Rethinking Contemporary Feminist Activism: Zines, Social Media and Body Politics in the Fourth-Wave


Matich, Margaret (2019) Rethinking Contemporary Feminist Activism: Zines, Social Media and Body Politics in the Fourth-Wave. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

By focusing on feminist zines and zine communities as a significant platform where contemporary feminists are waging their war on the kyriarchy, this thesis presents a cross-section of contemporary feminist activism by surfacing some of the key features of the fourth-wave. Employing an interpretivist feminist standpoint approach and an ethnographic study design, this thesis critically examines the online, offline and trans-generational means of transmission that fourth-wave feminists are using to assert their agency, autonomy and authorial presence, with the aim of disturbing the dominant, oppressive hegemonic ‘other’. The findings of this thesis draw out the micro, meso and macro level significance and impact of these practices. From my study findings, I argue that these practices provide vital enclaves of resistance and sanctuaries of solidarity, that allow feminists of the fourth-wave to develop identities, aesthetics, tactics, vocabularies and communities. I will suggest that these practices manifest in and reveal a type of ‘technical composting’ and ‘strategic nostalgia,’ whereby modern-day feminists are drawing on feminism’s ‘already there’ to reinvigorate longstanding practices and use them in nuanced reconfigurations within contemporary contexts. The study also examines how the body is being politicised and represented in these spaces. The findings show that by leveraging the intersectional, alienated and abject body, fourth-wave feminists are utilising their corporeal identities to push for visibility and representation in order to glitch the hegemonic regimes of the kyriarchy and to postulate new feminist futures. However, this work comes not without critique - the contemporary fourth-wave feminist quest for visibility and representation fosters an uneasy relationship with the market, and the threat of co-option, recuperation and sublimation pervade discussions around the nature of fourth-wave feminist activism.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Management
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 18 Aug 2020 11:06
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 23:57
DOI: 10.17638/03080389
Supervisors:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3080389
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