#Metoo as communities of practice: a study of Chinese victims’ digital narratives of sexual harassment

ABSTRACT

Online disclosure of one’s own experience and the harasser’s name is a prominent way of telling #MeToo stories in China. Drawing on the theoretical perspective of community of practice (CoP), this article conducts a narrative analysis of these disclosures to explore how they are employed to form communities of practice that serve to resist sexual harassment, thereby contributing to digital feminism in China. The study finds that they shape a common identity as victims and sustain affective solidarity through sharing traumatic experiences and reflective discourses to build the community. Their discursive practice of exposing harassers, including tagging variant hashtags, archiving contents for continued proliferation, and inviting netizens to re-post information, serves to break the silence and challenge the social environment that connives at sexual harassment, constituting a forceful digital feminist movement. By incorporating the theoretical insights of CoPs with the #MeToo movement, the article expands the study of digital feminism.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual harassment
• narrative
• community of practice
• digital feminism
• #MeToo

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank the editor Professor Mohan Dutta and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).