Rewired and revamped? Media & trans/national feminisms in Europe and beyond
FEMCORUS mid-term symposium draws attention to the current debates on media’s role in shaping and popularizing contemporary feminisms ranging from celebrity feminism to neo-liberal and post-feminism (Rottenberg et al 2020). It underscores the role of popular culture and media as sites of feminism and (subversive) feminist struggle. The symposium acknowledges the intrinsic plurality of the ways in which feminism can be practiced and theorized in the 21st century within digital media and in various socio-political contexts. Importantly, it seeks to contribute to the scholarship which challenges the West-centric normative mainstream feminist models (e.g., see Tlostanova 2018) and provides a space for a diversity of voices and feminist positions. Foremost, the event is aimed at bridging a gap in empirical and theoretical understanding of feminism between various academic traditions (Anglo-American, post-Socialist, postcolonial).
The symposium is informed by the current geopolitical tensions in Europe. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a rapid transformation of mediated feminisms in the region. We have witnessed a ‘diasporization’ of the feminist movement, and fragmentation of feminist academic networks as a consequence of political oppression, as well as an emergence of new feminist networks and activist hubs in different parts of the world. Feminist groups and media celebrities have adopted new media strategies to connect with the precarious communities within the conflict zones as well as to maintain their regular audience, ratings, and revenues elsewhere. These actions take place within the neoliberal digital economy with its lack of algorithmic transparency and constantly increasing regulation, precarity (e.g., the use of banned social networks via VPN), and militarization.
Against this background, we argue that the shifting media affordances and geopolitical upheavals reinvigorate the feminist movement potentially leading to an overhaul of the existing stereotypes related to feminism (such as feminists as antifamily, antifamine, radical, etc.) and allowing for complex trans/national feminist connections. If this is the case, what does this rupture mean for the role of the celebrity feminism? What sort of feminist sensibilities and solidarities are emerging today in Europe and beyond?