Manoeuvres of dissent in landscapes of annexation

Abstract

Building on semiotic landscapes research, the present paper seeks to expand the existing field with its exploration of protest through the lens of turbulence (Stroud, 2015a). While making visible the fabric of resistance in semiotic landscapes of annexed Crimea, the ethnographic engagement with the interactional and visual data provides insights into small-scale performative acts of protest. It shows that protest evolves as a manoeuvring act across a minefield of possibilities and constraints and manifests itself materially and discursively. More specifically, acts of protest emerge out of an agential intra-action of humans and non-humans, thus revealing the necessity of synergies between people and objects. Such intra-actions create interpretative ambiguity. Protestors deliberately play on this ambiguity to simultaneously conceal and to visibilise dissent. Jointly achieved performative acts of protest, if only temporary, create turbulence and unsettle the status of Crimea as a ‘Russian’ space, thus disturbing the status quo in the area.