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Sudanese Women’s Groups on Facebook and #Civil_Disobedience: Nairat or Thairat?(Radiant or Revolutionary?)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2019

Nada Mustafa Ali
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Abstract:

The first two decades of the twenty-first century witnessed expanded digital connectivity, with important political implications, evident in the way activists used Facebook and Twitter to mobilize for political change in North Africa and beyond in 2010/2011, and in Sudan, including in 2018 and 2019. These platforms are also often sites where women may articulate narratives on the body and the body politic. Through digital ethnographic research, this study explores social and cultural narratives on everyday body aesthetics that Sudanese women articulate in selected groups on Facebook. I argue that the role some of these groups played in organizing civil disobedience in Sudan in November 2016 disrupts the binary inherent in the question: Nairat or Thairat?

Résumé:

Au cours des deux premières décennies du XXIe siècle, la connectivité numérique a été étendue, avec des implications politiques importantes, comme en témoigne la façon dont les activistes ont utilisé Facebook et Twitter pour se mobiliser dans le but d’un changement politique en Afrique du Nord en 2010/2011 et au-delà, ainsi qu’au Soudan en 2018 et 2019. Ces plateformes sont aussi souvent des sites où les femmes peuvent articuler des récits sur le corps et le corps politique. À travers des recherches ethnographiques numériques, cette étude explore les récits sociaux et culturels sur l’esthétique corporelle quotidienne que les femmes soudanaises articulent dans des groupes sélectionnés sur Facebook. Je soutiens que le rôle joué par certains de ces groupes dans l’organisation de la désobéissance civile au Soudan en novembre 2016 bouleverse le binaire inhérent à la question : Nairat ou Thairat ?

Resumo:

Nas primeiras duas décadas do século XXI, assistiu-se à intensificação da conectividade digital, o que teve importantes consequências políticas, expressas no modo como os ativistas usaram o Facebook e o Twitter para mobilizar as populações em prol de mudanças políticas no Norte de África e mais a sul, em 2010/2011, e no Sudão, inclusive em 2018 e 2019. Muitas vezes, estas plataformas são também sítios onde as mulheres podem desenvolver narrativas acerca do corpo e do corpo político. Apoiado em investigação etnográfica digital, este estudo analisa as narrativas sociais e culturais desenvolvidas pelas mulheres sudanesas em grupos do Facebook. Do meu ponto de vista, o papel que alguns destes grupos desempenharam na organização de protestos civis no Sudão em novembro de 2016 coloca em causa a dicotomia inerente à questão: Nairat or Thairat?

Keywords

social mediaFacebookSudangenderbody aestheticscivil disobediencedigital ethnographyglobalizationactivism
Type
Forum: Bodily Practices and Aesthetic Rituals in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Africa
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 103 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2019 

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