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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

1. Introduction: Conceptualising Feminist Activism and Digital Networks

verfasst von : Aristea Fotopoulou

Erschienen in: Feminist Activism and Digital Networks

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

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Abstract

This chapter introduces the key focus of the book: the contradictions, tensions, and often-paradoxical aspects of feminist and queer politics in a digital world of dense connections. How can feminism and queer activism articulate a political response to the new forms of governmentality that result from digital technologies, while using these same technologies in order to circulate their counter-narratives and inhabit their versions of the world? By crossing through the themes of bodily autonomy, pornography, reproduction, and queer social life, I visit some of the inherent contradictions of this political project and stress that, between empowerment and vulnerability, feminism remains today a necessary and passionate struggle for social justice. The Introductory Chapter clarifies some of the key theoretical premises of the book and introduces two key interdisciplinary analytical tools for future research, by drawing critically from existing innovative research in the fields of media theory, political science and feminist science, and technology studies. The chapter outlines the book’s general approach to the question of materiality, and its emphasis on the material, social and embodied aspects of digital media technologies and activist practices. First it analyses how the notions of labour and communicative practice are central aspects of materiality in relation to the digital, which shape the very conditions of political organising, and how we understand what it means to be political as feminists. Then, it highlights theoretical work that challenges representationalism by looking at the ideas of, amongst others, Tiziana Terranova (2004), Hardt and Negri (2000), and Jodie Dean (2009); then, it moves on to examine ‘posthumanist performativity’ (Barad, 2007) as a way of thinking about embodiment in digital networks beyond the matter/representation binary. Through this exploration, the chapter introduces the concept of biodigital vulnerability, which positions vulnerability as a precondition for enabling feminist and queer political subjectivity.

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Nächstes Kapitel Women’s Organisations and the Social Imaginary of Networked Feminism: Digital and Networked by Default?

‘Web 2.0’ is a term used to describe contemporary convergence and it refers to wikis, social networking platforms, weblogs and other user-generated content platforms and practices.

Intersectionality is the systematic study of the ways in which differences such as race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and other sociopolitical and cultural categories interrelate. See Fotopoulou (2012) for an overview.

Guha (2015) explains how the campaign hashtags never really took off, or as they say, trending, and this for them is indicative of how the campaign did not manage to engage concerned citizens and policymakers.

Resource mobilisation theory is a theory of collective action, which focuses on organisational dynamics and the importance of resources such as time, money, technical and organisational skills for social movements. It has been employed in order to understand the role of social networking and other digital media technologies as new resources for activism, not only in terms of organising protest, but also for collective identity formation and fostering community bonds. See Eltantawy and Wiest (2011).

There are a few notable exceptions, such as Touraine (1981) who wrote about the women’s liberation movement as a new social movement.

The authors extend Bennett and Segerberg’s (2012) notion of ‘connective action’ here.

As Gill and Pratt (2008) explain, precarious employment in neoliberalism has a double meaning: on the one hand, it creates uncertainty, and on the other, the potential for new subjectivities and political possibilities.

Mapping as a methodological approach is explained in the following section.

In a later analysis, Andrejevic (2013) also notes how the internet has been understood as an empowering technology precisely because of its capacity to allow information production and distribution.

For other important examples employing Foucault’s [what?] (2003; 2008), see Gajjala et al. (2010); Shakhsari (2011).

See also Barassi (2015) and Kaun (2015) for a discussion of how this operates in other activist and protest contexts.

According to the theory of remediation, visual digital culture presents itself as an improved version of older media in an effort to respond to them. Remediation is a process in which new cultural and media forms carry in and with them conventions, practices and ways of thinking which belonged to older cultural forms. They call the encounter and collocation of multiple cultural texts within any given digital text ‘hypermediacy’, whereas by ‘immediacy’ they refer to the concurrent invisibility of the medium in these texts. See also Kember and Zylinska (2012).

The Quantified Self (QS) is a community of people who use wearable devices in order to log personal information and improve various aspects of personal life, such as mood, physical and mental performance, or other aspects of everyday life, such as air quality.

The Gamergate controversy relates to the misogynistic campaign that was launched with the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate and involved the direct targeting of game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, as well as cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian. The case sparked a feminist response and examination of issues of sexism in the video game industry.

A good example here is how the 2014 YouTube video about a woman who got ‘catcalled’ 108 times while walking in New York went viral with 43 million views (10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman). Although not directly linked to gender, the use of mobile phone cameras to expose police brutality against black people in the USA is at the time of writing another illustration of how publicity can empower marginalised communities.

For Haraway (1988), one task is to reveal the claims of power concealed in claims for objectivity. Central in this ethical and political project, particularly through the ‘modest witness’ figure, was of course registering gender exclusions in the making of scientific knowledge (Haraway 1997).

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Titel: Introduction: Conceptualising Feminist Activism and Digital Networks
verfasst von: Aristea Fotopoulou
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Buch: Feminist Activism and Digital Networks
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-50470-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-50471-5

Copyright-Jahr: 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50471-5_1

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