Tag Archives: futility
Futile Political Gestures: Unbelonging: The Politics of Address
Chloe Ahmann
In 1976, the brand-new Maryland Science Center boasted a map of Baltimore that left out Curtis Bay—the city’s southernmost neighbourhood. A few years later, residents griped that the ‘Welcome to Baltimore’ sign was situated north of their community. Even today, locals complain that politicians get lost on their way to meetings in the area. IRead more
Futile Political Gestures: On the ‘Futility’ of Provocation and the Micro-Revolutions in Angola
Ruy Llera Blanes
These videos were recorded in August 2019 in Luanda, Angola and were sent to me via WhatsApp by Hitler Samussuku, an activist from the so-called ‘Revús’ (short for Revolutionary Movement), a civic movement that emerged in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and has since consistently staged a protest route against the Angolan regime, markedRead more
Futile Political Gestures: Performing Futility: Post-Truth and the Politics of Insincerity
Natalie C. Morningstar
‘Invisible and free!’ So begins one of the more chaotic scenes in Bulgakov’s (1997[1966]) The Master and Margarita. After being granted the gift of flight, Margarita embarks on a euphoric rampage through Moscow’s city streets. Unleashed but unseen by her targets, she revels in mostly harmless mayhem. An absurdist account of life under Stalin’s rule,Read more
Futile Political Gestures: Futility and Revelation at the Million Mask March
Vita Peacock
From 2011 onwards, a protest has taken place in London each year on November 5th now known as the Million Mask March. Having been conceived by a handful of activists who sought to playfully re-create a scene from the film V for Vendetta, by 2015 the march was attracting some ten thousand protesters from allRead more
Futile Political Gestures: The Politics of Prefiguration: Fascist Gestures in Predappio, Italy
Paolo Heywood
‘I myself remember how, in the 1930s, even in the midst of our anti-fascist engagement, we could only laugh at Mussolini’s posturing and gestures – the rigmarole of fascist ritual – without attempting to understand their true import’. (George L. Mosse) A crowd of men in black clothing filled the open area in frontRead more
Futile Political Gestures: Politics and the Instruction of Value
Adolfo Estalella
The futile condition of something always entails a judgment of value and this applies to politics too, this judgment may be based on a goal that has to be attained (Peacock, this collection) or the intention of the protagonists (Llera Blanes, this collection). This is something I have learnt in my research and involvement withRead more