Vandalism as Symbolic Reparation

Imaginaries of Protest in Nicaragua

Bibliographic Data

ID4989469
AuthorsIleana L Selejan (0000-0001-9571-0029, University of the Arts London, UK [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume39
Issue2
Pages19-38
Publication date2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Cambridge Journal of Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7674 • E-ISSN: 2047-7716
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/cja.2021.390203
OpenAlexW3201414690
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited17

The 2018 anti-government protests in Nicaragua generated a vast amount of photographic imagery, video documentation, and visual graphics. On the street and via social media, everyday citizens engaged with this material, activating a multisensory environment. The production of visual content was nonetheless accompanied by iconoclastic gestures; vandalism became a means of reclaiming Nicaragua's revolutionary past and its symbols, while deploying them towards the making of a yet to be imagined political future. Drawing on examples from Chile and Mexico, the article argues that acts of vandalism may be understood as symbolically reparative. The materiality of the protests, manifested through image, trace, gesture, and sound (slogans, chants, noise) becomes a means towards analysing, ethnographically, revolutionary imaginaries caught within the flux of an unsettled present

Everyday life · Materiality · Law in Society and Culture · Public Spaces through Art · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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