The Green Scarf for Abortion Rights: Affective Contagion and Artistic Reinventions of Movement Symbols

Abstract

The triangular green scarf is the symbol of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Free and Safe Abortion in Argentina. After being used in grass-roots activism for more than a decade, during 2018, the symbol tainted in green color the massive mobilizations during the first parliamentary debate on abortion legalization and was adopted in several Latin American countries. In this chapter, I analyze this process of symbolic contagion in Chile and Argentina considering the role of emotions and affects. The green scarf was key for the creation of attunement and intense affective atmospheres in public protest. Also, in both countries, feminist artistic activism reinvented the symbol and took its affective force and significance even further. All in all, this chapter emphasizes the relevance of affects to understand how movement symbols for reproductive rights and justice can spread across national borders and be a crucial catalyst for political action.