Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introducing Symbolic Objects in Contentious Politics | Peter Gardner and Benjamin Abrams -- 1. Contentious Politics and Symbolic Objects | Peter Gardner and Benjamin Abrams -- The Creation of Symbolic Objects -- 2. A Strategic Toolbox of Symbolic Objects: Material Artifacts, Visuality, and Strategic Action in European Street-Protest Arenas | Bartosz Ślosarski -- 3. The Nation That (Mis)took Death for Life: The Materiality of Martyrdom, Shia Religiosity, and Contentious Politics in Iran | Younes Saramifar -- 4. Somewhere Over the Rainbow: The Symbolic Politics of In/visibility in Lebanese Queer Activism | John Nagle -- 5. The Feathered Headdress: Settler Semiotics, US National Myth, and the Legacy of Colonized Artifacts | Sonja Dobroski -- The Potency of Symbolic Objects -- 6. The Symbolism of the Street in Portuguese Contention | Guya Accornero, Tiago Carvalho, and Pedro Ramos Pinto -- 7. Signature, Performance, Contention | Hunter Dukes -- 8. Policing Bodies: The Role of Bodywork and Symbolic Objects in Police Violence during the Toronto G20 | Valerie Zawilski -- 9. Bodies on Fire: Self-Immolation as Spectacle in Contentious Politics | Dennis Zuev -- The Legacy of Symbolic Objects -- 10. El Che: The (Im)possibilities of a Political Symbol | Eric Selbin -- 11. Mekap-A Social History of the "Terrorist Shoe" That Fought ISIS | Dilar Dirik -- 12. Biafran Objects and Contention in Nigeria | Scholastica Ngozi Atata and Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale -- 13. The Mask as Political Symbol: On the Ritualization of Political Protest through Mask-Wearing | Bj�rn Thomassen and Lone Riisgaard -- Conclusion -- Advancing the Study of Objects in Contention | Benjamin Abrams and Peter Gardner -- Contributors -- Index.