Abstract
This essay offers an explanation for the highly stylized and expressive defacement of political campaign posters in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, that occurred during the 2009 presidential elections at the height of NATO’s war in the country. I argue that the practice of mutilating faces of candidates displayed on posters and the targeting of specific facial features is the handiwork of Islamist-tribal symbolic code Islamic iconoclasm, and sympathetic magic. It is the latter that animates the images of candidates thereby making them subjects shamed and dishonored through the violence of defacement, a practice that mimics the more painful symbolic inscriptions etched mostly on the faces of breathing women in Afghanistan.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.