In this article, we examine how Twitter users discuss intersections of the Black American and Palestinian experience in 2021 through the lens of intersectionality. We explore two questions; how is intersectionality discussed and performed by Twitter users in relation to the Palestinian and Black experience against the backdrop of this particular crisis in Gaza? And how do users engage with the language of intersectionality to either reify, contradict, or complicate the intersection of the Palestinian and Black experiences on the platform? We find that intersectionality is mediated by elite users via branded communication, as well as invoked to highlight or deny the intersections of the Black and Palestinian experience by the most peripheral users on the platform.
{"title":"(Hash)tagging intersection(ality): Black and Palestinian experiences on Twitter","authors":"E. Edwards, David F Stephens","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad013","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, we examine how Twitter users discuss intersections of the Black American and Palestinian experience in 2021 through the lens of intersectionality. We explore two questions; how is intersectionality discussed and performed by Twitter users in relation to the Palestinian and Black experience against the backdrop of this particular crisis in Gaza? And how do users engage with the language of intersectionality to either reify, contradict, or complicate the intersection of the Palestinian and Black experiences on the platform? We find that intersectionality is mediated by elite users via branded communication, as well as invoked to highlight or deny the intersections of the Black and Palestinian experience by the most peripheral users on the platform.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"133 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121315856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anirban K. Baishya, D. S. Mini, Thenmozhi Soundararajan
As a pan-South Asian phenomenon that marks certain groups and bodies as untouchable, caste-based discriminatory practices have also traveled with the South Asian diaspora. This article examines the case of anti-caste activism, especially in the context of its transnational potentials which have blossomed with the ubiquitous uptake of digital technology worldwide. We examine anti-caste activism in the US through the work of Equality Labs, an anti-caste civil rights organization that works with digital and non-digital activist strategies. Analyzing a range of material including surveys and reports, online chatter, and journalistic discourse we show how the organization’s work is part of a larger, transnational network of anti-caste activism—something we term the anti-caste alter-network.
{"title":"The anti-caste alter-network: equality labs and anti-caste activism in the US","authors":"Anirban K. Baishya, D. S. Mini, Thenmozhi Soundararajan","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad011","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 As a pan-South Asian phenomenon that marks certain groups and bodies as untouchable, caste-based discriminatory practices have also traveled with the South Asian diaspora. This article examines the case of anti-caste activism, especially in the context of its transnational potentials which have blossomed with the ubiquitous uptake of digital technology worldwide. We examine anti-caste activism in the US through the work of Equality Labs, an anti-caste civil rights organization that works with digital and non-digital activist strategies. Analyzing a range of material including surveys and reports, online chatter, and journalistic discourse we show how the organization’s work is part of a larger, transnational network of anti-caste activism—something we term the anti-caste alter-network.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"128 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128218500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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.”
{"title":"“Are you me?”: understanding the political potential of feminist identity spaces on Reddit during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 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.”","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132960441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines Nigerian feminist hashtag activism as this reveals how activists emplace and embody intersectionality in their organizings. I explore how a politics of intersectionality is institutionalized in Nigerian feminist hashtag activism on Twitter by unpacking the narratives that led to the emergence and online production of visibility for some hashtag activism that have shaped local and national politics in Nigeria. I further discuss intersectionality as a critical praxis and analytical strategy influencing activists' hashtag naming, political demands, and self-corrections in response to Nigeria's socio-cultural-political domains. As a feminist activist who has done some groundwork in Nigerian offline and digital spaces, this article draws from my participant/observer perspective.
{"title":"Intersectionality in/through Nigeria’s feminist hashtag activism","authors":"Ololade Faniyi","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines Nigerian feminist hashtag activism as this reveals how activists emplace and embody intersectionality in their organizings. I explore how a politics of intersectionality is institutionalized in Nigerian feminist hashtag activism on Twitter by unpacking the narratives that led to the emergence and online production of visibility for some hashtag activism that have shaped local and national politics in Nigeria. I further discuss intersectionality as a critical praxis and analytical strategy influencing activists' hashtag naming, political demands, and self-corrections in response to Nigeria's socio-cultural-political domains. As a feminist activist who has done some groundwork in Nigerian offline and digital spaces, this article draws from my participant/observer perspective.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"334 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133758730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although there is growing scholarship on intersectionality in African feminist movements, there are still gaps in scholarship on intersectionality on the continent when it comes to various identity categories. I examine intersectionality within the Ghanaian context using African feminisms as a backdrop. I argue that to drive African feminisms toward emancipatory praxes, it is imperative to center identity categories that are often erased from feminist conversations and to pay attention to organizing from these margins to amplify the erased narratives about marginalization. I theorize these silenced narratives drawing on my experiences as a Muslim Dagbana woman and my work in African and Ghanaian feminist digital spaces. Here, I focus on ethnicity as an identity category that is often overlooked within feminist discourses in national contexts in Africa. I point to organizing strategies that can facilitate the centering of identities and feminist issues that have historically been pushed to the margins.
{"title":"Intersectionality in African digital organizing: a Ghanaian perspective","authors":"W. F. Mohammed","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Although there is growing scholarship on intersectionality in African feminist movements, there are still gaps in scholarship on intersectionality on the continent when it comes to various identity categories. I examine intersectionality within the Ghanaian context using African feminisms as a backdrop. I argue that to drive African feminisms toward emancipatory praxes, it is imperative to center identity categories that are often erased from feminist conversations and to pay attention to organizing from these margins to amplify the erased narratives about marginalization. I theorize these silenced narratives drawing on my experiences as a Muslim Dagbana woman and my work in African and Ghanaian feminist digital spaces. Here, I focus on ethnicity as an identity category that is often overlooked within feminist discourses in national contexts in Africa. I point to organizing strategies that can facilitate the centering of identities and feminist issues that have historically been pushed to the margins.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125399099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While feminist activism in Chile has been historically marginalized from the public debate, a new generation of digitally native, educated, and empowered feminist activists in Chile has embraced social media, algorithms and other technologies to denounce patriarchal order and advance social change toward gender equality. In this article, we argue that such strategy has given visibility to women’s issues in the Chilean public sphere and contributed to important inroads in matters of gender justice.
{"title":"“Fight as a little girl!”: Chilean feminist cyberactivism and its outcome on the agenda","authors":"Claudia Lagos Lira, I. Bachmann","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While feminist activism in Chile has been historically marginalized from the public debate, a new generation of digitally native, educated, and empowered feminist activists in Chile has embraced social media, algorithms and other technologies to denounce patriarchal order and advance social change toward gender equality. In this article, we argue that such strategy has given visibility to women’s issues in the Chilean public sphere and contributed to important inroads in matters of gender justice.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117105540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Against claims that we now live in a post-racial era, this article argues that panic over so-called “invasive species” illustrates how negative conceptions of difference are built into the White imaginary. We argue that the calls to exterminate the infamous Bradford pear tree across the US function as a kind of nanoracism, or what Achilles Mbembe defines as the organization of everyday affairs according to us–them logics that further justify overt racist practices. Performing a close reading of the discourse about the tree, we show how xenophobia and anti-Blackness lurk in a debate about non-human biota, specifically by normalizing inferential racist language that attacks difference, expressing fears of racial impurity, and calling for exterminating the Other.
{"title":"The most hated tree in America: negative difference, the White imaginary, and the Bradford pear","authors":"Ryan Neville-Shepard, C. Kelly","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Against claims that we now live in a post-racial era, this article argues that panic over so-called “invasive species” illustrates how negative conceptions of difference are built into the White imaginary. We argue that the calls to exterminate the infamous Bradford pear tree across the US function as a kind of nanoracism, or what Achilles Mbembe defines as the organization of everyday affairs according to us–them logics that further justify overt racist practices. Performing a close reading of the discourse about the tree, we show how xenophobia and anti-Blackness lurk in a debate about non-human biota, specifically by normalizing inferential racist language that attacks difference, expressing fears of racial impurity, and calling for exterminating the Other.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124752028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the glitch as a trans mechanic of speculation in Kitty Horrorshow’s (2016) video game Anatomy. Through the glitch, Anatomy rewrites the “walking simulator” in favor of a non-linear form of movement that relies on gaps and breaks in the structure of the game. Drawing on scholarship in trans studies including Eva Hayward’s work on the scar as a site of trans possibility and Lucas Crawford’s examination of the relationship between architecture and trans subjectivity, I read Anatomy as one ludic form of trans worldmaking which unsettles the relationship between the trans body and the space of the house, and the relationship between the player and the act of play, invoking a trans ethos of indeterminacy that rejects coherent narratives of progression and legibility in favor of the refusal and possibility of the glitch.
{"title":"Unlocked doors: the trans glitch in Kitty Horrorshow’s Anatomy","authors":"Christine Prevas","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article explores the glitch as a trans mechanic of speculation in Kitty Horrorshow’s (2016) video game Anatomy. Through the glitch, Anatomy rewrites the “walking simulator” in favor of a non-linear form of movement that relies on gaps and breaks in the structure of the game. Drawing on scholarship in trans studies including Eva Hayward’s work on the scar as a site of trans possibility and Lucas Crawford’s examination of the relationship between architecture and trans subjectivity, I read Anatomy as one ludic form of trans worldmaking which unsettles the relationship between the trans body and the space of the house, and the relationship between the player and the act of play, invoking a trans ethos of indeterminacy that rejects coherent narratives of progression and legibility in favor of the refusal and possibility of the glitch.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126986144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite significant scholarship on the semiotics and ideology of perfume advertising, its racialized nature is underexamined. This is surprising given perfume-ad characteristics that incentivize racialized representations, especially ads using celebrities, and racist constructions of smell and scent. Using critical advertising studies, sensory studies, and bell hooks’ concept of the racialized Other, this article argues that perfume ads are markedly racialized. The racial semiotics of 10 print ads—five with BIPOC celebrities and five with White—are critiqued, with BIPOC celebrities essentialized as inherently exotic, wild, and primitively sexual, while White celebrities symbolize elegance, classic beauty, and uniqueness.
{"title":"The racialized celebrity other in perfume advertisements","authors":"M. McAllister, Yasemin Beykont, Sydney L. Forde","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Despite significant scholarship on the semiotics and ideology of perfume advertising, its racialized nature is underexamined. This is surprising given perfume-ad characteristics that incentivize racialized representations, especially ads using celebrities, and racist constructions of smell and scent. Using critical advertising studies, sensory studies, and bell hooks’ concept of the racialized Other, this article argues that perfume ads are markedly racialized. The racial semiotics of 10 print ads—five with BIPOC celebrities and five with White—are critiqued, with BIPOC celebrities essentialized as inherently exotic, wild, and primitively sexual, while White celebrities symbolize elegance, classic beauty, and uniqueness.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128964517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article uses the concept of media populism to analyze the sophisticated role of networked platforms in organizing political discourses. Building on the scholarship on mediatization and mediated populism, it examines the mediated appeal of the God metanarrative—Religious Duterte, Catholic Church, Apollo Quiboloy, and Daily Prayer—and shows how God-related posts amplify the communicative style of populism in the Philippines. The God metanarrative on Facebook inspires communal engagement much as it polarizes the civil consensus on free expression and inclusive nationalism. The embedding of non-conflictual sentiments in the digital sphere blurs the precarious line between free expression of religious views and of political support, enabling political entrepreneurs to exploit the former as a way to consolidate the latter.
{"title":"Media populism and the metanarrative of God in the Philippines","authors":"J. L. Ragragio","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article uses the concept of media populism to analyze the sophisticated role of networked platforms in organizing political discourses. Building on the scholarship on mediatization and mediated populism, it examines the mediated appeal of the God metanarrative—Religious Duterte, Catholic Church, Apollo Quiboloy, and Daily Prayer—and shows how God-related posts amplify the communicative style of populism in the Philippines. The God metanarrative on Facebook inspires communal engagement much as it polarizes the civil consensus on free expression and inclusive nationalism. The embedding of non-conflictual sentiments in the digital sphere blurs the precarious line between free expression of religious views and of political support, enabling political entrepreneurs to exploit the former as a way to consolidate the latter.","PeriodicalId":300302,"journal":{"name":"Communication, Culture and Critique","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133987624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}