The commodification and commemoration of anarchist ideas

What is it about?

Some protest slogans stick around for decades or even centuries; the anarchist phrase 'No Gods No Masters' has been in use for over 180 years. It appeared as graffiti, in revolutionary almanacs, on 19th-century posters, as book titles, and eventually became widely commodified, printed onto activist T-shirts. This paper explores how activist cultural production ánd commodification have kept anarchist ideas alive through the ethical and sustainable organisation of both the labour and resources at stake in the work of spreading revolutionary words.

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Photo by Orit Matee on Unsplash

Photo by Orit Matee on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We often think of protest slogans as purely linguistic phrases that are as ephemeral as the cardboard they are written on. However, some have a persistence that makes them last for centuries, as they appear across a wide constellation of media and surfaces—from stickers to stencils, from knickers to knuckledusters, and from tombs to T-shirts. This article suggests that slogans are simultaneously utterances (words with specific meanings and poetic effects), artefacts (buttons or T-shirts), and acts (being hand-painted or mass-printed). Taking this approach can expand our ideas of how (activist) cultural production is always embedded within particular political economies and ecologies of production. It also sheds light on how activists push back against exploitative or polluting forms of cultural production by finding alternatives (such as using non-polluting paint or running printing as a cooperative that funds other activist projects).

Perspectives