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Prefiguration of utopian spaces in feminist protest landscapes

Analysis of marches and occupations in Chile (2018–2020)

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Austral de Chile
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Abstract
In recent years, urban and digital activism campaigns have given feminist mobilisations a transnational scope, establishing a politics of prefiguration and contributing to the feministisation of social struggles and protests. In this context, the Feminist May (2018) and the Social Uprising (2019) emerged in Chile, led by young women contesting patriarchy and capitalism as interrelated systems of domination. Drawing on a corpus of 70 photographs posted on Facebook and Instagram between May 2018 and May 2020, this article analyses the semiotic landscapes of protest from a multimodal and socio-cognitive perspective. It examines how semiotic practices, expressed through the emplacement and use of women’s bodies and messages, simultaneously signal and perform spatial, communicative, and cognitive processes. Findings show that feminist protest landscapes prefigure utopian spaces as disobedient spaces where affects and values prevail, and as liberated spaces where a project of an anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, and decolonial society is rehearsed.
Resumen
En los últimos años, las campañas de activismo urbano y digital han dado a las movilizaciones feministas un alcance transnacional, estableciendo una política de prefiguración y contribuyendo a la feministización de las luchas y las protestas sociales. En este contexto surgieron en Chile el Mayo Feminista (2018) y el Estallido Social (2019), liderados por mujeres jóvenes que impugnan el patriarcado y el capitalismo como sistemas de dominación interrelacionados. A partir de un corpus de 70 fotografías publicadas en Facebook e Instagram entre mayo de 2018 y mayo de 2020, este artículo analiza los paisajes semióticos de protesta desde una perspectiva multimodal y sociocognitiva. Se examina cómo las prácticas semióticas, expresadas a través del emplazamiento y el uso de los cuerpos y los mensajes de las mujeres, señalan y performan simultáneamente procesos espaciales, comunicativos y cognitivos. Los resultados muestran que los paisajes de protesta feminista prefiguran espacios utópicos como espacios desobedientes donde prevalecen afectos y valores, y como espacios liberados donde se ensaya un proyecto de sociedad antipatriarcal, anticapitalista, antifascista y decolonial.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Context of study
  • 3.Theoretical framework
    • 3.1From prefigurative politics to performativity
    • 3.2From utopian spaces to utopias of revolt
    • 3.3From protest LLs to feminist protestscapes
  • 4.Tracing the feminist protestscapes through multimodal posts
    • 4.1Positionality and data collection
    • 4.2Analytical framework
  • 5.Embodying and spatialising feminist protestscapes
    • 5.1Marches posts
    • 5.2Occupations posts
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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