Article published in:
Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 1:3 (2015) ► pp. 268–290

The performativity of the body

Turbulent spaces in Greece

| University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

This article explores the “performativity of the body” (Butler, 2011) using ‘anarchic’ and ‘anti-authoritarian’ protests in Greece as empirical starting points. We analyze the ways in which bodies speak politically by producing spatial turbulence in interaction with other bodies, and the materiality of urban environments. In doing so, we seek to contribute to the expansion of linguistic landscape scholarship into what Peck and Stroud (2015) call corporeal sociolinguistics. Our analysis of platform events (supermarket expropriations, smashing of CCTV-cameras, inscriptions of urban surfaces) and confrontational encounters (bloc formations, “dous”) illustrates spatial and affective tactics through which bodies in movement contest economic and political arrangements by appropriating, re-configuring and re-signifying sections of urban spaces.

Keywords: protests, Greece, , performativity, turbulence, bodies, materiality
Published online: 11 December 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.1.3.04kit
References
Agar, M.H
(1996) The professional stranger: An informal introduction to ethnography. Waltham, MA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bakunin, M
(1971) [1870] Letter to a Frenchman on the present crisis. In S. Dolgoff (Ed.), Bakunin on anarchy (pp. 183–224). New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Ben-Said, S., & Kasanga, L
In press). The discourse of protest: Frames of identity, intertextuality and interdiscursivity. In R. Blackwood, E. Lanza, & H. Woldemariam (Eds.) Negotiating and contesting identities in linguistic landscapes London Bloomsbury
Bolt, N., Betz, D., & Azari, J
(2008) Propaganda of the deed 2008. RUSI Whitehall Report.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P
(1991) Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bremner, L
(2010) Writing the city into being: Essays on Johannesburg, 1998–2008. Johannesburg: Fourthwall Books.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, E., & Dickson, E.S
(2007) The propaganda of the deed: Terrorism, counterterrorism, and mobilization. American Journal of Political Science, 51(2), 364–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butler, J
(2011) Bodies in alliance and the politics of the street. European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies. Online at: http://​eipcp​.net​/transversal​/1011​/butler​/enGoogle Scholar
Coupland, N
(2010) Welsh linguistic landscapes ‘from above’and ‘from below’. In A. Jaworski & C. Thurlow (Eds.), Semiotic landscapes: Language, image, space (pp. 77–101). London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Cresswell, T., & Martin, C
(2012) On turbulence: Entanglements of disorder and order on a Devon beach. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 103(5), 516–529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F
(1983) Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Dupuis-Deri, F
(2010) The black blocs ten years after Seattle: Anarchism, direct action and deliberative practices. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 4(2), 45–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Economides, S., & Monastiriotis, V
(Eds.) (2009) The return of street politics? Essays on the December riots in Greece. London: The Hellenic Observatory, LSE.Google Scholar
Fleming, M
(1980) Propaganda by the deed: Terrorism and anarchist theory in late nineteenth century Europe. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 4(1-4), 1–23.Google Scholar
Foucault, M
(1978) Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York, NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Goffman, E
(1959) The presentation of self in everyday life. New York, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
(1966) Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
(1971) Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
(1983) The interaction order. American Sociological Review, 481, 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Graeber, D
(2002) The new anarchists. New Left Review, 131, 61–73.Google Scholar
(2009) Direct action: An ethnography. Oakland, CA: AK Press.Google Scholar
Grosz, E
(2004) The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely. Raleigh: Duke University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herzfeld, M
(2011) Crisis attack: Impromptu ethnography in the Greek maelstom. Anthropology Today, 27(5), 22–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hult, F
(2008) Language ecology and linguistic landscape analysis. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 88–104). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Johnstone, B
(2009) Pittsburghese shirts: Commodification and the enregisterment of an urban dialect. American Speech, 84(2), 157–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Juris, J.S
(2005) Violence performed and imagined: Militant action, the black bloc and the mass media in Genoa. Critique of Anthropology, 25(4), 413–432. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Performing politics: Image, embodiment, and affective solidarity during anti-corporate globalization protests. Ethnography, 9(1), 61–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katsiaficas, G
(2006) The subversion of politics: European autonomous social movements and the decolonization of everyday life. Oakland, CA: AK Press.Google Scholar
Kitis, E.D
(2013) The 2008 urban riots in Greece: Differential representations of a police shooting incident. In A. De Rycker & Z. Mohd Don (Eds.), Discourse and crisis: Critical perspectives (pp. 323–362). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2015) The anti-authoritarian chóros: A space for youth socialization and radicalization in Greece (1974-2010). Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 9(1), 1–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martín Rojo, L
(2014a) Occupy: The spatial dynamics of discourse in global protest movements. Journal of Language and Politics, 13(4), 583–598. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2014b) Taking over the square: The role of linguistic practices in contesting urban spaces. Journal of Language and Politics, 13(4), 623–652. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mc Laughlin, F
(2015) Linguistic warscapes of northern Mali. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal, 1(3), 213–242 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mauss, M
(1973) Techniques of the body. Economy and Society, 2(1), 70–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milani, T.M
(2014) Sexed signs–queering the scenery. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2281, 201–225.Google Scholar
(2015) Sexual cityzenship: Discourses, spaces and bodies at Joburg Pride 2012. Journal of Language and Politics, 14(3), 431–454. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murthy, D
(2008) Digital ethnography: An examination of the use of new technologies for social research. Sociology, 42(5), 837–855. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pautz, H., & Kominou, M
(2013) Reacting to ‘austerity politics’: The tactic of collective expropriation in Greece. Social Movement Studies, 12(1), 103–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peck, A., & Stroud, C
(2015) Skinscapes. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal, 1(1-2), 133–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennycook, A
(2008) Linguistic landscapes and the transgressive semiotics of graffiti. In E. Shohamy & D. Gorter (Eds.), Linguistic landscape: Expanding the scenery (pp. 305–312). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pennycook, E., & Otsuji, A
(2015) Smellscapes. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal, 1(3), 191–212. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pietikäinen, S., Lane, P., Salo, H., & Laihlala-Kankainen, S
(2011) Frozen actions in the Arctic linguistic landscape: A nexus analysis of language processes in visual space. International Journal of Multilingualism, 8(4), 277–298. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwarz, A.G., Sagris, T., & Void Network
(Eds.) (2010) We are an image from the future: The Greek revolt of December 2008. Oakland, CA: AK Press.Google Scholar
Scollon, R
(2001) Mediated discourse: The nexus of practice. Abigdon: Taylor and Francis. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S.W
(2003) Discourses in place: Language in the material world. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) Nexus analysis: Discourse and the emerging Internet. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stroud, C
In press). Turbulent linguistic landscapes and the semiotics of citizenship. In R. Blackwood, E. Lanza, & H. Woldemariam (Eds.) Negotiating and contesting identities in linguistic landscapes London Bloomsbury
Stroud, C., & Jegels, D
(2014) Semiotic landscapes and mobile narrations of place: Performing the local. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2281, 179–199Google Scholar
Vidali, S
(1998) Youth deviance and social exclusion in Greece. In R. Vincenzo, N. South, & I. Taylor (Eds.), The new European criminology: Crime and social order in Europe (pp. 339–349). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Waksman, S., & Shohamy, E
In press). Linguistic landscape of social protest: Moving from ‘open’ to ‘institutional’ spaces. In R. Blackwood, E. Lanza, & H. Woldemariam (Eds.) Negotiating and contesting identities in linguistic landscapes London Bloomsbury
Williams, Q
(2013) Hip-hop, graffiti writing, and multiple urban identities. In Z. Bock & G. Mehta (Eds.), Language, society & communication: An introduction (pp. 390–394). Cape Town: Van Schaik.Google Scholar
Slogan graffiti
http://​goo​.gl​/GFWKn3 - social media (YouTube) [accessed 24/3/2015].
Supermarket ‘expropriation’
http://​goo​.gl​/JHNS3V - store security camera / uploaded online by Proto Thema (Greek Tabloid) [accessed 24/3/2015].
Slogan graffiti
http://​goo​.gl​/2xQ701 - mass media (Euronews) [accessed 24/3/2015]
Supermarket ‘expropriation’
http://​goo​.gl​/QyDGCp -activist media (Athens Indymedia) [accessed 24/3/2015]
Cited by

Cited by 16 other publications

Jones, Rodney H.
2017. Surveillant landscapes. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 3:2 ► pp. 149 ff. DOI logo
Kitis, E. Dimitris & Dmitri Jegels
2018. Genres of protest in post-apartheid South Africa: Revisiting audience contributions to political speeches. African Studies 77:4 ► pp. 549 ff. DOI logo
Kitis, E. Dimitris & Dimitris Serafis
2020. Legitimizing austerity in crisis-hit Greece. Journal of Language and Politics 19:4 ► pp. 691 ff. DOI logo
Kosatica, Maida
2021. 102: the semiotics of living memorials. Social Semiotics 31:5 ► pp. 738 ff. DOI logo
Malinowski, David
2018. Linguistic Landscape. In The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology, ► pp. 869 ff. DOI logo
Malinowski, David
2020. Linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 6:1 ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
Milani, Tommaso M., Erez Levon, Roey J. Gafter & Iair G. Or
2018. Tel Aviv as a space of affirmation versus transformation. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 4:3 ► pp. 278 ff. DOI logo
Pennycook, Alastair
2019. The landscape returns the gaze. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 5:3 ► pp. 217 ff. DOI logo
Pérez-Arredondo, Carolina & Camila Cárdenas-Neira
2022. ‘The rapist is you’: semiotics and regional recontextualizations of the feminist protest ‘a rapist in your way’ in Latin America. Critical Discourse Studies 19:5 ► pp. 485 ff. DOI logo
Serafis, Dimitris, E. Dimitris Kitis & Stavros Assimakopoulos
2022. Sailing to Ithaka . Journal of Language and Politics 21:2 ► pp. 344 ff. DOI logo
Szabó, Tamás Péter & Robert A. Troyer
2017. Inclusive ethnographies. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 3:3 ► pp. 306 ff. DOI logo
Tran, Tu, Donna Starks & Howard Nicholas
2020. Discursive constructions of the viewing of a bathroom as a linguistic landscape in a shared home. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 43:1 ► pp. 29 ff. DOI logo
Troyer, Robert A. & Tamás Péter Szabó
2017. Representation and videography in linguistic landscape studies. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal 3:1 ► pp. 56 ff. DOI logo
Velásquez Urribarrí, Jessica
2020. Resemiotisations across time, space, materials and modes: an analysis of political signage in Venezuela. Social Semiotics ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Volvach, Natalia
2022. Manoeuvres of dissent in landscapes of annexation. Linguistic Landscape. An international journal DOI logo
Yao, Xiaofang & Paul Gruba
2022. Power through the semiotic landscape. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 43:5 ► pp. 373 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.