Envisioning Common Presence, Enacting Hopeful Futures : Connective Journeys through Lebanese Instagram
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Keywords: feminist digital geographies, social media, protest, Lebanon, diaspora, decolonial futures
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Sylvia Feghali, University of Colorado, Boulder
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Abstract
At the intersection of digital humanities, performance studies, and postcolonial feminist geography, this research maps affects of hope generated and transported by the global Lebanese community, specifically through Instagram. Evolving from my position within a transnational network of Lebanese cultural organizers, this research is driven by my interest in identifying and practicing ways of imagining possibilities outside of foreclosing structures produced and upheld by forces of colonialism and capitalism. In doing so, I explore how transnational communities cultivate space through "performance constellations" (Fuentes, 2019) that build networks towards futures otherwise. Drawing from data collected via webscraping, discourse analysis, interviews, and interactive creative projects, I explore the kinds of connections being enacted on Instagram among users engaging in content related to Lebanon, and how these connections are encountered by those positioned outside the community. Important to this project are key theorizations about digital space in Geography. This includes moves to challenge fabricated boundaries between physical and digital space, as well as interventions in visual methodologies that underscore use of image-driven platform Instagram. In considering Instagram as part of a "performance constellation" at work in community building, I also ask what role does geographic scholarship play in supporting, limiting, or furthering imaginations of space that might lead toward more hopeful futures?
Envisioning Common Presence, Enacting Hopeful Futures : Connective Journeys through Lebanese Instagram
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Paper Abstract