Badge

This chapter explores how and why badges, as objects, are useful devices for geographers interested in radical politics to consider. It also considers how the social role of badges and badging has changed over the lifetime of Antipode. For centuries, badges and insignia of various types have been a means of demonstrating political allegiance. In the Middle Ages, a badge was principally a way of identifying the loyalty of followers to a feudal lord. From the 12th century onwards cheap alloy talismans, or “signs”, that could be worn on the person were also produced as symbols of devotion for Christian pilgrims. Badges serve as a visual archive of political debates and social movements. Political badges can appear earnest, but they are also vehicles for humour, satirising the political mainstream of the moment and other social movements. The symbolism of badges has increasingly become incorporated into neoliberal processes of audit, rankings and credentialism.