Resistance with and against symbolic objects: material targets of resistance and symbolic recruitment in the American Revolution, the anti-Apartheid movement, and Just Stop Oil protests

This paper discusses the roles played by physical objects in resistance, drawing on three case studies: the dismantling of the statue of King George III during the American Revolution, the burning of passbooks by anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and Just Stop Oil’s destruction of petrol pumps in 2022. Drawing on the ‘symbolic objects’ approach to resistance and collective action (Gardner and Abrams, 2023a), we contend that the statue, the passbook, and the petrol pump represent more than just passing features of the mise-en-scène of the act of resistance. Rather, the object takes on a life of its own, adopts new symbolic meanings, and emerges as a collaborator in resistance: something we term ‘symbolic recruitment’. We contend that the activities enacted upon these objects transformed their social connotations, with new narratives, emotions, and concepts coming to be attached to them. Across our three cases, we see forms of symbolic subversion taking place. The statue of King George III in New York, while initially standing for British monarchical power in the American colonies, was deconstructed and redeployed to oppose British rule. Passbooks in apartheid South Africa were a physical manifestation of the system of white domination; public passbook-burning protests recast the object as a symbol of Black liberation. The smashing of petrol pumps by UK-based climate movement Just Stop Oil transformed this banal object into a symbolic representation of ecocidal policymaking. Overall, we contend that resistant action ‘against’ symbolic objects offers ‘hot’ moments in which new meanings are formed, old meanings transformed, and semiotic alliances shifted, inducting them as prospective material collaborators in longer-running resistance struggles.