#counterpublics

[remainsstreet]

Poster for THE GATHERING, presented by New Red Order and The Cahokia Intertribal Noise Symposium as a closing event for Counterpublic 2023 in St. Louis. "New Red Order and Cahokia Intertribal Noise Symposium Presents: The Gathering, an innovative live event format that splits the difference between the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow and the Gathering of the Juggalos. Combining public assembly, academic symposium, music festival, and film screening, the two day event will conjure new pasts and ancient futures of the-place-currently-called St. Louis. Artists, activists and academics share the line-up with rappers and noise musicians in order to present a discursive and hallucinatory trip towards collectively convoking crimes against reality."

[dailyanarchistposts]

Queer autonomous zones and participatory publics

Bobby Noble points to ‘the simultaneity of the relations between gendered embodi- ment, sex play, and racialization inside homonormative communities, neighbour- hoods and venues for cultural production’ (Noble, 2009). Similar critiques of the queer community have been taken up by Gay Shame anarchist activists organizing in the late 1990s. In That’s Revolting! Matt/Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore docu- ments their personal experience in Gay Shame collectives in San Francisco and New York City. ‘Gay Shame emerged to create a radical alternative to the confor- mity of gay neighbourhoods, bars, and institutions – most clearly symbolized by Gay Pride’ (Sycamore, 2004: 238). Gay Shame is ‘mostly anarchist leaning’ (2004: 239), and organizes gatherings, events and direct action protests against capitalism and intersecting oppressions. A San Francisco flyer asks, ‘Are you choking on the vomit of consumerist ‘gay pride’?’ (2004: 239). Another poster entitled ‘Gay pride, my ass: It’s all about gay shame’ (2004: 240) announces an ‘autonomous space’ (2004: 240) outdoors on Tire Beach with performances, art-making, bands, instal- lations, DJs, food, kidspace, and ‘politics and play’ (2004: 240). The event hosted ‘speakers on issues including San Francisco gentrification and the US colonization of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, as well as prison, youth, and trans activism’ (2004: 241). The range of issues and events in the ‘autonomous space’ point to a very different kind of sprawling, engaged public than Berlant and Warner’s indoor, circumscribed, queer counterpublic. ‘We encouraged people to participate in cre- ating their own radical queer space, and people argued about political issues, painted, poured concrete and made a mosaic, dyed hair, and mudwrestled naked’ (Sycamore, 2004: 241). Participation is a key element in the formation of a ‘Queer autonomous space’ (2004: 237) or zone, as are multiplicities of political focus (Puerto Rico, kids, youth, prisons, trans people, art production, gentrifica- tion and so on) and an over-arching anti-capitalist practice that includes free entrance, barter and trade, dressing to ‘ragged excess’ (2004: 240), and the provi- sion of ‘free food, T-shirts and various other gifts’ (2004: 241).

Queer autonomous zones thus are open-ended spaces in which participation of all comers is encouraged through a direct (rather than liberal) democracy model. They are facilitated via engagement with a multiplicity of intersectional anti- oppression politics. Interactions in queer autonomous spaces develop sustainable social relations and value-practices, based on mutual respect, consent, sexual lib- eration, and non-normativity, in which people engage in open-ended processes of developing alternative ways of being, feeling, thinking, engaging, acting and becoming-liberated. The question is – what’s next? How do we continue to expand our movements and theorizing to extend the becoming-liberated of queer?

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments, Jamie Heckert for encour- agement and patience with my process, and Sydney Neuman for engaged proofreading.

References

Berlant L and Freeman E (1992) Queer nationality. Boundary 2 19(1): 149–180.

Berlant L and Warner M (2000) Sex in public. In: Berlant L (ed.) Intimacy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 311–330.

Bordo S (1990) Reading the slender body. In: Jacobus M, Fox Keller E, Shuttleworth S (eds) Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science. New York: Routledge, 83–112. Castiglia C (2000) Sex panics, sex publics, sex memories. Boundary 2 27(2): 149–175. Corber RJ, Valocchi S (eds) (2003) Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Crimp D (2002) Mario montez, for shame. In: Barber SM, Clark DL (eds) Regarding Sedgwick: Essays on Queer Culture and Critical Theory. New York: Routledge, 57–70.

Deleuze G and Guattari F (1983) Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia Vol. 1. 1972. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

DeLuca KM (1999) Unruly arguments: The body rhetoric of EarthFirst!, act up, and queer nation. Argumentation and Advocacy 36(Summer): 9–21.

Duncan N (1996) Renegotiating gender and sexuality in public and private spaces. In: Duncan N (ed.) Body Space: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 125–143.

Dyer R (2006) Stereotyping. In: Durham MG, Kellner DM (eds) Media and Cultural Studies KeyWorks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 353–365.

Heckert J (2004) Sexuality/identity/politics. In: Purkis J, Bowen J (eds) Changing Anarchism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 101–116.

Hennessy R (1994��95) Queer visibility in commodity culture. Cultural Critique 29(Winter): 31–76.

Jeppesen S and Visser L (Leahfish) (1996) Projectile: Stories about Puking. Toronto: self- published.

Les Panthe‘ res Roses (2004) Operation ‘‘Pepto-bismol SVP!’’ URL (accessed 12 July 2008): http:/lespantheresroses.org.

McCall L (2005) The complexity of intersectionality. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 30(3): 1771–1800.

Noble B (2009) Trans-Culture in the (White) City: Taking a Pass on a Queer Neighbourhood. URL (accessed 8 May 2009): http:/nomorepotlucks.org/article/ego/ trans-culture-white-city-taking-pass-queer-neighbourhood.

Sullivan N (2003) A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory. New York: New York University Press.

Sycamore M, Berstein M (eds) (2004) That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull.

Vade D (2005) Expanding gender and expanding the law: Toward a social and legal con- ceptualization of gender that is more inclusive of transgender people. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 11: 253–316.

Warner M (2002) Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books.

On the Author

Sandra Jeppesen is an activist, writer, and Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Her research is in guerrilla texts and autonomous media, including analysis of discourses produced through anti-poverty activism, anti-colonial no-border activism, radical feminist and queer collectives, anti-racist pedagogies, and other social movement texts. Address: Communication Studies Department, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, CJ 3.230, 3rd Floor, Montreal, Canada H4B 1R6.

[1] Following Vade’s important article (2005) advocating the ‘Gender Galaxy’ which reveals the falsity of the gender/sex divide and the negative legal impact of this distinction on trans people, I am using the term ‘gender’ to be comprehensive.

[2] In the USA this is particularly true. In Canada same-sex marriage and human rights are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and immigration processes are begin- ning to include same-sex partners in sponsorship claims, as well as considering persecution for sexuality as a basis for refugee claims. These processes however remain heteronorma- tive. I’d like to thank Melissa White for sharing her insights and research on this issue.

[offslime]

rereading my response to someone’s nice comment on my omegaverse fanfiction and thinking “do they really care enough to read this essay on gender that quotes fucking judith butler and publics and counterpublics..?”

[stargir1z]

Attention girlbloggers, my dissertation is now available in print on depop 👩🏼‍💻🍧

I’M LIKE A PDF BUT A GIRL originates from my usage of tumblr as a social learning platform during high school, when AFK (away from the keyboard, after Russell) i had little educational resources surrounding feminist studies, philosophy, and potential leftisms in my high school and so, turned to a network of peers online to educate myself. the piece is multidisciplinary and written in a style inspired by post-deleuzian philosophy writing and hypertextual projects from the nineties. i explore how tumblr’s user design makes for a fertile ground of identity construction through information distribution, and then characterise the girlblogger — the young person who feels safer in counterpublic communities, NOT the coquette lol — as a librarian, spider, and lover through her piratic practices online. through an experimental and source-diverse labyrinth of media studies, cyber feminist genealogy, and post-deleuzian civil disobedience, i lead my reader to the sublimity that helped me survive.

this bookette is 68 pages long, soft touch cover, and isbned :~). however of course if the price is not accessible to you, a free online pdf is available here for reading. thank you everyone who participated in the survey, shared or interacted with my #diss posts, or has ever been a part of my little rhizomed life online. please, if you do read it, let me know any feedback through tumblr, instagram, or my email esterfreider@gmail.com. thank you for your time and please share this if you can <3

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

In a Queer Time and Place by J. Jack Halberstam

goodreads

In his first book since the critically acclaimed Female Masculinity, J. Jack Halberstam examines the significance of the transgender body in a provocative collection of essays on queer time and space. He presents a series of case studies focused on the meanings of masculinity in its dominant and alternative forms especially female and trans-masculinities as they exist within subcultures, and are appropriated within mainstream culture. In a Queer Time and Place opens with a probing analysis of the life and death of Brandon Teena, a young transgender man who was brutally murdered in small-town Nebraska. After looking at mainstream representations of the transgender body as exhibited in the media frenzy surrounding this highly visible case and the Oscar-winning film based on Brandon's story, Boys Don t Cry, Halberstam turns his attention to the cultural and artistic production of queers themselves. He examines the transgender gaze, as rendered in small art-house films like By Hook or By Crook, as well as figurations of ambiguous embodiment in the art of Del LaGrace Volcano, Jenny Saville, Eva Hesse, Shirin Neshat, and others. He then exposes the influence of lesbian drag king cultures upon hetero-male comic films, such as Austin Powers and The Full Monty, and, finally, points to dyke subcultures as one site for the development of queer counterpublics and queer temporalities. Considering the sudden visibility of the transgender body in the early twenty-first century against the backdrop of changing conceptions of space and time, In a Queer Time and Place is the first full-length study of transgender representations in art, fiction, film, video, and music. This pioneering book offers both a jumping off point for future analysis of transgenderism and an important new way to understand cultural constructions of time and place.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but my local library has it, so I'm hoping I'll get around to it sometime soon.

[femmesandhoney]

thesis idea loosely about modern radical feminist (not radfem) movements utilizing online spaces, which are a part of the public sphere, as a subaltern counterpublic space in the modern technological and globalized age and what this could mean for future feminist social movements

[jarensmith]

Counter-publics in X-Men First Class

In this essay, I will be examining the existence of counterpublics in an artifact to answer these questions: why/how is it a counterpublic? What is this rhetorical message, and how does it use rhetoric to make arguments and/or create identity? How is it empowering and/or limiting? 

The artifact I will be looking at to answer these questions is a scene from X-Men First Class. In the artifact, Magneto’s message to Raven represents a counterpublic through Magneto’s belief that Raven shouldn’t have to hide her true identity to others. 

X-Men First Class takes place in a world that has humans and people who are born with special abilities who are called mutants. Because of the mutants having abilities, many mutants are discriminated against for their differences. Many mutants have been beaten or killed by humans. The mutant, Charles Xavier, a telepath, searches for a group of mutants to form a team that is later deemed as the X-Men. Once the X-Men were assembled, there was a training sequence to teach the team how to use their abilities for good to help for the sake of society. One of those mutants who is a part of the X-Men is Raven, a mutant who is able to shapeshift into any human. Raven’s natural appearance is that she has blue skin and red hair, but she often stays in a human appearance to avoid being hunted and killed. Another mutant that joins the X-Men is Magneto, a mutant who can manipulate metal. Magneto serves as one of the founding members of the X-Men, and often an enemy due to his opposite beliefs to Charles Xavier. 

At the end of a training session, Magneto is going to sleep for the day, and finds Raven in his room laying in his bed in her human appearance.  In this scene, the feelings towards Magneto and Raven are established. Magneto doesn’t like the idea of mutants having to hide and explains to Raven why she shouldn’t hide who she is to the world.

In Felski’s, the feminist counter public sphere, Felski introduces the idea of the feminist public sphere and counter publics in opposition to Habermas’ definition of the bourgeois public sphere. Counterpublics are seen as the non-dominant view, which places it outside of the public sphere. Felski states, “Unlike the bourgeois public sphere, then, the feminist public sphere does not claim a representative universality but rather offers a critique of cultural values from the standpoint of women as a marginalized group of society” (Felski 167). Mutants are the marginalized group of society, mutants are discriminated against and oppressed because of their differences. In my artifact, the counterpublic that is represented comes from the ideology of mutants. Mutants around the world have experienced discrimination and oppression from humans. Felski’s ideology behind counterpublics is connected to the ideology behind the mutant public sphere. In my artifact, Magneto critiques non-mutant society for the reason why Mystique hides her mutant appearance instead of embracing it. 

The Rhetoric of Race, Culture, and Identity: Rachel Dolezal as Co-Cultural Group Member by Mark Orbe analyzes the rhetoric of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who takes a black cultural identity. Rachel Dolezal is a white woman who assimilated into black culture. From my artifact, Raven has a similar rhetoric to Rachel Dolezal. As a mutant, Raven is able to transform into anyone, which makes it easy for her to assimilate into society. Co-Cultural theory is introduced by Mark Orbe. According to Orbe, Co-Cultural theory “explores how persons who are traditionally marginalized in dominant societal structures communicate in their everyday lives” (Orbe 27). Mutants are marginalized by those who aren’t humans. The counterpublic that Magneto builds towards Raven is that mutants shouldn’t have to assimilate into a society through hiding. While attempting to persuade Raven, Magneto uses rhetoric to build self-acceptance in Raven. 

The public sphere in the X-Men world is that mutants are feared by humans because of their abilities. According to Felski, the feminist public sphere can create a counter-public sphere “as in the case of other oppositional communities defined in terms of racial or ethnic identity or sexual preference, the experience of discrimination, oppression and cultural dislocation provides the impetus for the development of a self-consciously oppositional identity” (Felski 167).  Magneto and Raven’s conversation represents a counterpublic because of Magneto's message to help Raven be proud of who she is instead of being afraid of what other people think of her. The scene starts with Magneto telling Raven to leave the room because he is tired after a long day. Raven however didn’t listen to Magneto, but transformed into an older woman, thinking that is what Magneto wanted. What Magneto really wanted from Raven was to be in her natural appearance while being proud of her identity.

The rhetorical message in this artifact represents self-acceptance. Magneto wants Raven to accept her identity as a mutant because that is who she is and she shouldn’t hide that from the world. Magneto uses rhetoric to create a message of self-acceptance to argue as to why Raven didn’t have to and should not hide her natural appearance. “You don’t have to hide. Have you ever looked at a tiger and thought you had to cover it up?” (X-Men First Class). Magneto’s statement signifies that Raven doesn’t have to hide from the world because the world doesn’t hide from anyone. Humans and mutants both live in the same world and are exposed to the same things as each other. By declaring that Raven doesn’t have to hide from the world, he implies that the world doesn’t have to hide from her.  By creating this message, Magneto helps to establish a sense of identity for Raven. When Raven was transforming into multiple women before taking her natural appearance. “I prefer the real Raven,” because (X-Men First Class). Based on Magneto’s logic, the Raven that he would prefer to be with someone who is accepting of who they are that to be with someone who is pretending to be someone that they are not. 

Magneto’s rhetoric is empowering because of his pride as a mutant. Magneto doesn’t hide from society because he is different from others like Raven does. His pride as a mutant is connected to his own self-acceptance. By connecting to Raven, he is able to help form a new identity for Raven. “All your life the world has tried to tame you. It’s time for you to be free” (X-Men First Class). The “free” that Magneto is referring to represents Raven being both physical and mentally free. By accepting her identity as a mutant, Raven can be able to accept her natural appearance instead of constantly transforming into another person. Raven is free mentally because through self-acceptance, Raven no longer has to hide because she is no longer afraid of being judged as a mutant, resulting in a new identity for Raven. 

Magneto’s use of rhetoric towards Raven was productive because he was able to inspire Raven to be herself while not worrying about what others think.  Magneto understands why Raven would rarely take her true appearance, which he shows through his approach to eliminate Raven’s fear by helping her to accept herself instead of hiding. What Magneto wants for Raven is for Raven to be proud of being a mutant. From Magneto’s point of view, for Raven to be proud of being a mutant, Raven would have to take on her natural appearance more often. Raven has lived a life where she was constantly hunted by humans, which caused her to only take the form of a human.  An important thing to consider would be to analyze how Magneto spoke to Raven. Magneto wasn’t yelling at her, his tone was fairly calm. By the end of the scene, Magneto and Raven share a kiss before the movie transitions into a different scene. The reason why Magneto’s message to Raven is important is because we cannot make people accept us for our differences. Magneto understands that it is important for mutants to accept themselves, which Magneto wants Raven to understand. 

Magneto’s message of self-acceptance towards Raven represents a counterpublic because of the fear humans hold because of mutants. Through the use of metaphors, Magneto’s message empowers Raven, resulting in her being more accepting of her natural appearance instead of blending into society like she had done in the past.

Proper work cited

Felski, Rita. “The Feminist Public Sphere.” Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change, Hutchinson Radius, 1989, pp. 164–171. 

X-Men: First Class, Directed by Matthew Vaughn, Performances by Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, 2011, 20th Century Fox

Vaughn, Matthew. “X-Men: First Class (2011) - ‘I Prefer the Real Raven.’” YouTube, YouTube, 11 Dec. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rflZHreW6Mg. 

Orbe, Mark. “The Rhetoric of Race, Culture, and Identity: Rachel Dolezal as Co-Cultural Group.” Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric, 2016, contemporaryrhetoric.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Orbe12_3.pdf. 

[spiderfreedom]

'the word 'girl' here [in girlblogging] also works more as a symbol fo marginalized identities that use Tumblr as a counterpublic, resulting in an uneven demographic, than it does explicitly females' - "i'm like a pdf but a girl"

sometimes I wonder if being able to use 'girl/woman' as a generic, like 'man/boy', would be a positive step forward - that any human can see themselves in the example of a generic woman. but seeing it used such here, it simply feels like another erasure of 'females', decentered from our own words.

normally i would keep reading it because sometimes even awkward papers have interesting insights, but the font is absolutely killing me. not accessible at all

anyway i want to read 'feminism without women' next as a palliative to this world where 'feminism' seems to mean social justice for all the marginalized groups of the world but with no special commitment to women

[psdontgetdegrees]

Don’t Worry, I’m Still On My Learners… | Week 3: Tumblr Case Study

As a first time user of Tumblr, I would like to illustrate how easy this interface is to use! It’s actually pretty simple to start and get set-up. I found it really exciting to make an account on a social media site that I have never used before. It’s like a social media major’s christmas!

Hi, I’m “P’s Don’t Get Degrees”, and i’ll be explaining to you briefly what this is. I am enrolled in a Media and Communications Bachelor At Swinburne University, in Hawthorn, Melbourne. For one of my classes, as part of our assessment of knowledge, we have been tasked, as a class, to create a tumblr. And as part of the assessment, we must analyze and dissect each week's reading and display our knowledge in a short blog post on our page. Sounds pretty cool.

This is the first week, although the third? Confusing but it works out regardless. This is the beginning of a very cool story. I hope you enjoy it!

This weeks reading will be on Tumblr and a few case studies on

Required Readings: “Love the Skin You're In”

As a media industry, collectively, we still have a long way to go when it comes to broadening the concept of an ideal woman. We still “predominantly promote a narrow ideal”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P1) of what it means to be a beautiful woman, often discounting those with “higher weight”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P2). The idea however, that a few small creators could formulate a new trend through the use of social media, Tumblr to be exact, was exciting to a few women who didn’t fit the social norms of the western society. And thus the hashtag “#bodypositive”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P2) was created to fight back against the dehumanization that was placed on them.

Brave men and women adopted the “#bodypositivity”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P2) hashtag to “resist the fat stigma by promoting acceptance”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P6), which would grow the normalization of different shaped bodies. The use however on tumblr was a crucial point to the story, as it allowed users to spread content throughout the website, with no repercussions; these people weren’t shut out, censored or ostracized. Instead, users who utilized #bodypositivity were met with “a diverse and empowering feminist community”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P6). By being able to add blog-format written text, the posts with the empowering hashtag where seen not based on their follower count, but through siad hashtag, “allowing for a wider range of voices being heard”(Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022 P7, Cited from Renninger, BJ 2015)

Here are some links I think are relevant:

How to use tumblr: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-tumblr-tips-users/

Body Positivity: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-body-positivity-4773402

References

Reif, A, Miller, I & Taddicken, M 2022, ‘“Love the Skin You’re In”: An Analysis of Women’s Self-Presentation and User Reactions to Selfies Using the Tumblr Hashtag #bodypositive’, Mass communication & society, vol. ahead-of-print, no. ahead-of-print, Routledge, pp. 1–24.

Renninger, BJ 2015, ‘“Where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind” : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment’, New media & society, vol. 17, no. 9, SAGE Publications, London, England, pp. 1513–1529.

Thank you!

[teook]

During the course of conducting research for his landmark study of ftms, for example, Aaron Devor found that over half of his study’s participants reported experiences of intimate gendered abuse as children. Consequently, Devor speculates that “in some cases transsexualism may be an extreme adaptive dissociative response” to trauma. To this end, Devor quotes one of his subjects— a practicing therapist—at length:

I think that serious assault of a young child, especially sexual assault, might cause some children to dissociate and split in a way that establishes a sense of self different from one’s biological sex. . . . I don’t know whether there was a little girl that, fairly early on, through some abuse, disappeared. I don’t know that. But I do know that even if that happened, and I were to try to identify that and work it through, it just seems like the way I’ve lived my life to this point, for forty-one years, says there’s something to be said for that identity.

Like Cvetkovich, who tracks lesbian cultural production in order to elucidate how “trauma can be a foundation for creating counterpublic spheres rather than evacuating them”, Devor and his interlocutors gesture toward the ways in which dissociative responses to trauma might produce inhabitable selves and worlds rather than only destroying them. Indeed, this gesture is made again and again in the transmasculine archive, in the form of narratives that contain scenes of splitting that are hinges in their trajectories, represented as traumatic first encounters with sex difference, failed interpellation into “properly” gendered categories, explicitly transphobic violence, and so on.

While a dissociative poetic is arguably locatable in the writing of transmasculine authors as different in aesthetic, generic, and historical location as Elliott DeLine, Leslie Feinberg, Samuel Ace, Mario Martino, Akwaeke Emezi, Lou Sullivan, Pauli Murray, Jordy Rosenberg, Red Jordan Arobatue, Ely Shipley, and others, it’s especially notable in the work of trans/disabled writer Eli Clare.

— The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment, Cameron Awkward-Rich

[tranhuysstuff]

Week 5: Digital Citizenship and Online Activism - Navigating Hashtag Publics

What is Digital Citizenship?

Digital citizenship refers to the responsible and ethical use of technology by individuals in the digital world. It encompasses various competencies that include understanding digital rights, respecting privacy, and engaging appropriately in online platforms. In the context of political engagement, digital citizenship has become increasingly important as people use digital platforms not only for communication but also for advocacy and activism.

The term hashtag publics refers to the creation of online communities that coalesce around specific hashtags. These digital communities, often formed through social media platforms, serve as spaces where users can engage in political discourse, spread awareness, and mobilize for collective action (Jackson & Foucault Welles, 2015). Hashtags act as a tool for organizing information, amplifying marginalized voices, and fostering discussions that drive political activism.

Political engagement through digital citizenship manifests in several forms, such as sharing content, signing online petitions, or participating in digital campaigns. Digital activists leverage hashtag publics to challenge dominant narratives, foster solidarity, and promote social justice causes. The power of digital tools in activism has transformed political participation, making it more accessible and widespread (Bennett & Segerberg, 2013).

However, digital citizenship also brings challenges, including issues of misinformation, cyberbullying, and the digital divide, which limit some individuals' capacity to participate effectively (Jenkins et al., 2016). Thus, fostering good digital citizenship involves promoting media literacy, ethical online behavior, and the empowerment of all users to use technology responsibly in political and civic engagement.

References

Bennett, W. L., & Segerberg, A. (2013). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/logic-of-connective-action/6B54DBBEAD1625C2778F8D80A17D58E1

Jackson, S. J., & Foucault Welles, B. (2015). #Ferguson is everywhere: Initiators in emerging counterpublic networks. Information, Communication & Society, 19(3), 397-418. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1106571

Jenkins, H., Ito, M., & boyd, d. (2016). Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics. Polity Press. https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Participatory+Culture+in+a+Networked+Era%3A+A+Conversation+on+Youth%2C+Learning%2C+Commerce%2C+and+Politics-p-9780745660707

[formaianhassignment]

WEEK 3: Digital Community: Tumblr Case Study

In the week 3 unit, Tumblr serves as an interesting case study to explore the concept of the public sphere within digital spaces. The platform is known for fostering niche communities and providing a space where users can share content freely, with features such as anonymity, hashtag usage, and creative freedom (Renninger 2015). Tumblr’s loose restrictions (prior to 2018) and its non-reliance on real names have made it a haven for marginalized groups, particularly LGBTQ+ communities, to express themselves without fear of judgment or surveillance (Cavalcante 2018). These characteristics of Tumblr highlight its role in shaping micro-publics or smaller, overlapping digital communities, which challenge the traditional idea of a singular public sphere (Papacharissi 2010).

Hashtag activism is one of the key ways Tumblr has contributed to these digital communities. The hashtag #bodypositive, for instance, has played an important role in promoting feminist discourse around body image. According to Cohen et al. (2019), the body positivity movement aims to counteract the harmful effects of narrow beauty standards perpetuated by mainstream media (Cohen et al. 2019). While platforms like Instagram and TikTok have also engaged with this movement, Tumblr stands out for its relatively uncensored environment before its policy changes in 2018. Researchers have noted that, despite its empowering potential, the #bodypositive movement still struggles with the tendency to reflect traditional beauty norms, such as an overrepresentation of white, thin women (Gibson 2017).

The interaction between platform affordances and user behavior is critical in understanding how these digital spaces influence societal norms. Tumblr’s design, which allows for the anonymous sharing of content, played a pivotal role in creating an empowering space for feminist and body-positive movements. However, platforms that promote diversity and inclusivity can still reflect larger societal trends, including self-objectification and the reinforcement of hegemonic beauty standards (Tiidenberg & Van Der Nagel 2020).

In summary, Tumblr represents a crucial digital community where marginalized voices can engage in meaningful discourse. However, while platforms like Tumblr enable a certain level of freedom and creativity, they are not entirely free from societal pressures that shape user behavior. The case of #bodypositive highlights how digital communities can both challenge and replicate existing norms.

References:

Cavalcante, A 2018, “Tumbling into queer utopias and vortexes: experiences of LGBTQ social media users on Tumblr,” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 66, no. 12, pp. 1715–1735, viewed <https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1511131>.

Cohen, R, Irwin, L, Newton-John, T & Slater, A 2019, “#bodypositivity: A content analysis of body positive accounts on Instagram,” Body Image, vol. 29, pp. 47–57, viewed <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.02.007>.

Darwin, H 2018, “Body Positivity Movement: Feminist Progress?,” ResearchGate, viewed <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325429274_Body_Positivity_Movement_Feminist_Progress>.

Papacharissi, Z 2010, A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age, Polity.

Renninger, BJ 2014, “‘Where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind’ : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment,” New Media & Society, vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 1513–1529, viewed <https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530095>.

Tiidenberg, K & Van Der Nagel, E 2020, “Sex and Social Media,” Emerald Publishing Limited eBooks, viewed <https://doi.org/10.1108/9781839094064>.

[dailyanarchistposts]

From anti-homophobia to anti-heteronormativity

In the 1990s North American queer activism and queer theory shifted from an anti- homophobic position that resisted the heterosexual imperative, with an emphasis on AIDS activism, growing gay villages, and same-sex marriage (particularly in Canada), toward more complex challenges to the heteronormativity of institutions, laws and cultural practices. The term homophobia has fallen out of use by activists, as it contains within it the suggestion that there are legitimate psychological grounds for individuals to fear or have a phobia of homosexuality. Instead we use ‘heterosexism’ which points to the systemic nature of oppression against queers through cultural, political and economic structures favouring heterosexual- ity and heterosexuals. Heterosexism is the form of oppression resulting from the ideology of heteronormativity. In A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, Nikki Sullivan argues that heteronormativity does not exist as a discrete and easily identifiable body of thought, of rules and regulations, but rather, informs – albeit ambiguously, in complex ways, and to varying degrees – all kinds of practices, institutions, conceptual systems, and social structures. (2003: 132)

Similarly, Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner suggest that ‘Heteronormativity is more than ideology, or prejudice, or phobia against gays and lesbians; it is pro- duced in almost every aspect of the forms and arrangements of social life’ reprodu- cing itself systemically in ‘nationality, the state, and the law; commerce; medicine; and education; as well as in the conventions and affects of narrativity, romance, and other protected spaces of culture’ (2000: 318–19). This affects life practices such as parenting, joint bank accounts, hospital or prison visiting rights, travelling, immigrating, movie watching and inheritance. Heteronormativity frames hetero- sexuality as a universal norm making it publicly invisible, whereas homosexuality is meant to be private and thus becomes visible in public (Duncan, 1996: 137). Furthermore, heteronormativity requires the stabilization of bodies into two cis- gendered categories (male, female), whereas queer bodies may be transgender, transsexual, intersex or otherwise challenge this stabilization.

Two anti-heteronormative strategies that engage publics have been used by activists. Groups such as ACT-UP and Queer Nation challenged cultural norms by making interventions in heteronormative spaces such as shopping malls and bars. Activists ‘reterritorialize various public spaces through an assortment of strat- egies like the policing of neighbourhoods by Pink Panthers dressed in ‘Bash Back’ T-shirts or Queer Nights Out and Kiss-Ins where groups of gay couples invade straight bars or other public spaces and scandalously make out’ (Hennessy, 1994– 95: 51). Interventions announce the presence of queers, interrupting the heteronor- mative public by challenging the assumption that queer sexuality belongs in private. As Hennessy argues, ‘The queer critique of heteronormativity is intensely and aggressively concerned with issues of [queer] visibility’ (1994–95: 36) in hetero- normative publics. The second strategy is the creation of queer counterpublics engaged in spaces like gay bars and villages that facilitate queer activism, dis- courses, cruising, and socializing. Berlant and Warner have found that sex-oriented queer commercial spaces such as S/M bars, cafes, porn shops and bookstores are important sites for queer counterpublics: ‘there are very few places in the world that have assembled much of a queer population without a base in sex commerce’ (2000: 327). In these spaces, the public is predominantly queer, as the spaces create ‘nonheteronormative worlds’ (2000: 329).

Exhibit A: ‘A garden-variety leather bar’ that ‘hosts a sex performance event’

‘A boy, twentyish, very skateboard, comes on the low stage at one end of the bar, wearing lycra shorts and a dog collar. He sits loosely in a restraining chair. His partner comes out and tilts the bottom’s head up to the ceiling, stretching out his throat. Behind them is an array of foods. The top begins pouring milk down the boy’s throat, then food, then more milk. It spills over, down his chest and onto the floor. A dynamic is established between them in which they carefully keep at the threshold of gagging. The bottom struggles to keep taking in more than he really can. The top is careful to give him just enough to stretch his capacities. From time to time a baby bottle is offered as a respite, but soon the rhythm intensifies. The boy’s stomach is beginning to rise and pulse, almost convulsively... the top inserts two, then three fingers in the bottom’s throat, insistently offering his own stomach for the repeated climaxes. (Berlant and Warner, 2000: 328–9)

This example of erotic vomiting engages non-heteronormative erotic play thereby creating a queer counterpublic of the audience. ‘Counterpublics are, by definition, formed by their conflict with the norms and contexts of their cultural environment’ (Warner, 2002: 63). A queer counterpublic then engages queer sexualities and pro- duces opportunities for the circulation of discourses about them that are in ‘conflict with’ or resistant to heteronormativity.

Important to this resistance is the liberation of the body from some of its private and public constraints. Theories of privates and publics tend to assign sexualities (homo/hetero), genders (male/female)[1] and races (white/non-white) to private or public domains in ways that re-enact binaries and stereotypes. Specific sexual acts, behaviours, objects, bodies, or spaces, however, are not inherently only either public or private. Warner suggests that the terms public and private ‘seem to be preconceptual, almost instinctual, rooted in the orientations of the body and common speech’ (2002: 23), whereas it seems that notions of appropriate public and private behaviour are highly socially constructed. The example he gives is not about publics but ‘privates’: ‘A child’s earliest education in shame, deportment, and cleaning is an initiation into the prevailing meaning of public and private, as when he or she locates his or her ‘‘privates’’’ (2002: 23). However, there is nothing intrinsically ‘private’ about one’s genitals, rather this is something children learn when they are told to cover up. Spaces where people may experience the pleasure of privates in public include nudity clubs, clothing-optional beaches, naked sports teams, saunas, naked yoga classes, and sex parties. In these spaces the body does not ‘naturally’ orient itself toward the privacy of sexuality or sex organs. Human sexual parts are not hidden away like our internal organs are (livers, kidneys, spleens), rather they are on the surface of the body. They are the surfaces of our bodies: almost every part of the body’s surface is potentially sexual in some way. Thus what Warner calls the ‘orientations of the body’ are not toward privacy as he claims, but rather toward a proliferation of public sensualities and sexualities. Bodies liberated through unlearning can be both private and public at once, or neither, as we choose. The liberation of bodies calls into question not just notions of privates and publics but the entire set of social norms that this binary frames. Part of this includes the liminal spaces of bodies, including clothing and affect, as specific instances in which the public/private distinction is thrown into crisis. Warner suggests that ‘Clothing is a language of publicity, folding the body in what is felt as the body’s own privacy’ (2002: 23). Humans emphasize the privacy of our ‘privates’ by covering them up. Similarly, feelings are meant to be experienced and expressed in private. ‘Some bodily sensations – of pleasure and pain, shame and display, appetite and purgation – come to be felt, in the same way, as privacy’ (2002: 23). Sensations emanating from the body and gazes fixed upon the body are thwarted in their attempts to cross the threshold from private to public by our socialized conceptions of propriety: we must cry, vomit, fall in love or have sex behind closed doors. However, if the body’s own privacy is intrinsic to it, why do we need clothes to fold the body into privacy? Is it not more liberating for sensa- tions and emotions to be shared rather than to be entirely private? Warner’s claim for what is naturally public or private with respect to the body risks the reinscrip- tion of norms emanating from heteronormativity.

Queer citizenship has provided another framework for rethinking heteronorma- tivity. Robert Corber and Stephen Valocchi argue that ‘sexual and gender norms... serve as prerequisites for membership in the nation’ (2003: 15). The nation, through the legal system and its heteronormative capitalist discourses, establishes rules for entry, belonging and success, from which queers are systematically excluded.[2] Belonging in a queer nation can be achieved by transgressions of sexual and gender norms. ‘Even as the nation-state establishes and enforces these norms of belonging, spaces open up in which individuals can exercise sexual agency, partly in resistance to these dominant understandings of sexual citizenship’ (Corber and Valocchi, 2003: 15). Warner situates agency for the sexual citizen within the queer counterpublic. He argues:

A public, or counterpublic, can do more than represent the interests of gendered or sexualized persons in a public sphere. It can mediate the most private and intimate meanings of gender and sexuality ... It can therefore make possible new forms of gendered or sexual citizenship. (2002: 57)

Non-oppressive queer social relations can be developed through counterpublics creating spaces for queer sexual citizenship yielding the agency to participate in a ‘process of world making’ (Warner, 2002: 57).

However with increasingly militarized borders, citizenship is a fraught category. A system of sexual citizens and non-citizens, with inferior rights accorded to the latter, entails a hierarchization of sexualities whereby some would have ‘sexual citizenship’ and others would not. Who would adjudicate such citizenship?

How would national citizenship intersect with sexual citizenship? Are non-citizens of the nation-state able to access sexual citizenship? Bobby Noble has shown that in Toronto same-sex bath-houses, presumably sites of ‘queer citizenship’, the current entrance policy is ‘show your dick at the door’, a trans-phobic white-centric polic- ing of bodies (Noble, 2009). The concept of sexual citizen holds within it a policed border that refuses some people (i.e. non-white, trans or intersex, immigrant, people who do not conform to western beauty standards, people in poverty, people with disabilities and so on) admission into queer counterpublics. Queer activists thus challenge theorists to consider the nation, capitalism and other inter- sectional forms of oppression in their challenges to heteronormativity.

[invishkind]

“State Names Map: Cahokia” by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

📍Exhibit: St Louis Art Museum

“Jaune Quick-to-See Smith has been creating complex abstract paintings and prints since the 1970s grounded in themes of personal and political identity.” (CounterPublic)

This exhibit will span Smith’s career and draw attention to her work in St. Louis. The displacement of Indigenous peoples in the St. Louis region was a result of a combination of treaties, military actions, legislative measures, and economic pressures. This displacement led to significant loss and suffering for Native American communities, shaping the historical and cultural landscape of the region.

My takeaways: This piece deviates from my art studying thus far; but the context/history doesn’t. The indigenous spaces have been rewritten, overwritten and eliminated over time. It’s hard to believe that the places I call home, was once, home to someone else. Home (or spaces) that have been displaced and ripped away. The same can be reclaimed with gentrification to urban areas. What’s the sacrifice from one groups’ comfort to another? I don’t know. I guess we all live in that sacrifice somehow.

[corpbizlegal]

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[w3lcometopr3s3ntation]

Counterpublics

COUNTERPUBLICS - refers to the alternative spheres of debate created by marginalized voices