Shifting Cyberfeminism and Gendered Activisms in the Gulf: A Saudi Feminist Spring?

Abstract

This qualitative feminist study sheds light on women’s shifting identities, struggles, and resistances in the most conservative Gulf state, Saudi Arabia, unpacking the shifting socio-political and mediated environments in this country and their impact on gendered activism. Through conducting in-depth interviews with ten Saudi women activists, journalists, and writers, this study investigates Saudi women’s multiple feminisms and activisms, as they are expressed and enacted by different women using the phenomenon of “cyberactivism”, and its sister phenomenon of “cyberfeminism”, to participate in the waves of socio-political transformation in the volatile Gulf region. In discussing how Saudi women are leveraging social media to advance their agendas, amplify their voices, highlight their demands, and enact new forms of leadership, agency, and empowerment, the double-edged sword effect of social media is unpacked. Adopting a postcolonial feminist approach, this study examines the potentials, challenges, and paradoxes of using social media to advance Saudi women’s rights in a rapidly shifting state.

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