Several publications explore the canonical modes and counterhegemonic representations of women as victims

In a similar way to the previous research projects led by the Principal Investigator of the URJC project, Sonia Núñez Puente, the theoretical development is one of the strengths of the current project. The systematization of the formation mechanisms of victimization processes in the images and the digital discursive practices on YouTube and social networking sites by feminism, whether institutional or not, has been reflected in different texts that have been published or are in the process of being published. It is noteworthy that the works are published in high impact journals.

One of them is Sonia Núñez Puente’s text “Femen in the Current Spanish Political Context: Feminist Activism and Counterhegemonic Modes of Representation”, in press in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. This work reflects on the counterhegemonic modes of representation entailed by the activist practices of the FEMEN collective in the Spanish context.

Another noteworthy article is that by Sonia Núñez Puente, Diana Fernández Romero and Susana Vázquez Cupeiro published in 2017 in Feminist Theory: “Cyberfeminism, Participatory Activism, and Public Policies against Gender-Based Violence in Spain”. The text discusses the interrelation between cyberfeminism, feminist praxis and public policies around gender violence in Spain.

In the article by Sonia Núñez Puente and Diana Fernández Romero “Desafíos de las tecnologías del activismo feminista: reapropiaciones del cuerpo femenino en Youtube” (“Challenges of feminist activism technologies: reappropriations of the female body on Youtube”), published in 2017 in Labrys, estudos feministas/études feministas, a theoretical effort is made to capture the paradigm of affect by Keller (2015) and the materiality of the activist proposals. It additionally reflects on the politics of awkardness (theorized by Smith-Prei and Stehle, 2016), concerning the clumsy and the uncomfortable, as opposed to the profitability of feminist actions. Both authors were also coordinators of the monographic issue: “Patriarcado: imágenes y discursos de violencia” (“Patriarchy: images and discourses of violence”) of the journal Labrys. The papers that make up the monograph show the emancipatory possibilities which, from heterogeneous approaches, are presented by feminist discourses. In her text in this issue “La foto de mi sangre. Mujeres artistas desmantelando la imagen del patriarcado” (“The photo of my blood. Women artists dismantling the image of patriarchy”), the team member Gema Pastor Andrés has helped to unravel the resistance that women artists exert when representing their blood and their possibilities to destabilize representation frameworks in a patriarchal cultural context.

Online activism and alternative representations

By the two PIs of the coordinated project, Sonia Núñez Puente and María José Gámez Fuentes, is the article edited by Feminist Media Studies in 2017: “Activism Trouble: Spanish feminism, popular misogyny and the place of the victim”. A theoretical reflection is made on the displacement of the place of the victim of gender violence in the Spanish public sphere and its occupation by neo-sexism. The text delves into the ways in which feminist activism acts and responds to a victimising discourse that leaves out the woman who suffers violence and places men as victims.

It is also worth noting the text that Sonia Núñez Puente published in 2017 in Feminist Formations: “Activism Trouble: Transfeminism and Institutional Feminism in Spain”. In this work, the PI deals with the practices of transfeminism and institutional feminism in Spain.

Some of the articles that team member Nùria Vergés Bosch has published deal with the gender perspective in research, the mechanisms of self-inclusion of women in ICT or the construction of identities, such as the collective text “‘From alliance to trust’: constructing Crip-Queer intimacies” published in the Journal of Gender Studies.

Igor Sádaba has also reflected on methodology in the online space, having published the results of research about the digital impact upon social movements, such as the article he co-authored with Eduardo Romanos “From the Street to Institutions through the App: Digitally Enabled Political Outcomes of the Spanish Indignados Movement” in the journal Revista Internacional de Sociología (“International Journal of Sociology”).

In turn, the researcher Mar Chicharro is about to publish the chapter dedicated to television representation “La ficción de producción propia entre 1985 y 1972” (“Self-produced fiction between 1985 and 1972″) in the book by the publisher Cátedra La televisión en España, 1956-1990 (“Television in Spain, 1956-1990”).

In the article by José Manuel Sánchez Duarte and Diana Fernández Romero “Subactivismo feminista y repertorios de acción colectiva: prácticas ciberfeministas en Twitter” (“Feminist Subactivism and Collective Action Repertories: Cyberfeminist Practices on Twitter”) published in the journal El Profesional de la información (“The Information Professional”), the interconnections between subpolitics and subactivism, latent citizenship, hybrid organizations and feminist activism online are explored theoretically.