“Are you me?”: understanding the political potential of feminist identity spaces on Reddit during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In this study we performed a critical discourse analysis of the r/workingmoms subreddit during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic (March–May 2020). Using this data we argue that Reddit’s platform can facilitate what we schematize as feminist “identity spaces.” We use the heuristic of “spaces” rather than “networks” or “online communities” and connect this theorization to our understanding of the discursive work on the subreddit which facilitates in-group communication and situated structural critique. However, we also interrogate the political possibilities of identity spaces and understand them as a symptom of what Angela McRobbie has called “the cultural politics of disarticulation.” Ultimately, we argue that the same platform affordances that allow for identity spaces to thrive also limit their political potency and we frame this within Lauren Berlant’s theorization of “cruel optimism.”