Playing with Fire: The Symbolic Role of Fire in Political Violence

• In Event: 40420 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9: Speech in Politics

Abstract

This paper evaluates a range of contexts invoking fire as a figurative and literal device in modern acts and threats of political violence to illustrate its symbolic connotations. Through analysis of nine types of threats and acts of political violence, we consider the etic and emic themes manifested within various uses of fire. We identify six symbolic themes within our instances of fire-based political violence: 1) Fire as threat; 2) Fire as destruction; 3) Fire as protest; 4) Fire as sacrifice; 5) Fire as restoration; and 6) Fire as performance. In all of our considered instances of political violence, the use of fire is dependent on an audience. Instances include cross burning, book burning, flag burning, ballot burning, the use of tiki torches, Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), arson and pyro-terrorism, accelerationism, and self-immolation. We show that the use of fire in political violence carries a range of symbolic meaning. It conveys finality through destruction and sacrifice, rebirth in restoration, or control through threats and protest. Above all, we find that fire is performative, dependent on an audience to convey any meaning at all. We argue that considering the symbolism of fire in political violence enables a new paradigm through which to understand the efficacy of political performance. The context surrounding the use of fire is essential to deciphering its meaning. The same act, language, or ideas may be invoked in differing contexts, but carry benign or malevolent symbols. These identified themes highlight the ubiquity of fire in political violence, spanning theoretical, threatened and realized violence. Where phenomena in studies of political violence are often siloed by ideological affiliation, our themes highlight that fire has been reproduced across ideological contexts. It does not belong exclusively to any one ideological belief system; fire is central to the human experience.

Authors

• William Arnold, American University

• Kaitlyn Marie DaVisio, American University

• Cynthia Miller-Idriss, American University