively. More specifically, acts of
protest emerge out of an agential intra-action of humans and non-humans, thus revealing the necessity of synergies between people
and objects. Such intra-actions create interpretative ambiguity. Protestors deliberately play on this ambiguity to simultaneously
conceal and to visibilise dissent. Jointly achieved performative acts of protest, if only temporary, create turbulence and
unsettle the status of Crimea as a ‘Russian’ space, thus disturbing the status quo in the area.
Article outline
- 1.Protest without a wisp of smoke
- 2.Protest Semiosis: bodies and objects talk
- 3.Analysis
- 3.1When the mundane is made political
- 3.2People exposed to objects
- 3.3A head wreath: Downgrading weapons to aesthetics
- 3.4Certificate of madness to excuse difference
- 3.5Cars masking people
- 4.Discussion
- 5.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
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