Re-Shaping the Boundaries of Feminism: The Case of #femminismoislamico on Instagram


Abstract


Although the Italian public discourse is characterized by an underlying Islamophobia and gendered processes of racialization and discrimination, for which the agency of women of Muslim culture is often denied, Italy hosts a growing and increasingly visible feminist movement that adopts intersectionality as practice and method. Particularly relevant for contemporary feminisms appears to be the digital environment, which is at the same time a space for networking and a site of protests and collective action. In this context the paper explores whether an online discourse on feminism and Islam exists, and how it unfolds on social media. In this contribution we focus on the discourse about #femminismoislamico in the digital sphere by analyzing how Instagram users engage with the related hashtags, in the case study of Italy between 2017 and 2021. Data are organized in three categories: information, inspiration & memes, call for change. The discourse developing around the analyzed hashtags contributes to re-shape the boundaries of both the feminist discourse and the place of Islamic feminism in online and offline feminist public space. Furthermore the adoption of the hashtags related to Islamic feminism illustrates the appropriation, reframing and composite reassembling of individual and collective intersectional identities.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v16i2p339

Keywords: Digital media; Feminisms; Islamic feminism; Instagram; Intersectionality; Religion

References


Abdallah, S.L. (2013) Féminismes islamiques à l’heure révolutionnaire: normes, genre et démocratie, in F. Rochefort, M.E. Sanna, eds., Normes Religieuses et et genre. Mutations, résistances et reconfiguration (xixe-xxie), pp. 217-30, Paris: Armand Colin.

Abu-Lughod, L. (2015). Do Muslim women need saving? Harvard University Press.

Acocella I., Pepicelli R. Eds (2015) Giovani musulmane in Italia. Percorsi biografici e pratiche quotidiane. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Ahmed, Sara. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. London: Duke University Press.

Amiraux V. (2016) “Visibility, transparency and gossip: How did the religion of some (Muslims) become the public concern of others?”, Critical Research on Religion 41(1): 37-56

Amiraux, V. (2013) The «illegal covering» saga: What’s next? Sociological perspectives, Social Identities, 19(6): 794-806.

Antoniazzi L., Barra M., Bonini T., Scarcelli C.M. (2022) “I media studies e la sfida dei cultural studies. Direzioni e prospettive”, Studi Culturali XIX(1): 37-54

Arfini, E., Ghigi, R. and S. Magaraggia. 2019. “Can feminism be right? A content analysis of discourses about women by female Italian right-wing politicians”. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia. LX(4): 693-719.

Badran M. (2010) “An historical Overview of Conferences on Islamic Feminism : Circulations and New Challenges”, Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, 128(6824), URL : http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/6824

Baer H. (2016) “Redoing feminism: digital activism, body politics, and neoliberalism”, Feminist Media Studies 16(1): 17-34

Bilge, S. (2010) “Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women”, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31(1): 9-28.

Boling, K. S. (2020). # ShePersisted, Mitch: a memetic critical discourse analysis on an attempted Instagram feminist revolution. Feminist Media Studies, 20(7): 966-982.

Borrillo S. (2017) Femminismi e Islam in Marocco. Attiviste laiche, teologiche, predicatrici. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.

Bracke S. (2012) “From ‘saving women’ to ‘saving gays’: Rescue narratives and their dis/continuities”, European Journal of Women’s Studies 19(2) 237–252

Bracke, S., & Hernández Aguilar, L. M. (2020a). “'They love death as we love life': The 'Muslim Question' and the biopolitics of replacement”. British Journal of Sociology, 71(4): 680-701

Bracke, S., Fadil, N. (2012) ‘Is the Headscarf Oppressive or Emancipatory?’ Field Notes from the Multicultural Debate, Religion and Gender, 2(1): pp. 36-56

Bringel B., and Pleyers G. (2022), Social Movements and Politics During COVID-19. Crisis, Solidarity and Change in a Global Pandemic, Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Caldeira, S. P., De Ridder. S., Van Bauwel, S. (2018), “Exploring the Politics of Gender Representation on Instagram: Self-Representations of Femininity”, DiGeSt. Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, 5(1), 23-25.

Caliandro, A., & Graham, J. (2020). Studying Instagram beyond selfies. Social media+ society, 6(2), 2056305120924779.

Campbell, H. (2021). Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority. Abingdon: Routledge.

Carta di Roma (2021) Notizie ai margini. Nono rapporto Carta di Roma 2021. https://www.cartadiroma.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Notizie-ai-margini.pdf

Chaves, M. (1994). Secularization as Declining Religious Authority. Social Forces, 72(3), 749–774. https://doi.org/10.2307/2579779.

Chironi, D. (2019), “Generations in the feminist and LGBT movements in Italy: The case of Non una di. Meno”, American Behavioral Scentist, 63(10): 1469-1496.

Cooke, M. (2000). “Multiple critique: Islamic feminist rhetorical strategies”. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(1), 91-110.

El-Tayeb F. (2012) “‘Gays who cannot properly be gay’: Queer Muslims in the neoliberal European city”, European Journal of Women’s Studies 19(1): 79-95.

Evolvi G. (2017) “Hybrid Muslim identities in digital space: The Italian blog Yalla”, Social Compass 64(2): 220-232.

Fenton N. (2011) “Multiplicity, Autonomy, New Media, and the Networked Politics of New Social Movements”, in Dahlberg, L., Phelan, S. (eds) Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics, pp. 178-200. Palgrave Macmillan.

Giorgi, A. (2021a) “Hijack or Release? On the heuristic limits of the frame of instrumentalization of religion for discussing the entanglements of populism, religion and gender”, Identities 29(4): 483-499

Giorgi, A. (2021b) “Religious Feminists and the Intersectional Feminist Movements – Insights from a Case Study”, European Journal of Women’s Studies. 28(2): 244-259

Giorgi, A. (2021c) “Religious Masculinities. Performing In/visibilities on Instagram”, Mediascapes 18: 67-79.

Giorgi, A. (2016) “Gender, religion, and political agency: mapping the field”. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 110, pp. 51-72.

Göle, N. (2015) The Daily Lives of Muslims: Islam and Public Confrontation in Contemporary Europe, London, Zed Books

Hake, R. (2015). Counter-Stereotypical Images of Muslim Characters in the Television Serial 24: A Difference That Makes No Difference?. Critical Studies in Television, 10(1): 54-72.

Hirji F. (2021) “Claiming our Space: Muslim Women, Activism, and Social Media”, Islamophobia Studies Journal 6(1): 78-92

Kavada A. (2018) “Connective or Collective? The intersection between online crowds and social movements in contemporary activism”. In G. Meikle, ed., The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism, pp. 108-116. Abingdon: Routledge.

Keller, J and Ryan, ME, (eds.)(2018) Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture. New York: Routledge

Korteveg A. (2019) “Gendered racializations: producing subordinate immigrant subjects, discrimination, and oppressive feminist and queer politics”, in J. Solomos (ed.) Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Racisms, pp. 344-355. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lawrence E., Ringrose J. (2018) “@Notofeminism, #Feministsareugly, and Misandry Memes: How Social Media Feminist Humor is Calling out Antifeminism”. In Keller, J and Ryan, ME, (eds.) Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture, pp. 211-232. New York: Routledge.

Lecompte-Van Poucke M. (2022) ‘You got this!’: A critical discourse analysis of toxic positivity as a discursive construct on Facebook, Applied Corpus Linguistics 2(1), 100015

Lövheim M., Lundmark E. (2019) Gender, Religion and Authority in Digital Media, ESSACHESS. Journal for Communication Studies, vol. 12, 2(24): 23-38

Magaraggia S. (2015) Il moto ondoso dei femminismi: abbiamo avvistato la quarta ondata?. In S.

Magaraggia, & G. Vingelli (Eds.), Genere e partecipazione politica (pp. 23-34). Franco Angeli.

Magaraggia S., Ruspini E. (2017) “Contemporary Net-Activism: beyond Gender Dichotomies?” In Francesco Antonelli (ed) How digital technologies have been changing individual and collective actions, pp. 61-67, Roma: TrePress.

Mahmudova L., Evolvi G. (2021) “Likes, Comments, and Follow Requests: The Instagram User Experiences of Young Muslim Women in the Netherlands”, Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture 10(1), 50-70.

Mainardi, A (2022). “The Mediated Experience of Girls of Muslim Culture in the French Context as a Challenge to Gender Stereotypes and Islamophobia: An Intersectional Perspective”. Journalism and Media, vol. 3, p. 557-567.

Mainardi, A, (2022), “Digital Girls. Le ragazze e la ridefinizione dei ruoli di genere online e offline”, Pisa, ETS.

Martinez-Cuadros R. (forthcoming) “Negotiating Islam and Feminism: The Political and Social Participation of Muslim Women in Barcelona”

Massari M. (2006) Islamofobia : la paura e l'islam. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

Massari, M. (2014) Musulmane e moderne. Spunti di riflessione su donne, islam e costruzioni sociali della modernità in Europa, Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 3, pp. 553-74.

Mattoni A., Treré E. (2014) “Media Practices, Mediation Processes, and Mediatization in the Study of Social Movements”, Communication Theory 24: 252–271

Mayer, S., Ajanovic, E. and B. Sauer (2014) 'Intersections and Inconsistencies. Framing Gender in Right-Wing Populist Discourses in Austria' Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 22(4): 250–266.

McGarry A., Erhart I., Eslen-Ziya H., Jenzen O., and Korkut U., Eds. (2020) The Aesthetics of Global Protest. Visual Culture and Communication. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Meikle G., Ed. (2018) The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism, Routledge.

Mepschen P. (2016) “The Culturalization of Everyday Life: Autochthony in Amsterdam New West”, in J.W. Duyvendak, P. Geschiere and E. Tonkens (Eds.) The Culturalization of Citizenship. Belonging and Polarization in a Globalizing World (pp. 73-96), Palgrave MacMillan.

Nyhagen L. (2019) Contestations of feminism, secularism and religion in the West: the discursive othering of religious and secular women, Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 32(1): 4-21

Ozzano, L., Giorgi A. (2016) European Culture wars and The Italian Case: Which Side Are You On? Abingdon: Routledge.

Panighel, M. 2022. Unveiling (post) colonial République: Gendered Islamophobia in France. AG About Gender-International Journal of Gender Studies 11: 142–72.

Pavan E. (2020) “The ties that fight. Il potere integrativo delle reti online femministe” SocietàMutamentoPolitica 11(22): 79-89.

Pavan E., and Mainardi A. (2018), “Striking, Marching, Tweeting. Studying How Online Networks Change Together with Movements”, PaCo Partecipazione e conflitto, 11 (2), 394-422.

Pepicelli R. (2008) “Islamic Feminism: Identities and Positionalities Why keep asking me about my identity? Thoughts of a non-Muslim”, in A. Kynsilehto (ed.) Islamic Feminism: Current Perspectives, Tampere Peace Research Institute Occasional Paper No. 96, pp. 91-101

Pepicelli R. (2010) Femminismo islamico: Corano, diritti, riforme. Roma: Carocci

Pepicelli, R., Vanzan, A., eds. (2017) I movimenti delle donne in Nord Africa e Medio Oriente: percorsi e generazioni ‘femministe’ a confronto, Special Issue of «Afriche e Orienti», 16, 1.

Peruzzi G., Bruno M., Massa A. (2020) Il pretesto del velo. Pratiche identitarie di giovani donne musulmane in Italia. Mondi Migranti, 1, pp. 49-73

Peterson K.M. (2022) Unruly Souls. The Digital Activism of Muslim and Christian Feminists. Rutgers University Press.

Rebughini P. (2021) Agency in intersectionality. Towards a method for studying the situatedness of action, Socio (online), 15. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/socio/11329

Reilly, N. (2011) ‘Rethinking the Interplay of Feminism and Secularism in a Neo-Secular Age’. Feminist Review, Religion and Spirituality, 97, pp. 5-31.

Reilly, N. (2017) Recasting secular thinking for emancipatory feminist practice, Social Compass, 64(4): 481-94.

Rosenberger, S., Sauer, B., eds. (2011) Politics, Religion and Gender: Framing and Regulating the Veil, New York, Routledge.

Rottenberg C.A. (2017) The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Scharff C. (2011) “Disarticulating feminism: Individualization, neoliberalism and the othering of ‘Muslim women’”, European Journal of Women’s Studies 18(2): 119-134

Scott, J. (2018) Sex and Secularism, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Selby, J. A., and L. G. Beaman (2016), ‘Re-posing the ‘‘Muslim Question’’’, Critical Research on Religion, 4(1): 8–20

van den Brandt, N. (2014) Secular Feminisms and Attitudes Towards Religion in the Context of a West-European Society. Flanders, Belgium, Women’s Studies International Forum, 44, pp. 35-45.

van den Brandt, N. (2015) Feminist Practice and Solidarity in Secular Societies: Case Studies on Feminists Crossing Religious. Secular Divides in Politics and Practice in Antwerp, Belgium, Social Movement Studies, 14(4): 493-508.

Ylmaz F. (2015) “From immigrant worker to Muslim immigrant: Challenges for feminism”, European Journal of Women’s Studies 22(1): 37–52


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.