Archive for calls, April 2023

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[Commlist] Digital feminist activism: A mini conference

Fri Mar 31 22:35:21 GMT 2023






*Digital feminist activism: A mini conference *

*King’s College London, 20^th of April 2023, 2.00 – 7.00 pm*

Funded by the British Academy Grant: Feminism is Trending: Digital Feminist Activism, Labour, and Subjectivity

In recent years, feminism has experienced a wave of unprecedented popularity in North America and Western Europe. This resurgence variously manifests itself in renewed media interest in feminist stories, celebrities embracing feminism and a swell of activism that increasingly – though not exclusively – takes place in digital spaces. As Hester Baer (2016: 18) pointed out, “digital activism constitutes a paradigm shift within feminist protest culture” and there is now a sizable body of research in feminist media studies, which highlights the benefits and pitfalls of such activism (e.g. Jackson et al., 2020; Mendes et al., 2019; Steele, 2021). For instance, in terms of access, researchers have highlighted exclusions around age and class due to a lack of media literacy (e.g. Fotopoulou, 2016) while others have demonstrated that certain sites provide a platform for marginalised groups, such as Black women and trans communities (e.g., Jackson and Banaszczyk, 2016; Jackson et al., 2020; Steele, 2021).

In addition, research into digital feminist activism has shown that social media’s affordances can be exploited to reach a large audience across different localities, facilitate open engagement with feminist ideas, raise consciousness and re-frame dominant cultural narratives (Mendes et al., 2019). Researchers have also demonstrated that digital feminist activism can have tangible effects. According to Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey and Brooke Foucault Welles (2020: xxxii), “such hashtags as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have had far-reaching influence, moving debates about identity politics, inequality, violence, and citizenship from the margins to the center and into places as crucial as presidential agendas”.

Bringing together speakers from the UK and the US, who specialise in different geographical contexts such as the US, UK, Germany and Nigeria, this conference will explore some facets of digital feminist activism. In particular, the event will shed light on the complex interplay between digital protest cultures and neoliberalism as well as digital feminist activism and the classed and racialised politics of ‘the perfect’.

This event will take place at King’s College London on April 20^th , between 2.00 – 7.00 pm. Participation is free. To attend, please sign up by using Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-feminist-activism-a-mini-conference-tickets-604241973007 <https://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-feminist-activism-a-mini-conference-tickets-604241973007>

*Panel I: Digital feminist activism, the politics of class, and ‘the perfect’*

Dr Simidele Dosekun, London School of Economics and Political Science: The Class Politics of '#BeingFemaleinNigeria'

Katrin Schindel, King’s College London: “My profile said ‘intersectional feminism’, now it only says ‘feminism’ because I didn’t feel safe with that anymore” – Individual responsibility, anxiety, and the perfect intersectional feminist

Christina Scharff, King’s College London: On “saying the right things”: class, race, and the need ‘to know’

**

*Panel II: Digital feminist activism and neoliberalism *

**

Hannah Curran-Troop, City University of London: Freelance feminists in crisis//

Hester Baer, University of Maryland, College Park: Theorizing Digital Feminist Activism for the Neoliberal Age

Dr Ayu Saraswati, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Self(ie)

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