[Commlist] New Special Issue on Global Queer and Feminist Visual Activism

*New Special Issue on Global Queer and Feminist Visual Activism *

Colleagues working in the fields of visual political communication; 
social movements and media studies, digital media activism; and gender, 
sexuality or visual culture may be interested in a new special issue on 
*Global Queer and Feminist Visual Activism*, just published. It is Open 
Access andyou can read and download articles from the/Journal of 
Cultural Analysis and Social Change/website:

https://www.lectitopublishing.nl/journal-of-cultural-analysis-and-social-change/volume-7/issue-2 
<https://www.lectitopublishing.nl/journal-of-cultural-analysis-and-social-change/volume-7/issue-2>

In the current context of gender backlash, forms of queer and feminist 
activism are increasingly important, and so too is the scholarship that 
engages with them. Queer and feminist visual activism has varied origins 
in different global contexts and has emerged in a fluid cultural field 
of visual arts, popular culture, and protest aesthetics. This special 
issue is interested in queer and feminist expression through images and 
their context of production, mediation and re-mediation. Across 12 
articles we explore the aesthetics and performativity of visual 
activism, and the opportunities it affords social justice actors, with 
the aim to expand on existing scholarship both geographically and 
conceptually. The history of global feminist and queer activism has too 
often been dominated by Western perspectives. This special issue seeks 
to foreground activism from across the globe, to reflect the 
international perspectives and agendas increasingly central to 
contemporary queer and feminist activism. The articles address work from 
South Africa, China, Brazil, Lebanon,Cote d’Ivoire,the UK, and the 
United States. They engage with a range of diverse topics, including 
trans Instagrammers, feminist fibre art, queer Roma self-representation, 
queer /learning disability filmmaking, sexual health activism and sexual 
violence in the museum. Taking the notion of social practice as an 
integral part of the ‘process’ of visual activism, we identify three 
emerging themes across the articles in this special issue: refusal, care 
and thriving.

In our introduction,we engage with the richness of activist aesthetics 
at the intersections of popular culture, subculture, art and activism, 
and other forms of visual political communication, not by attempting to 
contain these manifestations, but by offering a set of navigational 
tools. We conceive of three primary forms of queer and feminist visual 
practice – protest, process and product – each with its own histories 
and epistemologies. Each of these forms offers the capacity for 
resistance and collaboration. By opening up cross- and 
inter-disciplinary perspectives, and conversations across diverse global 
contexts, struggles and possibilities, we aim to expand on existing 
scholarship both geographically and conceptually. A central motivation 
for this work has been to think beyond the image; to be able to capture 
and engage with the activist communities (and the activism) behind and 
alongside the image and produced through the image.

Feel free to share with students and your wider networks.

Olu Jenzen & Tessa Lewin, Guest Editors,/Journal of Cultural Analysis 
and Social Change/


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