Banning the Pope’s flag (c. 1910). Symbolic practices and reflexivity in action

In France, between 1894 and 1914, the pope’s flag was banned from public space by the republican authorities, and this ban gave rise to a resistance movement among Catholics that transformed the practice of flag-waving. Based on this historical case, this article examines the anthropological nature of the gesture of hanging a flag in the window or waving it in the street. It intends to explore the following question: to what extent can we do without the reflexivity of individuals to describe what they do?