Becoming a political subject through affect and social media in feminist student movements in a Chilean school

ABSTRACT

The last decade was marked by cycles of social movements around the world, where resisting and fighting against neoliberal capitalism and a patriarchal system have been at the centre of political action. In Chile, the Feminist May student movement in 2018 was a turning point and showed the strong and entangled relationship between students, feminism, and social media. In this article, we draw attention to the process of becoming a political-feminist subject in the initial trajectories of a group of secondary students, leaders of a Chilean feminist student organization. The case study was based on ethnographic observation of the school and social media, as well as in-depth and ethnographic interviews with leaders of the organization, the school principal and two teachers. We reflect on the role of affects in digital and political engagement, the negotiations and tensions undertaken by young people in the school context, where they become political-feminist subjects.

KEYWORDS:

• Affect
• social media
• Chilean student movement
• feminism
• Instagram

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the youth participants who generously gave us their time, thoughts, and energy for this project. Also, thanks to the reviewers of this article for their crucial comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The project was approved by the ethics committee of the author’s institution.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Chilean National Agency of Research and Development (ANID): Becas Chile and FONDECYT N° 1210631.

Notes on contributors

Andrea Valdivia

Andrea Valdivia Social anthropologist and PhD of Education. Professor in the Faculty of Communication and Image, Universidad de Chile.

María Jesús Ibañez

María Jesús Ibañez Bachelor of Mass Communication, Universidad de Chile and Master in Gender (Research), London School of Economics and Political Science.

Fernanda Rojas

Fernanda Rojas Bachelor of Literature and Linguistics, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Master in Gender, London School of Economics and Political Science.