Dawn of the debt: Tactical performance, humour and the practice of alter-geopolitics

This paper examines tactical performance – a creative and humorous form of protest - as a form of alter-geopolitical intervention that poses counter-hegemonic challenges in society. This paper extends the writing on humour in political geography through a consideration of the spatial use of humour in political protest. My analysis is informed by a scholar activist methodology rooted in collaboration with resisting others and an ethic of solidarity. The paper argues that the practice of tactical performance requires a narrative that is attentive to an ‘action logic’ that mobilises humour and requires both emotional and spatial registers understood as sites of intervention that articulate alternative geopolitical narratives and practices from below through various forms of material action.

This approach to alter-geopolitical action is grounded in an empirical case study in which the author participated, namely the Dawn of the Debt zombie action during the 2004 May Day protests in Glasgow, Scotland. Drawing upon disposition theories of humour, and a Marxist understanding of the figure of the zombie in contemporary capitalism, the paper argues that while in engaging with particular action logics and sites of intervention, the use of humour in political protest remained ambiguous in its results. This poses challenges to the deployment of humour and tactical performance as forms of alter-geopolitics while at the same time opening up new avenues to activist engagement.