Browsing by Author "Wiens, Brianna I."

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Feminist Shadow Networks: 'Thinking, Talking, and Making' as Praxes of Relationality and Care
(Open Library of Humanities, 2023-10-17) Wiens, Brianna I.; MacDonald, Shana; Kadir, Aynur
In the face of the constraints and pressures of the neoliberal university, this article argues for the importance of feminist shadow networks as a response to the unequal academic grounds on which scholars and students are asked to situate themselves. Calling for such networks as a model of relationality, we suggest that critical friendship and careful support are necessary for addressing the exacerbated correlating class-, race-, and gender-based inequities that continue to haunt us. We outline three praxes of “think, talk, and make” that we, the Feminist Think Tank, a research-creation collective that advances work on feminist media, art, and design, rely on in our feminist shadow work. In the section on THINKING, we offer the guiding orientations to our work that are grounded in epistemologies of un-learning, feminist relationality, and critical friendship. Next, in TALKING, we discuss our approaches to collaboration, analysis, and community, which are nested within epistemologies of careful support and trust. Last, in MAKING, we outline recent projects that Feminist Think Tank has undertaken, offering examples of how we create our own digital feminist interventions from the space of the feminist shadow network. Overall, this work contributes to more careful and critical approaches to research, data, technological affordances, and feminist histories via our feminist shadow networks, offering alternative stories and ways of being in the academy. Face aux contraintes et aux pressions de l'université néolibérale, cet article défend l'importance des réseaux fantômes féministes comme réponse aux inégalités académiques sur lesquelles les chercheurs et les étudiants sont invités à se situer. En appelant à de tels réseaux comme modèle de relationnalité, nous suggérons qu'une amitié critique et un soutien attentif sont nécessaires pour aborder les inégalités exacerbées et corrélées basées sur la classe, la race et le genre qui continuent à nous hanter. Nous décrivons trois pratiques de "penser, parler et faire" sur lesquelles nous, The Feminist Think Tank, un collectif de recherche-création qui fait avancer le travail sur les médias, l'art et le design féministes, nous appuyons dans notre travail de l'ombre féministe. Dans la section PENSER, nous présentons les orientations qui guident notre travail et qui sont fondées sur les épistémologies du désapprentissage, de la relationnalité féministe et de l'amitié critique. Ensuite, dans la section PARLER, nous discutons de nos approches de la collaboration, de l'analyse et de la communauté, qui s'inscrivent dans des épistémologies de soutien attentif et de confiance. Enfin, dans MAKING, nous décrivons les projets récents entrepris par The Feminist Think Tank, en offrant des exemples de la manière dont nous créons nos propres interventions féministes numériques à partir de l'espace du réseau fantôme féministe. Dans l'ensemble, ce travail contribue à des approches plus prudentes et critiques de la recherche, des données, des possibilités technologiques et des histoires féministes par le biais de nos réseaux fantômes féministes, offrant des histoires et des manières alternatives d'être dans le monde académique.
#Girlhood: Why Memetic Aesthetics of Hyperfemininity Matter for Feminist Media Studies
(Brill, 2025-01-31) Wiens, Brianna I.; McWebb, Anna
There is a pressing need to focus attention on hyperfemininity as a valid and valued form of gender expression and feminist protest within contemporary social media. As resistance against the heteropatriarchal gender expectations that influence femininity and that produce femmephobia, we focus our analysis on the social media #girlhood meme trend that, we suggest, embraces a wide range of femme practices through the re-mixing of fem(me)ininity and femme-ness, while critiquing heteropatriarchal norms. We trace the circulation of #girlhood, including coquette aesthetics, #barbiecore, and #bimbofeminism, outlining how these playful expressions of femininity contribute to subverting expectations of “successful” femme bodies. We argue that if gender norms are scripts that prescribe and describe how we must act, then widening the range of acceptable feminine behaviour through hyperfemininity, as manifest in #girlhood memes, is crucial for changing how we discipline femme bodies and how we analyze femininity within media studies.
#Girlhood: Why Memetic Aesthetics of Hyperfemininity Matter for Feminist Media Studies
(Brill, 2025-01-31) Wiens, Brianna I.; McWebb, Anna
There is a pressing need to focus attention on hyperfemininity as a valid and valued form of gender expression and feminist protest within contemporary social media. As resistance against the heteropatriarchal gender expectations that influence femininity and that produce femmephobia, we focus our analysis around the social media #girlhood meme trend that, we suggest, embraces a wide range of femme practices through the re-mixing of femme identity, while critiquing heteropatriarchal norms. We trace the circulation of #girlhood, including coquette aesthetics, #barbiecore, and #bimbofeminism, outlining how these playful expressions of femininity contribute to subverting expectations of “successful” femme bodies. We argue that if gender norms are scripts that prescribe and describe how we must act, then widening the range of acceptable feminine behaviour through hyperfemininity, as manifest in #girlhood memes, is crucial for changing how we discipline femme bodies and how we analyze femininity within media studies.
How to Use Creative and Embodied Methods
(SAGE Publications, 2022-07-12) Wiens, Brianna I.
This guide provides an overview of when, how, and why researchers can and should (re)engage with their bodily senses, affects, feelings, and motivations for the purposes of digital social science methodological inquiry. Using the example of Feminist Think Tank’s research-creation project, Feminists Do Media, this guide offers junior and intermediate researchers the vocabularies and tools needed to understand what embodiment means within the social sciences. It also considers the ethical implications of embodied methods and the situated role that researchers play during the research design, implementation, and dissemination stages. This guide then outlines how to reflect on the politics of digital media spaces that researchers are working with to teach readers about how digital media affordances impact the research process. Ultimately, readers will learn: (1) how to gauge when embodied methods are a good fit for the research they are undertaking; (2) how to effectively design research questions for embodied research; and (3) how to situate their role as a researcher to critically consider ethics, power, positionality, and the politics of the digital space.