Injustice Symbols: On the Cultural-Political Outcomes of Social Movements

INJUSTICE SYMBOLS: ON THE CULTURAL-POLITICAL OUTCOMES OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS The literature on social movement outcomes has been primarily concerned with political, policy, biographical, and media effects. Less attention has been paid to symbols as outcomes of movement action. The core theoretical argument advanced in this paper is that movements are important symbol “users” and “producers”. Often, these take the form of injustice symbols. In Egypt, Khaled Said, a young man beaten to death by police in 2010 became a central injustice symbol in the formation of political protest against Mubarak (Olesen, forthcoming). And in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in December 2010 was a strong symbolic reference point for the protest that toppled the Ben Ali regime (Olesen 2013). These symbols are powerful resources during protests, but once protests subside the symbols remain as an important cultural-political outcome of protest. To mention just one example, the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which became a focal point for anti-war protesters, is still invoked by United States activists and media in relation to current military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan (Olesen 2012). The goal of the present paper is theoretical and typological. Its aim is to offer a distinction between different kinds of injustice symbols according to: (1) short term vs. long term outcomes; (2) spatial dimensions (is the symbol mainly local, national, or global?); and (3) domains of impact (mainly cultural or political, or both?). Olesen, Thomas (2012) “Global Injustice Memories: The 1994 Rwanda Genocide”, International Political Sociology 6(4): 373-389 Olesen, Thomas (2013) “Dramatic Diffusion and Injustice Symbols: The Case of Mohamed Bouazizi and the Tunisian Revolution”, paper prepared for the ECPR Joint Sessions, Mainz, March 11-16, 2012 Olesen, Thomas (forthcoming) “”We Are All Khaled Said: On Visual Injustice Symbols”, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change.