Tweeting Feminism: African Feminisms, Digital Counterpublics and The Politics of Gendered Violence

Abstract

Tweeting feminism is a digital ethnographic and archival study of the ways in which Kenyan feminists appropriate Twitter as a site for community building. Firstly, I explore the mutually enabling modes of gendered violence that have been deeply engrained in Kenya’s public sphere for the duration of its existence as a nation-state – what I call a continuum of patriarchal violence. These modes of harm ultimately short-circuit women’s engagement in mainstream politics and therefore the use of public political space to contend with harm exacted on women. In the wake of this violence, I then contend that a “digital feminist counterpublic sphere” emerges – a term which I use to describe the alternative publics that radical Kenyan feminists have developed to survive their exclusion from formal public sphere engagement. I argue that in this online space, radical Kenyan feminists use disrespectability, care, solidarity practices and archival practices – what I call digital ululations – to generate and strengthen feminist community.