Steffi Ibis Duarte

This dissertation considers the role of posters produced by the African National Congress (ANC) in exile, and solidarity organisations throughout Europe, in the global struggle against South African apartheid (1960–90). Though posters as activist practices are a popular topic among art and design historians, these scholars have not yet explored anti-apartheid posters produced geographically outside of South Africa.  Likewise, existing anti-apartheid histories have either marginalised these posters as mere illustrations or ignored them altogether.

In response this dissertation aims to assert the power of the poster in global networks, expound design history methodology, and join a new wave of scholarship that conceptualises the struggle as a global and multi-linked movement. This dissertation therefore relies on new primary research to piece together a yet uncovered history. My research combines existing secondary sources with new object-analysis, archival research and oral histories with activists and makers across the globe.  Through mobilising concepts such as object agency and Actor Network Theory, it finds that posters materialise the global struggle against South African apartheid in ways that current scholarship cannot, and should not, ignore.