This is one of the first things I saw when I arrived in Edinburgh. It’s so stereotypically Scottish, it felt like a perfect welcome to the city (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
In the summer of 2018, I visited Edinburgh for the first time. I really liked the city, it has a vibrancy and energy that is something quite special. I was there for the start of the Edinburgh festivals, a month-long celebration of theatre, music, and comedy that is famous around the world. One of the other highlights of my trip was visiting the Scottish Parliament, which is much more open and accessible than the Palace of Westminster. It was great to be able to visit the building where mainstream politics in Scotland plays out. The Parliament is not the only space for politics to play out in the city, however. The streets are an active site of informal, everyday politics, protest, and social movements. One form this takes is protest stickers, fragments of politics that can tell you an awful lot about a city, if you look closely enough.
Brexit is the most divisive issue in the UK at the moment. This sticker was produced during the EU referendum campaign in 2016. It is practically an antique by protest sticker standards, it is unusual for one to survive so long ‘in the wild’ (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker looks more recent, but it could also have been produced in the run-up to the EU referendum. Scotland voted to remain in the referendum, which is now helping to fuel demands for another referendum, this time about Scotland’s independence from the UK (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
I assume that this sticker is also pro-EU, combining the flags of Scotland and the European Union. I didn’t see a single pro-Brexit sticker whilst I was in Edinburgh (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
There has already been a referendum on Scottish independence recently. On the 18th of September 2014, 55.3% of Scottish voters voted to stay in the United Kingdom. The main campaign in favour of independence was simply called Yes Scotland. The campaign produced lots of resources with this logo on it, so there’s a chance that this sticker could be even older than the Remain sticker (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
As with Brexit, calls for another referendum on Scottish independence began not long after the result of the first vote was announced. This sticker is shorthand for the campaign, calling for a second chance to vote yes on Scottish independence (Photo: Hannah Awcock).J.K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, lives in Edinburgh. The cafe where she wrote some of the books has become a site of pilgrimage for tourists and Potter fans, and there are several shops in the city dedicated to the franchise. The author can be quite vocal on social media about her political opinions, so this sticker could be referring to the criticism she receives because of this, or it may be about complaints she gets from fans who disagree with decisions she made about particular characters or storylines (Photo: Hannah Awcock)This sticker is weathered and faded, but it is still possible to make out that Harry Potter is being used to recreate the famous Kitchener recruitment poster from World War One. The sticker could be referring to trade unions, but because of the Union flag background I think it is more likely referring to the union of Great Britain. If this is the case, then it is possible that this sticker also dates back to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Gender was another recurring theme amongst the city’s protest stickers. This sticker was produced by the Edinburgh branch of Sisters Uncut, a group which takes direct action to demand better funding for domestic violence services. Since 2010, funding for refuges for survivors of domestic violence has been cut by a quarter (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker refers to another referendum, this time in Ireland. In May 2018, the Irish people voted to repeal the 8th amendment of their constitution, allowing the government to make abortion legal. The vote represented a huge shift in cultural values in Ireland, traditionally a very conservative and Catholic country (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Most of the protest stickers I come across are printed, but some, like this one, are handwritten. They cannot be mass-produced, but they require no equipment or computer skills to produce (Photo: Hannah Awcock).This sticker is in French, it translates to: “Neither to take take, nor to sell…women are not objects!” (Photo: Hannah Awcock).This sticker is in Spanish, the text means: “Death to patriarchy, death to capital.” It is not uncommon to find stickers from other places in a city, but it is uncommon to find stickers from other countries unless you are in major cities like Edinburgh or London (Photo: Hannah Awcock).This sticker is truly international. FC. St. Pauli is a German football team based in Hamburg, and Fanclub Catalunya is a fan club dedicated to the team based in Catalonia. They combine their love of sports with campaigning on all kinds of political issues, particularly Catalonian independence. After an unofficial referendum in October 2017, pro-independence parties in the Catalan parliament declared independence from Spain. The Spanish government responded by ending the region’s autonomy. A year and a half on, 2 activists and 7 politicians are still in prison, facing charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds. Others are in exile, and would be arrested if they returned to Spain (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker isn’t quite as exotic as some of the others. It was produced by Glasgow Marxists, which I think is a student group (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is advertising a fundraising concert in Glasgow in August 2018. The proceeds went to the Scottish Refugee Council and United Glasgow (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is advertising a local event, part of a nationwide demonstration against the highly unpopular Universal Credit, which rolls several different benefit payments into one. It hasn’t been rolled out across the country yet, but in places where it has been introduced it has been blamed for severe financial difficulties and hardship (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker was produced by the Anarchist Federation, which makes quite a few different stickers. They often use cartoons and other characters from popular culture in their stickers. I don’t recognise this character though, if anyone can tell me I would be grateful! (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker also makes use of popular culture, playing on Yoda from Star Wars’s unusual style of talking. Veganism and animal rights is one of the most popular topics of protest stickers recently (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
University Teacher in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. Interested in the cultural, historical, and political geographies of resistance.
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