Defacing Kabul
An Iconography of Political Campaign Posters
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2406017 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ken Whalen (Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 541-549 |
| Publication date | 2013-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cultural Geographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-4740 • E-ISSN: 1477-0881 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474474012465846 |
| OpenAlex | W2076249430 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
This essay offers an explanation for the highly stylized and expressive defacement of political campaign posters in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, that occurred during the 2009 presidential elections at the height of NATO's war in the country. I argue that the practice of mutilating faces of candidates displayed on posters and the targeting of specific facial features is the handiwork of Islamist-tribal symbolic code Islamic iconoclasm, and sympathetic magic. It is the latter that animates the images of candidates thereby making them subjects shamed and dishonored through the violence of defacement, a practice that mimics the more painful symbolic inscriptions etched mostly on the faces of breathing women in Afghanistan
Art · Art history · CONTEST · Face (sociological concept · Iconoclasm · Iconography · MAGIC (telescope · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Social science · Sociology · The Symbolic · Visual arts · History · Law · Military History and Strategy · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Psychology · South Asian Studies and Conflicts
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,13 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |