Manoeuvres of dissent in landscapes of annexation


 Building on semiotic landscapes research, the present paper seeks to expand the existing field with its
 exploration of protest through the lens of turbulence (Stroud, 2015a). While making
 visible the fabric of resistance in semiotic landscapes of annexed Crimea, the ethnographic engagement with the interactional and
 visual data provides insights into small-scale performative acts of protest. It shows that protest evolves as a manoeuvring act
 across a minefield of possibilities and constraints and manifests itself materially and discursively. More specifically, acts of
 protest emerge out of an agential intra-action of humans and non-humans, thus revealing the necessity of synergies between people
 and objects. Such intra-actions create interpretative ambiguity. Protestors deliberately play on this ambiguity to simultaneously
 conceal and to visibilise dissent. Jointly achieved performative acts of protest, if only temporary, create turbulence and
 unsettle the status of Crimea as a ‘Russian’ space, thus disturbing the status quo in the area.