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The changing landscape of gender non-conforming characters: Non-binary Narratives and Representations in Land of The Lustrous
No full textNegotiating (activism) cultural differences: lessons from the FridaysForFuture’s transnational and local networks
No full textClimate change has come to define the current generation of activists (Fisher, 2016; Hestres & Hopke, 2017), with
social media being an integral part of this novel wave of mobilizations (Castells, 2011; Hopke & Hestres, 2018).
Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s Friday school strikes, the FridaysForFuture (FFF) movement is at the forefront of this
fight. As a transnational social movement, FFF’s organization is a complex network of national and local groups,
which interact with each other via periodic video calls, meetings, and assemblies. Analyzing ethnographic data
from a six-month participant observation (Emerson et al., 2007; Pink et al., 2016) of FFF-Rome and a three-day
participant observation of FFF-Italy’s latest training event in Brescia, this contribution discusses: (RQ1) how social
media facilitate interactions among culturally different FFF groups; and (RQ2) how this cultural diversity affects local
FFF groups’ interactions with the local social movements’ field and, by extension, FFF’s local activism.
Results’ thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2011) emphasizes social media’s role in enabling, coordinating, and facilitating FFF’s transnational network organization. It also highlights how FFF activists negotiate local values, needs,
and practices with (inter)national strategies and goals (i.e. FFF-Italy localizes FFF’s global fight against fossil fuels via
campaigns against Italy’s fossil fuel giant ENI). Findings suggest that (inter)national and local differences among FFF
groups are connected to differences in activism cultures (Baumgarten et al., 2014; Jasper & Polletta, 2019), which
affect FFF groups’ interactions with local movements. For example, FFF-Rome’s relations with the Roman student
movement reflect FFF-Rome’s attempts to both embody FFF’s values and find common ground with Roman
students (i.e. by choosing when to adopt or reject Roman activism practices) to join forces against climate change.
The proposal thus raises questions about what happens when social media facilitate interactions and negotiations
among different cultures of activism within transnational social movements, how this reflects on the local social
movement field, and what this might mean for the future of activism in the network society
Speaking up for climate justice: youth revindicating their voice in FridaysForFuture-Rome’s climate activism
No full textThe climate crisis has come to define this generation of activists (Hestres & Hopke, 2017), who are fighting for better awareness and policies to face this global challenge. The FridaysForFuture (FFF) movement, especially, is composed of young activists who resort to their moral authority as children (Marris 2019) to demand adults take responsibility for jeopardizing their future (Wahlström et al., 2019), thus anchoring FFF activism in the generational, self-identification
processes implied by being young (DellaPorta 2019).
By reviewing literature on youth activism (Bishop, 2015; Gordon, 2009; Liou & Literat, 2020; O’Brien et al., 2018) and digital activism (Bennett & Segerberg, 2011; Hopke & Hestres, 2018; Toret et al., 2015; Trerè, 2019), and analyzing thematically (Guest et al., 2011) twenty semi structured interviews to FFF-Rome activists, this contribution explores how FFF-Rome activists challenge adults’ patronizing attitudes by speaking up about the climate crisis on their own channels
(social media) and in their own way (expressing the needs of their generation).
It highlights how FFF activists resist the ageism that judges them unfit for political participation and resort to online and offline activism to fight against climate change. It focuses on the connection between youth activism and generational identity and analyzes young climate activists’ struggle to be heard and taken seriously by adults (Kligler-Vilenchik & Literat, 2019) as they fight against and strategically embrace paternalistic aptitudes to achieve their goals
Pursuing a Gender Non-conforming “Hellscape:” Investigating Non-binary User and Fan Practices on Tumblr
No full textThe article contributes to budding research on nonbinary individualsbyanalyzing nonbinary people’s practices as social media users and fans on Tumblr. Drawing from literature on nonbinary identities, gender performativity, platform vernaculars, and Tumblr it analyzes semi-structured interviews to Tumblr members of a particular group, the Houseki no Kuni (HnK) fandom. The findings highlight how nonbinary fans of HnK utilize Tumblr’s vernacular and affordances to manage a safe(r) space where to express whatthey perceive as their true selves (RQ1), while using fandom discussions to validate and narrate their identity as nonbinary individuals (RQ2) towards the creation of more accepting futures
Who is ‘We’ in ‘We, the future without future?’ On generational identity and youth (digital) activism in and beyond FridaysForFuture-Rome
Full text linkThe average global temperatures spiked in the last century and extreme climate phenomena became increasingly and dramatically common. The conditions of the planet have contributed to inaugurating a novel wave of climate activism, which sees an important contribution in young people, who are mobilizing worldwide to ask for better policies to face what has been defined as humanity’s greatest challenge.
The FridaysForFuture (FFF for short) movement has especially been at the forefront of this fight. Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s 2018 Friday school strikes in front of the Swedish Parliament, the movement has spread globally in a complex network of national and local groups that share common values and goals (inclusivity, intersectionality, decarbonization...) but also express their unique geographical and cultural identity as they localize the climate fight to each group’s necessities. As it is already clear from the name ‘FridaysForFuture,’ the movement’s fight is strongly connected to the generational identity and youth-based sense-makings of its members. Incipient literature on FFF has observed how especially young activists join the movement to safeguard the interests of their own generation, following the idea that older generations have doomed the planet and taken the future away from younger people. In this context, social media are privileged platforms for FFF activists, who resort to them for advocacy and awareness-raising, while also recruiting adhesions to the movement in a continuous hybridization of meanings and practices that blurs the boundaries between online and offline spaces. FFF-activists’ social media usage practices are also informed by younger people’s media ideologies (Gershon 2010b) and sense-makings and can therefore open windows in the unique ways young people understand social media as environments for both digital activism and generational identity-building processes.
Informed by literature addressing identity making practices, collective identity, generational ‘we sense,’ digital and youth activism, this thesis investigates the interplay between generational identity and youth social media activism focusing on the FFF group of FFF-Rome. This study is a multimethod qualitative research, combining a six-month multimodal ethnography (of the group’s activities and its Instagram page) and semi-structured interviews to FFF-Rome activists. Consistent with an ecological approach to social media, this method allowed for the direct observation of social actions as they happened, preventing a disjunction between their contexts and individual and collective meanings. These choices were complementary with the adoption of innovative ethical standards and practices of engaged research. As a result, this thesis advocates for ‘committed’ research when studying social movements, favoring research appropriation by the activists and in solidarity with their fight.
Concretely, this work answers the following research questions:
1. How do FFF-Rome activists combine their generational identity with being climate activists?
2. What can the case of FFF-Rome tell us about the current generation of youth (climate) activists and, more in general, about the identity of this generation of young people?
3. How do social media usage practices and FFF-Rome’s identity mutually shape each other?
4. How do FFF-Rome activists negotiate social media usage practices and norms within the movement?
Part 1 addresses RQ 1 and 2 by observing how the activists combine a generational understanding of climate activism and climate change with their own identity as young people of the 21st century. Part 2 answers RQs 3 and 4 by analyzing how the activists appropriate digital platforms as youth’s ‘own’ channels, and how they move seamlessly between online and offline environments, negotiating architectural and technical affordances.
While different parts of this thesis answer distinct research questions, all sections are strongly interconnected and contribute to all research questions collectively. The conclusions especially highlight this bond and suggest that changes in the communicative infrastructures have essentially redefined the communicative and political practices of climate activism. It is not just the struggle that is generationally connoted, but also the communicative channels and the protest practices that accompany it. FFF-Rome activists fully legitimize digital activism and incorporate it in all phases of their struggle, intertwining social media ideologies (Gershon 2010b) with activist ideologies. In this context, social media are considered both as a means to an end and as digital spaces young people ‘own’ in virtue of their being young
FridaysForFuture and the “kaleidoscope effect” between climate, digital and youth activism
No full textClimate activism in and beyond visualities: insights from the global strike of FridaysForFuture-Rome
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Rappresentazioni sociali del cambiamento climatico e pratiche d’uso dei social media in FridaysForFuture-Roma
No full textFridaysForFuture and the “kaleidoscope effect” between climate, digital and youth activism
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