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Article published In:
Political discourse analysis of female political leaders in the Global South
Edited by Mark Nartey
[Journal of Language and Politics 23:1] 2024
► pp. 21–44

The construction and legitimation of Elisa Loncón as a Mapuche female political leader on Instagram

ORCID logo | Universidad de O’Higgins
ORCID logo | Universidad Austral de Chile
ORCID logo | Universidad Austral de Chile

This study analyzed the multimodal discursive strategies Elisa Loncón, a Mapuche linguist and renowned academic, used on Instagram to position herself as a sociopolitical leader during her tenure as president of the Chilean Constitutional Convention. 811 Instagram posts from her account were downloaded from 15 January 2021 until 15 January 2022. From this, 81 of the most interacted posts were selected and used to examine her multimodal discursive strategies while drawing on the Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl and Wodak 2001, 2016). The results revealed three main themes: (1) the construction of an alternative leadership, (2) visibilization of female leadership decision-making, and (3) a vindication of linguistic rights. Referential and intensification strategies were particularly salient, and they were used to legitimize her role and foreground her Mapuche ancestry. These findings highlight how female political leaders (and their intersecting identities) strategically deploy their communication practices to resist sexism and racism.

Keywords: indigenous female leadership, constitutional process, multimodal analysis, social media, Chile
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Female and indigenous political leadership and communication
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Elisa Loncón as a Mapuche female leader
    • 4.1An alternative leadership
    • 4.2Visibilization of female leadership decision-making
    • 4.3Vindication of linguistic rights
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.22144.per
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