Constructing, confirming, and contesting icons: the Alan Kurdi imagery appropriated by #humanitywashedashore, Ai Weiwei, and Charlie Hebdo

Abstract

This article argues that appropriations are central to the production and reception of visual icons: appropriations are instrumental in iconization processes as they confirm and consolidate the iconic status by recycling the image in question. Moreover, appropriations are vital to their reception as they help shape and delimit the publics and discourses surrounding visual icons. This article draws on existing research on icons and appropriations to develop a theoretical framework for how appropriations construct, confirm, and contest icons and how personification constitutes the main link between icons and their appropriations. Three sets of appropriations are analyzed of the iconic imagery of Alan Kurdi, the refugee boy drowning in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015. First, the numerous appropriations circulated under the Twitter hashtag #humanitywashedashore. Based on genre analysis of these appropriations, two overall modes are singled out: the appropriations decontextualize or recontextualize the figure of Kurdi. The two next analytical cases test the limits of decontextualization and recontextualization: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei decontextualizes the Kurdi imagery in a controversial reenactment, while a series of cartoons by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo inserted the photo into contested contexts to critique why and how this imagery was turned into an icon.

The shared story of #JeSuisAylan on Twitter

“…More speciically, these frames echo stances to refugees identiied in previous research and include, for example, compassionate stances, tender-hearted, blameilled, shame-illed, powerlessness-illed (Hoijer 2004) or generally emotional sympathetic reactions (Smith Dahmen et al 2018), which are oten combined with the expression of strong political emotional reactions, directing blame to national targets, governments and 'humanity' (Mortensen 2017;Olesen 2017). In our corpus, stances expressing emotions of fear, hostility and the belief that borders ought to be closed as the ones found by Chouliaraki and Stolić(2017) were extremely rare.…”

“…For example, Smith Dahmen et al (2018) report high emotional and sympathetic reactions to images of refugee children, including Alan Kurdi. Other scholars have pointed to the expression of strong political emotional reactions, directing blame to national targets, governments and humanity (Mortensen 2017;Olesen 2017).…”

Faceless government: civic action in media photographs during the Venezuelan anti-governmental protests of 2017

“…The studied images represented varied ways of performing citizenship because all showed an atypical citizen or protester. Hence, they also represent a variation on how to perform gender and age, and therefore challenge typical conflict pictures in which women and children make ideal victims (Chouliaraki and Stolic, 2017;Mortensen, 2017) and men are shown as hyper-masculine warriors (Kraidy, 2017). The Venezuelan opposition argued that their supporters were a varied group who tolerated all kinds of people as long as they supported the idea of democratic governance (Salojärvi, 2016(Salojärvi, , 2018.…”

The politics and poetics of migrant narratives

“…The influx of Syrian refugees following the civil war in 2011 into neighbouring countries and Europe has garnered many satirical and comic reactions that criticize lack of political action, lack of empathy or lack of a historical contextualization of the so-called refugee crisis. Looking at the genre of comics specifically, the iconic image of Alan Kurdi gave occasion to many re-appropriations and references (see Mortensen, 2017). The hypocritical and inept policies and responses in the EU and the United States have been widely criticized using cartoons.…”