Leda Sutlović
“Contemporary Feminist Activism in the post-Yugoslav Region“
This research explores the recent online ‘boom’ of contemporary feminist activism in the post-Yugoslav countries sharing the same linguistic space.
The discourse these activists construct is profoundly marked by humour, most evident in the usage of screenshots from popular 1980s TV series or photos of philosophers and historical figures in creation of memes. Anger and outrage over the cases of gender-based violence represent another example that often provokes rapid reactions, goes viral, and initiates further on-line interactions. Creation of the ‘call out’ culture, raising awareness, education, and protest, can be identified as some of the ways in which the latest generation of feminist activists provides resistance to the current backlash to gender and other related issues.
This research focuses on the ways in which activists formulate resistance – how they utilise affective framings to construct and communicate their message, which knowledge and activist continuities they establish, and how they initiate/organize online/on-the-streets mobilizations. Envisioned as digital ethnography, the data from web pages (e.g. texts, memes, gifs, photos, videos) is selected and interpreted within the reconstructed socio-political contexts using affect frame analysis and thick description.
Guided by the concepts of affect theory and emotions and social movements theory, the aim is to contribute towards creation of knowledge on ‘third/fourth wave’ feminisms in the region, as well as on affective mobilizations in the post-socialist context.
Leda Sutlović holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Vienna, and has studied at the University of Zagreb and the Central European University in Budapest. Her doctoral research dealt with the issue of (post)-socialist transformations of Eastern European gender regimes (title: “Interpreting Post-Socialist Gendered Transformations through Feminist Institutionalism, Ideas and Knowledge – the case of Croatia (1970-2010)”). She has written on feminist movements and gender politics, state-society relations, participation and socio-cultural centers, and the role of knowledge and ideas in politics. Before Rijeka she worked on the project “Gendering democratization: path dependencies or rupture in the face of anti-gender campaigns”, hosted at the CEU Democracy Institute, where she researched protest activity and social movements in Croatia, with the focus on the interrelation of popular requests for democracy and gender equality.