Voting, Votive, Devotion: “I Voted” Stickers and Ritualization at Susan B. Anthony’s Grave

This article considers the popular custom of depositing “I Voted” stickers at the grave of Susan B. Anthony. Focusing mainly on the 2016 election, this article treats Anthony's grave as the locus of a ritualized social process, and suggests that the stickers can and ought to be understood as ritual votive objects, or “ex-votos,” from the Latin ex voto—meaning “from a vow.” Drawing on the connections among votives, voting, and devotion, Conley demonstrates how the stickers are elucidated by theories of materiality (particularly the contributions of so-called new materialisms scholars)—scholarship that is shaped by feminist approaches. Relatedly, in raising questions regarding what constitutes a votive, and about the gendered dimensions of devotional practices more broadly, the article explores the agentive role of the stickers, with their social and material entanglements, in the construction and destabilization of cultural memory related to the women's suffrage movement.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jfemistudreli.36.2.05
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