Animal rights have been increasing in prominence over the last few years through the prism of vegetarianism and veganism. Brighton has been a hotspot for vegan activism over the last few years, and there a lot of protest stickers in the city encouraging people not to eat meat. However, there are many other areas where animal rights are compromised including fur, testing on animals, mass extinctions, and live animal transportation, and these topics also feature in protest stickers relatively often.
The Animal Liberation Front is a leaderless resistance movement that undertakes direct action in support of animal rights. Some consider them to be terrorists (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Church Road, 24/04/19).Another anti-fur sticker with a pretty unequivocal message. I thought that public opinion had mainly turned against fur, but it is still common enough for activists to see it as an important issue (Photo: Hannah Awcock, New Road, 04/02/17).Respect for Animals is an organisation based in Nottingham that campaigns against the international fur trade (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Dyke Road, 06/08/16).Fox hunting remains a controversial topic, even though it has been banned in the UK since 2005. (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Queen’s Road, 20/04/19).Brighton Hunt Saboteurs uses non-violent direct action to prevent illegal fox hunts (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Jubilee Street, 27/08/16).Experimenting and testing on live animals is another well-publicised controversial topic. This sticker uses a particularly graphic image (Photo: Hannah Awcock, West Street, 27/10/16).The Swiss League against Vivisection has been campaigning for animal rights since 1883. Here they are targeting a specific airline in an attempt to pressure them to change their practices (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Queen’s Road, 24/03/17).The RSPCA is a well known charity in the UK. They investigate animal cruelty, rescue animals, and prosecute those responsible. In this sticker they are calling for an end to the practice of transporting livestock long distances before they are slaughtered (Photo: Prince Albert Street, 20/04/19).PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is another well known animal rights organisation. They are an international organisation, with more than 6.5 million supporters around the world. They focus on 4 main areas where they believe animals suffer the most: laboratories, the food industry, fashion, and entertainment. Although animals in circuses are much less common than it used to be, it is still legal for UK circuses to use wild animals (Photo: Hannah Awcock, North Street, 09/12/18).It isn’t clear who made this sticker. The message reads “Don’t bet with William Hill greyhound killers.” The ‘H’ in William Hill has been overlaid with a ‘K’. Greyhounds typically live for 10-14 years, but they only race for about 4. I think this sticker is accusing William Hill of killing greyhounds when they are no longer competitive (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Church Road, 24/04/19).The symbol on this sticker may be familiar to you now as the Extinction Rebellion logo. The symbol itself is older however, created in 2011 by artist ESP. The circle symbolises the planet, whilst the hourglass indicates that time is running out for many species (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Grand Parade, 18/04/17).This march was organised in 2019 by Brighton Vegan Activists. I really like the design of this sticker, so it seemed like a good one to end on! (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Queens Road, 20/04/19).
Melbourne is famous for its street art (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This summer, I spent 3 weeks travelling around Australia and New Zealand. I have already written blog posts about Sydney’s Protest Stickers, and the Lennon Wall for Hong Kong in Melbourne. Melbourne has a reputation for being Australia’s most cosmopolitan city. It is also known for its culture, particularly the restaurants, bars, boutique shops, and street art in the city’s Laneways. As it turns out, it’s also pretty good for protest stickers. Like most large cities, Melbourne’s protest stickers address issues on a range of scales, from the local, through the national, to the global. I found some stickers that I have seen elsewhere in the world, and some that are uniquely Melburnian.
There has been a lot of debate recently about free speech and ‘no platforming’. The producer of this sticker is quite confident about the best way to counter fascist beliefs (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is alluding to Australia’s colonial history. There is no one Aboriginal name for Australia, because there was a large number of Aboriginal communities and societies when Europeans arrived. Aboriginal peoples have suffered extensive hardship, prejudice and discrimination at the hands of Europeans, and although their treatment has improved, there is still a long way to go (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Fin Free Melbourne is a group that campaigns for the banning of all shark-fin based products in Melbourne, with the ultimate goal of protecting shark species all over the world (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Climate change is an increasingly popular topic of protest stickers around the world, and Melbourne is no exception (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
The School Strike for Climate is a global movement kickstarted by the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. School Strike 4 Climate is an Australian organisation that coordinates strikes around the country (Photo: Hannah Awcock)
Extinction Rebellion is another global climate movement. It started in the UK in late 2018, but now has a strong Australian branch (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Be Fair Be Vegan is a US-based campaign group that funds advertising campaigns to promote veganism. Melbourne is just one of the cities in which they have paid for advertising (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
The colours on this sticker have faded, but at one point it would have been the Trans flag (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Unfortunately, I sometimes find stickers that promote racist and far-right politics. It seems that I am not the only one who took offence at the message of this sticker however, as someone has tried to erase and obscure it (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker has also provoked some debate–words and letters have been removed, covered over and written again to alter its message. Police forces around the world can be controversial, with some appreciating the safety and protection they offer, whilst others think they abuse their power and discriminate against minority groups (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is also criticising the police, alongside prisons and more broadly capitalism. Some of it has been removed, but I can still tell from the colour scheme and blood splatter that it is playing on Kill Bill, the popular 2003 Quentin Tarantino film (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is also criticising capitalism, arguing that workers deserve to keep everything (including wealth) that they generate. I don’t recognise the character in the middle of the sticker
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more comprehensive protest sticker! (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Turbulent Londoners is a series of posts about radical individuals in London’s history who played a part in the city’s contentious past, with a particular focus of women, whose contribution to history is often overlooked. My definition of ‘Londoner’ is quite loose, anyone who has played a role in protest in the city can be included. Any suggestions for future Turbulent Londoners posts are very welcome. Next up is Margaret Damer Dawson, animal rights campaigner and founder of the first female police force in Britain.
It might be tempting to think that the recent increase in vegetarianism and concern for animal rights is a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, the campaign for animal rights can be traced back a long time. Margaret Damer Dawson’s involvement in animal rights activism would be enough to make her worthy of attention, but she also went on to be the founder of the first female police force in Britain, making her doubly fascinating.
Margaret Damer Dawson was born on the 12th of June 1873 in Hove, East Sussex. Her father was a surgeon, and she had a comfortable upbringing, and an independent income that allowed her to pursue her campaigning interests as an adult. She was probably educated at home, but studied at the London Academy of Music when she was older.
Dawson was a committed campaigner, devoting her life to the causes she believed in. She first got involved in campaigns against the cruel treatment of animals; in 1906 she became the Organising Secretary of the International Animal Protection Societies, and in 1908 she was made the Honorary Secretary of the International Anti-Vivisection Council. She was also an active member of the Animal Defence and Anti-vivisection society, which campaigned against the use of circus animals and the killing of animals for meat, amongst other issues. Vivisection is a particularly unsavoury practice, where operations are performed on live animals for scientific research or education. In 1906 Dawson organised the International Anti-Vivisection and Animal Protection Congress in London.
Although not actively involved in the campaign for women’s suffrage, Dawson was interested in feminist issues, such as the trafficking of women and children. After the beginning of the first world war, she championed the formation of the first women’s police force in Britain. Campaigners for women’s rights knew that male police officers often handled cases involving women poorly, and it was thought that female police officers would help protect women. The government had previously been opposed to female police officers, but with so many male officers joining the army they relented. Along with Nina Boyle, a campaigner for women’s rights and member of the Women’s Freedom League, Dawson was permitted to set up the Women Police Volunteers (WPV). At first the WPV consisted of 50 women, all of independent means. They initially concentrated their efforts on London, and their responsibilities included looking after refugees arriving in London after fleeing the war.
In November 1914, Dawson and Boyle had a disagreement that caused Boyle to leave their joint venture. The Army had set up a training camp for new recruits at Grantham, and the WPV were asked to protect the trainee soldiers by controlling women of ‘bad character’ in the area, effectively imposing a curfew on women. Boyle wanted to refuse, viewing the request as an attack on women’s rights. Dawson argued that they should accept any orders they were given to prove that they could accept police discipline. Dawson had the support of the WPV members and won the argument; she inspired loyalty and affection in the women who served under her. After Boyle left, the WPV was renamed the Women’s Police Service (WPS), and Mary Allen became Dawson’s second in command. Allen was a former member of the WSPU, and formed a close relationship with Dawson; the two women would live together until Dawson’s death.
This plaque, at 10 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, marked where Margaret Damer Dawson lived with Mary Allen (Photo: Graeme Awcock).
In 1916 the Ministry of Munitions asked the WPS to supervise the female employees working in munitions factories. Dawson recruited and trained 140 women for this task, with no financial input from the government, on the understanding that the scheme would be funded if it proved successful. The WPS training, which took place in East London, received lots of attention from the press, which did not please the Home Office and the leadership of London’s Metropolitan Police.
By the end of the war the WPS had more than 350 members around the country, although many weren’t sworn in as police officers and could not make arrests. After the Armistice, many of the women who had worked during the war were expected to give up their jobs to make way for the returning soldiers. The Baird Committee on the Employment of Women on Police Duties approved the employment of female police officers, although the Home Office was reluctant. 47 members of the WPS were hired by Chief Constables around the country, although the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was especially hostile. He seemed to have a personal grudge, and refused to hire any members of the WPS, although he did recruit women who weren’t loyal to Dawson.
Dawson had to step down from the WPS in 1919 due to poor health, Mary Allen took over as Commandant of the WPS. Margaret Damer Dawson died of a heart attack on the 18th of May 1920. Allen believed that Dawson’s constant struggle with the male police establishment had contributed to her early death.
Margaret Damer Dawson was a fierce and determined campaigner. During both phases of her activist career she fought hard for what she believed in, and as Commandant of the WPS she began the process of normalising women in the police force, disproving many of the prejudices of the male policing establishment. In 2019, women make up 30% of the UK’s police officers. As with many areas of employment, the battle for gender equality is not yet won, but we owe a debt to women like Margaret Damer Dawson, who fired the first shot.
References and Further Reading
Doughan, David. “Dawson, Margaret Mary Damer.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Last modified 3rd January 2008, accessed 22nd October 2019. Available at https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/45544 [Requires a subscription to access].
Hull has a wonderful street art scene, some of which has a political message (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Since January I have been living and working in Hull, an overlooked city in East Yorkshire on the Humber Estuary. I am quite easily pleased when it comes to the places I live–I have yet to live anywhere that I don’t like. That being said, Hull is a vibrant city with friendly and welcoming people, lots to do, and a thriving cultural scene (I have especially become a fan of the Bankside Gallery, where you can see fantastic street art at several locations around the city). Hull gets an average number of protest stickers for a city of its size; I have already written one post about them for the University of Hull’s Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment blog, here. But the stickers keep appearing, and so will the blog posts!
Brexit-related protest stickers have been a feature on city streets across Britain (and further afield–I have seen them in Berlin, for example) since before the Referendum in 2016. The Liberal Democrats are the only major political party that are explicitly anti-Brexit (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Bollocks to Brexit is a common anti-Brexit slogan that appears quite often on protest stickers. Here it has been altered to convey a pro-Brexit message. Sometimes people interact with stickers to change or obscure their message by writing on them or scratching parts of them off (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Extinction Rebellion is a social movement that started in Britain in late 2018, and campaigns for swift action on climate change and environmental destruction. Hull has quite an active branch (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Biofuelwatch campaigns around industrial-scale bioenergy. Currently the UK government gives £1 billion of renewable energy subsidies per year to power stations which burn wood to produce electricity. This is method of electricity production is dirty, it releases carbon into the atmosphere and it encourages deforestation. Biofuelwatch wants this money to be given to methods of producing electricity that are actually renewable (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Nuclear fuel is another alternative method of producing electricity that is controversial. Stop New Nuclear is a group which campaigns against the construction of new nuclear power stations. This sticker is promoting an anti-nuclear protest called Surround Springfields in April 2019. Springfields is a site in Lancashire which produces fuel for nuclear power plants, and processes waste produced by them (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Veganism is another issue that is becoming increasingly popular in protest stickers, linked to both animal rights and climate change. This sticker is playing with the logo for Back to the Future, a popular 1985 sci-fi film. Challenge 22 is a project run by Israeli animal-rights group Animals Now. It encourages people to commit to trying veganism for 22 days, and provides support and advice (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is also promoting veganism by focusing specifically on the cruelties of the dairy industry. It is promoting The Vegan Activist, who posts educational videos about veganism on his Youtube channel (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Fur is another key element of animal rights campaign. The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade is a grassroots, anti-fur campaign group (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Jeff Luers is an American environmental activist who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2000 for his involvement in an arson attack on a Chevrolet dealership in Oregon. It was a very harsh sentence, especially considering that no one was hurt, and he only caused about $40,000 dollars worth of damage. His sentence was reduced and he was released in 2009, but he has taken on martyr-like status for some sections of the environmental movement. This sticker looks quite old, but I would be surprised if it has been around since Luers was imprisoned more than a decade ago. The web address on the sticker no longer exists (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is very faded, so I would expect is has been around for a few years. It is promoting an anti-war and violence message, playing on the double meaning of ‘arms’. The peace logo in the bottom left is very well known. The capital E in a circle in the bottom right, is less common, and represents Equality (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Unfortunately, not all of the protest stickers I have found in Hull are progressive. This sticker is produced by the British Movement, a neo-Nazi group founded in 1968. It has been through periods of dormancy and the leadership has changed several times since then. It seems to have a small membership at the moment, but it is still disconcerting to see its logo in Hull (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is advertising the National Front, another far-right fascist group, founded in 1967. Like the British Movement, it has also had periods of rise and decline over the decades, and it has quite a small membership currently. Someone (or perhaps multiple people) have obviously taken offence at this sticker at some point and tried to remove it (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
I wanted to end the post on a positive note, and I love this sticker that I found on the Hessle Road. LGBTQI+ rights groups are struggling with conflict over transgender rights at the moment, but local Pride events in Britain are going from strength to strength at the moment, and Hull is no exception–the 2019 event on the 19th of July was a huge success (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
There were quite a few stickers relating to veganism and animal rights stuck on these phone boxes in Charing Cross Road (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
I have written about protest stickers related to animal welfare before, but I have since collected enough stickers to put together a post solely about vegetarianism and veganism. According to The Vegan Society, there are more than half a million vegans in the UK. Whilst this isn’t many, it’s more than three and a half times the number there was in 2006. There are also around 1.2 million vegetarians in the UK and the variety of vegan alternatives in shops and restaurants is increasing all the time. Whether it’s a fad or a lasting trend remains to be seen, but there are certainly plenty of protest stickers on the issue.
To see whereabouts in London I found these stickers, check out the Turbulent London Map.
This sticker makes a connection between veganism and the environment, arguing that meat production contributes to global warming and pollution, amongst other things (Photo: Hannah Awcock, 14/02/17, Tate Modern).
This sticker implies support of veganism rather than actually spelling it out. Rain has caused the ink to bleed, making quite a pretty pattern (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
This sticker is disputing the argument that animals for the meat industry can be killed humanely (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
This sticker targets the stereotypically British drink, tea, as a way of protesting the mass consumption of milk (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
This sticker goes into more detail about the milk industry, portraying it as vicious and cruel (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
This stickers builds on the arguments above by suggesting milks derived from alternative sources. The web address belongs to an organisation called Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow (ADAPTT–I suspect the name was chosen for the acronym rather than anything else), which promotes veganism and animal rights (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
This sticker focuses on fish, listing characteristics seemingly intended to invoke sympathy. I suspect that most people would not normally associate these attributes with fish, and many vegetarians do eat fish (pescatarians) (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
This sticker aims to persuade the viewer that veganism is healthy, suggesting that eating meat leads to higher rates of cancer. It also promotes a YouTube video, a particularly common tactic on animal rights stickers (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Charing Cross Road, 23/03/17).
The key slogan of this sticker has been obscured, but it’s message is clear, condemning the attitude that human appetites are more important than the suffering of animals. It utilises another common tactic of animal rights stickers, photos of cute animals (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Pentonville Road, 23/03/17).
Manchester is a wonderful blend of old and new (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
A few months ago, I spent a couple of days in Manchester. I’ve already blogged about the brilliant museums I visited whilst I was up there (the People’s History Museum, and the Imperial War Museum North), but I also found some great protest stickers whilst exploring the city. Paying attention to a city’s protest stickers helps me get to know a place, by giving me an insight into the issues that matter to the city. Manchester had a lot of protest stickers, many of which I hadn’t seen before, which is just one of the reasons I liked it so much. Manchester is a vibrant city with a fascinating history. Protest stickers in some cities are dominated by only one or two issues (Newcastle, for example, had a lot of stickers relating to animal rights), but this was not the case in Manchester. Its diversity is reflected in the wide range of issues that are represented in the city’s stickers. There were also a lot of stickers in Manchester that I haven’t seen before; I have not seen any of the stickers featured in the post anywhere else. I’m not saying they are all unique to Manchester, but it is an indication of the city’s healthy culture of dissent.
This is the first sticker I found when I arrived in Manchester. Although the Bedroom Tax has been a contentious issue since it was introduced in 2013, this is the first sticker I have ever found about it (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Stickers relating to the EU, both pro- and anti-Brexit, were quite common in Manchester. Most of them were supportive of the EU, such as this one (Photo: Hannah Awcock).This is probably more of a poster than a sticker, but I wanted to include it because it’s unsual to see hand-drawn protest stickers or posters, they are usually designed on a computer and printed. This poster is advertising an anti-Brexit protest in central Manchester, a few weeks after the referendum (Photo: Hannah Awcock)Again, this is probably too big to be a protest sticker, but I think it sums up Manchester’s irreverent attitude nicely. I also don’t like Nigel Farage (Photo: Hannah Awcock).You are much more likely to find stickers that criticise the Conservative Party than supporting them, and Manchester is no exception. This sticker is referring to the Conservative Party Annual Conference, which is frequently held in Manchester (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Bun the Tories also started out as a call to protest the Conservative Party Conference in 2015. If you follow the link there’s an…interesting music video, and you can buy a Bun the Tories t-shirt, the proceeds of which go to homeless charities in Manchester (Photo: Hannah Awcock).It is not just the Conservative Party that Mancunians object to, but also their policies whilst in government. Jeremy Hunt has been Health Secretary since 2012, and is blamed by many for the difficulties which the NHS now faces (Photo: Hannah Awcock).The conflict over Junior Doctor’s contracts in 2015 and 2016 is perhaps one of the most controversial episodes of Jeremy Hunt’s career. Hunt tried to impose new contracts on Junior Doctors, which they refused to accept. Neither side would back down, leading to strikes in which Junior Doctors only provided emergency care. A survey by Ipsos MORI found that 66% of the public supported the Junior Doctors (Photo: Hannah Awcock).The Scottish National Party also comes under fire in Manchester’s protest stickers. Most of the stickers I have seen in London relating to Scottish politics have been pro-Scottish Independence, so I was interested to find a sticker with a different perspective (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Anti-fascism is one of the most common topics of protest stickers that I find in London. I particularly like the design of this sticker, which was produced by a Mancunian anti-fascist group (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Animal welfare is another relatively common topic of protest stickers. Although it’s a common topic, I have never seen this particular sticker before (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Working class solidarity is also a topic I have seen before in protest stickers. They make the argument that the working classes should be uniting against the rich and powerful (Photo: Hannah Awcock).Football is a huge part of Mancunian life and culture. The sport, particularly the Premier League, is now a multi-million pound industry, and there is increasing opposition to it being commercialised to such an extent (Photo: Hannah Awcock).I have seen protest stickers relating to prisons before, but they are quite rare. I found several different ones in Manchester, which is very unusual. This sticker was produced by the Empty Cages Collective, which campaigns for the abolition of prisons (Photo: Hannah Awcock).The prevalence of CCTV cameras is not something I have seen before on protest stickers. The statistics on this sticker are pretty eye-opening, and I like the way that whoever made it included their source–perhaps they have had academic training at some point? (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
You find stickers of all kinds all over London, sometimes even in posh places, like these outside the National History Museum in South Kensington (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Exhibition Road, 30/08/16).
As regular readers of my blog will know, you can find all kinds of different issues represented on the protest stickers that plaster London’s streets. Over the last year and a half, I have written about protest stickers relating to immigration and race, housing, and the EU referendum, amongst others (see the Turbulent London Map for locations of all the stickers I’ve featured). But all of my topics so far have been rather human-centric, and many activists concern themselves with the non-human. The way that humans treat animals has been a topic of fierce debate for decades. It’s a complex issue, which can escalate rapidly into a philosophical debate about whether or not animals are entitled to certain rights in a similar way to humans. The debate also manifests itself in practical ways however, such as opposition to experiments being carried out on animals, and concern for the treatment of farm animals bred for human consumption. In recent years, ethical consumerism has reduced the amount of product testing carried out on animals, and vegetarianism and veganism has increased (the number of vegans in Britain has gone up 360% in the last 10 years (Source: The Telegraph, 2016). This has not been enough to satisfy everyone, however, and animal welfare continues to be a topic of protest stickers.
This sticker equates animal with human liberation, mirroring the symbolic raised, clenched fist with a raised paw (Photo: Hannah Awcock, New Cross Road, 23/08/16).
The British Heart Foundation’s (BHF) use of animal experimentation is a common topic of protest stickers in London. The British Heartless Foundation is an organisation that aims to promote the fact that the BHF fund experiments on animals- they argue that less people would donate money to the BHF if they knew that was the case (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Euston Road, 11/03/15).
The British Heartless Foundation produce a variety of different stickers. This one features rats (Photo: Hannah Awcock, East Street, Southwark, 04/06/15).
According to the British Heartless Foundation, BHF also fund experiments on pigs (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Tottenham Court Road, 19/05/15).
This sticker references recent culls of badgers in an attempt to prevent the spread of bovine TB. The effectiveness of the policy has been questioned by campaigners, who argue that the policy is cruel and unnecessary (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Southbank, 12/09/15).
A lot of protest stickers promote vegetarianism and veganism. This sticker equates killing animals for food with murdering a human (Photo: Hannah Awcock, New Cross Road, 20/03/16).
The Friendly Activist is a vegan who campaigns for animal rights and the environment, amongst other things. He seems to have gone quiet recently though (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Borough High Street, 26/06/15).
Animal Aid campaigns against all forms of cruelty against animals and promotes what they call ‘cruelty-free living’ (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Russell Square, 15/04/15).
This sticker is relatively low-tech; it is not very waterproof, so is likely to deteriorate quickly. Veganstickers.co.uk sells vegan protest stickers, and Earthlings is a documentary about animal cruelty (Photo: Malet Street, 08/03/16).
This sticker is a similar style and quality. It is advertising vegankit.com, a website that provides advice, information, and links to vegans and people who are considering veganism (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Malet Street, 08/03/16).
This sticker is the same as the last, although its condition suggests it has been out on the street for longer. The photo was taken two months after the previous one and close by, so they could have been put up at the same time. Someone has crossed out the YouTube videos and web address, perhaps because they disagree with the sticker’s message (Photo: Hannah Awcock, 03/05/16, Gower Street).
This sticker was also located in the same vicinity as the previous two; they may have been put up by the same person (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Malet Street, 08/03/16).
Location can be very important for protest stickers. I found this sticker outside a McDonalds in Islington (Photo: Hannah Awcock, Upper Street, Islington, 01/12/15).
If you want to see where all these stickers were located, take a look at the Turbulent London Map.
Like most cities and large towns, the urban infrastructure of Newcastle is littered with stickers of all kinds (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Like most major towns and cities, Newcastle upon Tyne in the northeast of England has a healthy tradition of protest. With a population of just under 300,000, it is not one of the largest cities in the UK, but ‘Geordies’ are famous for their good nature and friendliness. As I discovered when I visited in July, this doesn’t mean there isn’t contention and dissent in the city, which is demonstrated by the large number of protest stickers I found.
This was the first protest sticker I found in Newcastle, on Northumberland Street, in the city’s main shopping area (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Animal rights was one of the most common themes of stickers that I found (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
I have seen similar stickers to this one in London. They criticise the British Heart Foundation for conducting research on animals (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker also criticises the British Heart Foundation, but is less visually striking. It references a different webite, so I imagine it was made by somebody different to the previous one. Stickers are made using various methods and various levels of skill (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is also protesting against experimentation on animals, but not specifically in relation to the British Heart Foundation (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker also relates generally to animal rights, but focuses on the culling of badgers. It calls for culls to be sabotaged (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker has been partially removed, but I think that the whole text probably read ‘Animal Liberation- Human Liberation.’ The raised, clenched fist is a fairly common symbol in protest circles. This sticker plays on that symbolism with the addition of a raised paw (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker has also been partially removed, but two clasped hands can be seen. This is often used as a symbol of solidarity, an important concept in protest movements (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
The second common theme in Newcastle protest stickers is anti-fascism. Anti-fascist groups seem to produce a lot of protest stickers, and the North-East anti-fascists are no exception (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Anti-fascists often campaign on specific issues that they consider related to fascism. This sticker is playing on the name of the English Defence League (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
In this sticker, anti-fascism is connected to class-based activism (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker focuses on the homophobic element of fascism. Around the circular anti-fascist logo is the words antihomophobe action. The words at the bottom of the sticker used to read ‘Eat Shit Nazi Scum.’ They look as if they were deliberately obscured, perhaps by a member of Newcastle’s far-right groups, or maybe just by someone who took exception to the profanity (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
The North-East Anarchists also have a presence in Newcastle’s sticker landscape (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
In this sticker, the North-East Anarchists are criticising the banks, although I found this sticker a bit confusing- I had to read it a few times to figure out what it was saying (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Radical politics is far from simple. This sticker is by a group called Anti-Bolshevik Action, which appears to be advocating communism, but not the communism of Stalin, Trotsky and Mao. There are a myriad of complicated divisions between groups with similar beliefs (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
Not every group that puts up stickers in Newcastle is left-wing. This sticker from the North East National Front references Enoch Powell, an anti-immigrant politician to made the famous ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968 (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
National Action is a national socialist group that calls itself “Britain’s premier Nationalist street movement.” They reject more mainstream nationalist groups like UKIP and have the ultimate aim of a “white Britain” (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
As is often the case, stickers in Newcastle reflect a combination of local, national, and international issues. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) was formed to campaign in the general election in May 2015 (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
This sticker is calling for a boycott of goods from Israel, specifically oranges. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement aims to resolve the Israel-Palestine issue by exerting economic pressure (Photo: Hannah Awcock).
In contrast to the previous two, this last sticker has a distinctly local flavour. ‘Radge’ is Geordie slang for rage or anger. It may be a criticism of the armed forces, because of the use of the RAF logo and font. It also might not, but I liked it too much to leave out because I wasn’t sure! (Photo: Hannah Awcock)
Turbulent Isles 