Friday the 6th of March, 8am. The opening of a stall, raising of banners and settling in of volunteers for Just Love – a Christian charity affiliated with International Justice Mission (IJM) to stop modern slavery – for a 24 hour literal ‘stand’ for freedom:
For me, this is an example of Routledge’s (2011) paper on ‘Sensuous Solidarities’ – visceral reactions to injustice provoking a creative response – which uses geographies of the body to understand the effectiveness of this activism through its use of bodily symbolism and performance.
I’m (re?)framing activism as a political performance of collective emotions towards a subject,[1] and counting these emotions as part of the visceral, that is, the capacity of individual and corporate minds and bodies to judge, think and perform.[2] Activism always starts at the heart-level, where emotions are bound up in power relations and affinity:
“People become politically active because they feel something profound…activists create shared emotional templates in order to find a common cause, and to generate common narratives and solidarities”
Routledge 2011:429-430 [my italics]
Why would anyone physically stand for 24 hours at uni for people they’ve never met? This activism starts as embodied resistance, rebelling against culture and the status quo which tries to encapsulate and mould identity, and reaches to raw emotional discomfort and conscience-stirring about the injustices of modern slavery[3]. It moves on to community affect, the distribution of the ‘sensible’ within people of the same visceral positions, creating communal strength which is “invigorating and fortifying”.[4] And it produces innovative integrations of objects, bodies and (now highly-fuelled) emotions, re-defining social interrelation and behaviour as they become wrapped around the cause and project their views outwardly.[5]
This is cultural activism, challenging world behaviours through activists’ public change of their own behaviours.[6] Those who stand are demonstrating and projecting the issue into the consciences of their peers, so that an emotion might stir in them to incite them too to embodied action. The fact they’re standing is cleverly symbolic of strength, solidarity, a readiness to fight and not back down.
But this activism doesn’t quite seem to be the in-your-face creativity that’s demonstrated by CIRCA or the rebel songs in the fight against apartheid South Africa.[7] It seems gentler, more everyday. Some might even argue that the only creativity involved in this activism is through objects: the placard messages and the handmade jewellery on sale from formerly-trafficked women:
I disagree. These bodies, though not humanly ‘created’ as per traditional definitions of creativity, have been creatively used to make visible the invisible through collective public action.[8] Creativity and activism can be quiet, the subtle use of bodies in profoundly symbolic stance, challenging hegemonic rhythms for ground-breaking social change.[9] By responding to their own hatred of injustice by simply standing, for 24 hours, these activists do just that.
[1] Routledge 2011
[2] Hayes-Conroy & Martin 2009
[3] Jolaosho 2015
[4] Jolaosho 2015:447
[5] Jolaosho 2015; Hayes-Conroy & Martin 2009
[6] Routledge 2011
[7] Routledge 2011 and Jolaosho 2015
[8] Jolaosho 2015
[9] Hankins 2017
References
Hankins, K. (2017) Creative democracy and the quiet politics of the everyday, Urban Geography, 38:4, 502-506
Hayes-Conroy, A. and Martin, D.G. (2009) Mobilising bodies: visceral identification in the Slow Food Movement, RGS
Joalasho, O. (2015) Political aesthetics and embodiment: sung protest in post-apartheid South Africa, Journal of Material Culture vol. 20(4), 443-458
Routledge, P. (2011) Sensuous Solidarities: Emotion, Politics and Performance in the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, Antipode vol. 44, issue 2, pp 428-452
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