Monuments from below: Memorial stickers as a new kind of mnemonic activism and socialization

The article broadens the definition of “memory activism” by examining the interplay between national and personal commemoration of the fallen in times of war. The personal voice is usually perceived as opposing the national-heroic commemoration narrative. The Iron Swords war has created a new articulation between the two—the sticker—which has become ubiquitous in the Israeli public space. The sticker combines the picture of the fallen soldier with a sentence unique to them. It thus represents a personal, transformative voice, acting from the bottom up and adhering to the characteristics of memory activism. A visual analysis of the phenomenon suggests that although the stickers create a new vernacular of commemoration, the transformation they enact relates to the meanings and roles that are ascribed to personal memory by using the personal to reinforce the national-heroic discourse. These findings recontextualize the definition of memory activism in light of the geopolitical conditions created by the war.