Introducing Popular Icons Of Political Identity*

A few years back a colleague laughed at the topic of my conference presentation: "What, you study postage stamps? Are you professionally self-destructive, or high? " He clearly saw little intellectual value in these pieces of paper but listened carefully and asked questions. He then concluded that a change of opinion was needed: "I never understood how serious this everyday stuff can be. And your students must love it! " Sure enough, not only postage stamps but also currency, flags, and other state-issued items designed for everyday (and ceremonial) use make me high. They are a gold mine for a geographer with interest in politics and culture. These items contribute to the expanding understanding about visual methodologies, culture, and data (Mirzoeff 1998; Schwartz and Ryan 2003). The required interdisciplinary sensitivity encourages eye-opening dialogues between geographers and scholars in such fields as semiotics, aesthetics, and material-culture studies. And a revisit to the visual tradition in geography--maps, landscapes, and the basics of propaganda--is most instructive, for it concretizes the length and depth of applicable expertise (Duncan and Duncan 1988; Harley 1988, 1992; Herb 1997; Kosonen 2008). These items support the study of the everyday in geography and generally help kill any remaining prejudice toward "soft topics," intimate scales, and the mundane. And they appreciate the concept of power in the study of culture. And yes, the students love it. They are all familiar with "this everyday stuff" and have ready access to it. Raw material for a show-and-tell can be pulled out of one's pocket. The selection of T-shirts in the classroom has inspired spontaneous discussions about representation, identity, and consuming citizenship. What worldviews inform a particular film or comic book? How are the messages fed to their audiences? What are the motives and effects of using a country's flag on commercials and in product differentiation? The students quickly learn that not only people but products and places, too, have identities and that these connect to complex issues of ideology, power, and territorial affiliation. These questions are guaranteed to catch attention in the classroom and boost the students' self-confidence. The attendees are motivated to participate, for they know about "this stuff" and can create around it projects that are inexpensive, manageable, and instructive (Morgan 2001; Raento 2006). In the background lurk society, history, and the global media, as well as influential theoretical and methodological frameworks. These include banal nationalism (Billig 1995), imagined communities (Anderson 1991), visual methodologies (Rose 2001), propaganda and persuasion (Jowett and O'Donnell 1999), and geographies of resistance (Keith and Pile 1997). And there is more, for these popular icons of political identity relate to multiple scales. Many iconographic standards have become global in the world of nation-states and global entertainment industries. Products from postage stamps to motion pictures motivate worldwide networks of similarly minded people, generate massive income, and support subcultures: those of collectors, scholars, producers, and consumers. The emblems of a nation-state communicate the way brands do. States (and their supranational coalitions, like the European Union) also produce propaganda films and educate the youth and the illiterate about good citizenship via comic books. Unwanted messages are subject to censorship, but resistance to the dominant view takes a plethora of forms. Involved technologies, conventions, and institutions (Rose 2001) range from printing presses and cameras to color codes and national film boards. Representations of "national values," or a certain world-view, root in particular territories and particular cultural realms. The message-receiving citizens have multiple, sometimes competing affiliations in their most intimate spheres of belonging. …