Bodies, belongings and becomings: an ethnography of feminist and queer Instagram artists

This thesis explores the aesthetics and politics of a small group of queer feminist Instagram artists. At the time of writing, there remains a thin, white-western, and cis gendered ideal of women’s body types that is presented in mainstream social media narratives (Gerrard, 2018; Slater, et al. 2019; Gerrard and Thornham, 2020; Cheng, 2022). This, paired with increasing reports of homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, fatphobic and racist online hate speech in recent years (Hubbard, 2021; Stefanita and Buf, 2021; Keighley, 2022) has made it increasingly important to understand how to make healthy and diverse online communities which can bridge social difference and offer spaces to belong. In this thesis, I build on the work of feminist scholars (Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2019; Gill, 2016; Kanai, 2019; Lorde, 1984) to investigate the ways marginalised bodies belong and become through Instagram art and activism. I interview seven feminist and queer Instagram artists forming case study analyses, and through a digital ethnographic and feminist new materialist methodology, I analyse the practices of these participants to understand the experiences of their bodies being enmeshed with Instagram. I explore the following questions: How are feminist and queer artists using art and Instagram to create spaces of belonging? How does algorithmic content moderation affect the participants’ perceptions of and feelings towards their bodies? How can feminist anti-racist Instagram art be used as a lens with which to understand intersections of race and gender in experiences of subjectivity? And, what is the utility of retheorising the body through queer, feminist art on Instagram? Analysing the case studies through visual analysis, affect, intersectionality, feminism and a lens made through digital ethnography and new materialism, my findings in this research emerged through exploring themes in the participant’s art in line with the experiences they described in both their private interviews and Instagram Live interviews. In this investigation, I found that young people’s art making on Instagram about queerness and feminism prompted online spaces to form which focused on marginalised experiences of belonging. Following this thread, I first looked at the socio-material elements of belonging in participant Frances Cannon’s art, and this case study analysis supported my contention that, through young people’s art making on social media about queerness and feminism, spaces of belonging are being made, and this has a certain force which extends beyond the limits of the body, and the materiality of art. In response to this finding, I then went on to look at how in some instances, the participant’s having their content moderated on Instagram, made them feel like their own bodies were being moderated. Existing narratives of social and cultural exclusion are indeed often taken up by content moderation practices and, because Black bodies, fat bodies, queer bodies, women’s bodies and other marginalised bodies are policed more frequently in public space, content moderation of the artists’ works was often described in the research as feeling like a personal attack on the participant’s own bodies. This shift in feelings and perception speaks to the enmeshment of bodies with more than human processes. In my third area of exploration, I found that practices of intersectional feminism (like feminist art making) can advance notions of intertwining and entangled identity categories. The discussions from the participants who identify as people of colour provide context for understanding the intersections between how bodies belong and don’t belong in the same context simultaneously (Black, non-binary, queer feminist artists sometimes feel unseen in feminist art spaces). Practices of making feminist art through differing lenses (anger and eroticism for example) can be positioned as a way of practicing intersectional feminism, and this provides a unique angle with which to view the intersections of race, gender and sexuality. I theorise the body as it becomes through Instagram, drawing on theories from Deleuze and Coleman, along with an analysis of postfeminist media cultures focusing on Gill’s work. In using these scholars to analyse my own work, I develop a conceptual frame with which to better understand the participants’ experiences and the diverse ways bodies are assembled through Instagram art. This theorisation is what I call ‘becoming an Instagram body’ and is an extension of thinking about how bodies become through images (Coleman, 2009) towards how bodies become through Instagram practices, publics and the networks which facilitate them. The discussion I put forward is a contribution to the field of gender studies with a specific focus on advancing existing arguments in feminist theory. Throughout the latter half of the thesis, I also map the complex attachments the participants have to the structures of Instagram. These structures allow them to gain visibility and success through the affordances of being situated in a neoliberal and postfeminist media culture which is reliant upon producing profit. The participants I interview are feminist and queer artists, and often activists for people of colour, or identify as people of colour, but they are also simultaneously influencers with substantial followings of over 10,000 followers. I have highlighted the ways their critique of social media narratives around bodies and belongings is also, at times, minimised through their social, cultural and financial capital which is gained through being an everyday user of the platform of Instagram. I end the thesis with a provocation for future researchers to take up this investigation of how marginalised bodies are belonging and becoming through Instagram art, as it is through this investigation where I have found some communities which have begun to ‘recompose’ as ‘the new starting points’ (Braidotti, 2013, p.54) creating space for more queer and feminist belonging to emerge.