| On March 1, 1981, convicted IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands began a hunger strike in Long Kesh Prison. By the time he died sixty-six days later, he had been elected to Westminster Parliament, given the last rites by a special papal envoy, and become the public face of the political struggle known as The Ulster Conflict. His death sparked protests worldwide, and he is now remembered as one of the great non-violent protesters, and is commemorated as such alongside Gandhi. His election also marked the beginning of a shift away from the violence of the IRA toward the peaceful efforts of Sinn Fein.; However, this dissertation demonstrates that Sands chose the non-violent strategy of hunger striking only as a last resort, and that even the notion of non-violence might be flawed. By adapting current scholarship in material rhetorical theory, this work explains the visceral impact of his protest. It also tracks the influence of Sands' message through four stages (known as the narrative corpus): (1) the initial act, (2) the first-hand accounts, (3) the retellings and adjustments of his message, and (4) his eventual incorporation into public memory.; The study includes four major findings for the study of protest. First, it reveals how protests can be authenticated and amplified by co-opting surveillance systems to publicize their own ends. Second, it reveals how attention to material rhetoric expands the scope of rhetorical criticism. Third it shows how Carl Schmitt's notion of the existential threat can be used to explain how communicators would be able to justify sacrificing their physical selves in order to meet some other abstract ideals. Finally, the study concludes with a discussion of a proposed set of criteria for evaluating other hunger strikes. |
