You are warmly invited to the following event:

“Disavowals and Distinctions: Knowing Feminist Subjects in Social Media Culture"
featuring Dr Akane Kanai (Monash University)

Abstract:
For young people in Anglo-American societies, debates over identity politics and social justice have never seemingly been more accessible, yet simultaneously fraught with risk. As celebrities continually dance with the risks and rewards of being deemed ‘woke’ in the current social media climate (Sobande, Kanai and Zeng 2022), scholars have observed this social justice resurgence to both hold possibilities for a more vigorous democracy as well as reproducing aspirational neoliberal tropes. Drawing on an ongoing empirical project located in Australia involving 50 young feminists aged 18-28, this paper turns away from the understanding of online feminist culture as purely a space of activism, or static set of ideas and concepts that are simply ‘accessed’ or ‘revealed’. Utilising a framework whereby young people’s engagement with online social justice cultures are understood as knowledge cultures, I demonstrate how these cultures are highly affective, involving differing felt positions in connection with claims of knowledge and how they are made. I highlight participants’ practices of analysis, critique, and expertise in connection with celebrity figures, ideas and texts as a means of struggles over value creation and attribution. I aim to show how class contours these cultures through affective relations of proximity and distance.

Author Bio:
Akane Kanai is a senior research fellow at Monash University. Her research investigates the shaping of contemporary identity through the politics of mediated cultures, particularly online and popular culture. In 2021, she was awarded a Discovery Early Career Award Fellowship by the Australian Research Council to undertake a three-year project on the impact of everyday online feminisms on young people. Her work can be found in journals such as Feminist Theory, Feminist Media Studies, the Journal of Communication, and Cultural Studies. Her monograph, Gender, relatability and Digital Culture: Managing affect, intimacy and value is published by Palgrave (2019).

This seminar is free and open to all. You do not need to register in advance.

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This event is organised by the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of Warwick. If you wish to receive information about CSWG events, please subscribe to our mailing list.