YouTube and Muslim Women’s Legal Subjectivities
Keywords:
Communications, Visual Studies, Gender, New Media, Islamaphobia, Legal Pluralism, comunicaciones, estudios visuales, género, nuevos medios, islamofobia, pluralismo jurídico,Abstract
This paper is located within the discursive and spatio-temporal landscape of post 9/11 Canada in which national identity and beliefs about belonging are embedded in pervasive Islamophobia. Its starting point is that social media are key sites for expression of discrimination and intolerance vis-à-vis people of the Muslim faith, and especially the constitution of Muslim face and head scarves as a metonym for Islamic terrorism and a quintessential symbol of uniquely fundamentalist manifestation of patriarchy. I ask, however, whether new modes of visibility might be captured when we examine representational sites of Muslim femininity through the lens of ‘new’ or ‘critical’ legal pluralism. I highlight how women have used Social Networking Sites (SNSs) to respond and reconfigure more entrenched discourses around Muslim femininity circulated elsewhere, such as in formal institutionalized state-based law, mainstream/Western feminist discourses, and in popular cultural productions. I have found that Muslim women deploy social media to constitute or express alternative subjectivities and to represent and evaluate their own understandings of feminism, normative femininity, religious practices, including the multiple meanings that attach to the donning of Islamic headscarves.
Este documento se sitúa en el paisaje discursivo y espacio-temporal de la Canadá post 11-S, cuya identidad nacional y creencias sobre la pertenencia están incrustadas en la islamofobia dominante. Su punto de partida es que las redes sociales son sitios clave para la expresión de la discriminación y la intolerancia vis-à-vis de la fe musulmana, y en especial la constitución del rostro musulmán y del pañuelo en la cabeza como una metonimia de terrorismo islámico y el símbolo por excelencia de la única manifestación fundamentalista del patriarcado. La autora se pregunta, sin embargo, si las nuevas formas de visibilidad pueden ser capturadas cuando examinamos sitios de representación de la feminidad musulmana a través de la lente de un "nuevo" o "crítico" pluralismo jurídico. La autora destaca cómo las mujeres han utilizado las redes sociales para responder y volver a configurar discursos más arraigados alrededor de la feminidad musulmana distribuidos en otros lugares, como la ley formal basada en el estado institucionalizado, discursos feministas dominantes/occidentales, y las producciones culturales populares. La autora encuentra que las mujeres musulmanas utilizan los medios sociales para constituir o expresar subjetividades alternativas y para representar y evaluar su propia comprensión del feminismo, la feminidad normativa o las prácticas religiosas, incluyendo los múltiples significados que se adhieren a la colocación del velo islámico.
DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2356844
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