Cancel Culture: Shrinking or Remaking Narratives? (2022) Vasu Reddy and Donna Andrews The ‘Cancel Culture’ turn in recent debates has bearing on transformation. This demands self-reflection, exploration of the social, as well as explanation of social concerns. Moreover, the practice requires rethinking to deepen a transformative agenda, least of all because of how it has been usurped by right wing forces. The term challenges ideas, identity markers and diverse interests. ‘Cancelling’ has become ubiquitous in popular culture and is directed towards expressing disapproval and withdrawing support by exerting social pressure. It is emblematic of a movement that has deep imprints in influencing and shaping public consciousness. There are many global and local examples of this phenomenon: #RhodesMustFall (meanings of statutes, symbols, insignias); #BlackLives Matter (fuelled by the George Floyd Murder) and Black Twitter; #MeTooMovement (fuelled by the Hollywood industry and treatment of women); xenophobia vs afrophobia; the recent Adam Habib affair at SOAS (use of the N-word); the recent removal of Tanzanian MP, Condester Sichwale, who was accused of wearing trousers that were believed to be too tight, amongst several others. Additionally, ‘cancel culture’ is a concept that has strong linguistic (social and political) implications. It functions simultaneously both as a noun and verb – and importantly as concepts emanating in a divisive world riddled with inequities. ‘To cancel’ is to make null and void, yet simultaneously it assigns meanings to the ‘cancelled’ and to those ‘who cancel’. There are differing stances expressed that show either support or opposition to ‘cancel culture’, contingent on the location and ideological [End Page 130] positions held. On the pro-side, to be ‘cancelled’ has much to do with being culturally blocked which is often induced by a public backlash in response to that which is perceived to be a ‘transgression’ or an offensive resulting in a boycott, protest, silencing and often erasure of the person/idea who is to be ‘cancelled’. Proponents view this as part of the necessary interventions in a democratic project. A central dimension to ‘cancel culture’ is strongly influenced by a public accounting in the broader ideals of social justice and speaking truth to power. On the opposing side, there are views that hold ‘cancel culture’ to represent anything other than speaking truth to power because it is perceived to be rather a form of mob rule that violates freedom of speech, the muting of citizens and the curtailing of ideas that are essentialist and homogenising. Opponents (notably Trump) often labelled ‘cancel culture’ to be totalising and representing a form of ‘totalitarianism’. In descriptive terms ‘cancelling’ has much to do to with identity markers (race, class, gender, sexuality, language, etc) with additional agentic attributes being that it is a ‘call-out culture’ to name, shame and expose what is perceived to be harmful ideas. It is also shaped by the idea of offering a corrective to assign meaning to a sense of powerlessness experienced by proponents. At another level, there is a view that to ‘cancel’ is an ethical intervention. Calling out the person to be cancelled has a utility that compels the cancelled for a greater cultural purpose to change the behaviour they embody and represent. ‘Cancel culture’ is perhaps therefore ideologically fraught, ambiguous, affective, discursive, and multi-layered. It is a performative gesture that is intellectual, ontological, and fundamentally political. There are no easy responses to this social phenomenon that has much to do with how people and the ideas (they represent) are publicly engaged. It is probably the case that ‘cancel culture’ is a contemporary current, but indications are that it may be not entirely a new phenomenon in the historic evolution of society. Its currency and traction seem to have gained momentum particularly with social media and the digital revolution, but is there a much broader pre-history and purpose here? In thinking about ‘cancel culture’, there is also much to explore in how symbols/representation via leaders/artefacts etc., remain central to cancel culture but in no way fully engage the systemic and structural power deeply embedded within societies. How does ‘cancel culture’ aim to change what is at the root of racial and gendered inequalities? How is, [End Page 131] for example...