Remix, Resonance and the New Austerity

Abstract

This chapter considers the technologies of remembrance that brought and secured the We Can Do It! WWII labour management poster into public recognition, and the associations of this image with feminist affiliations in mainstream media discourses, activist ephemera and commercial cultures. ‘Remix, Resonance and the New Austerity’ focuses on how self-defined feminists use reproductions and adaptations of this image in their own media work, exploring the relationship between copyright practices, visual content management systems and feminist and commercial media. Resonances with the afterlives of the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ wartime propaganda are explored, alongside the role of We Can Do It! iconography in relation to (anti)austerity discourses and politics. Discourses of nostalgic whiteness, as they uphold Rosie the Riveter assemblages affectively, are also interrogated.