‘I'm a feminist, I'm not ashamed and I'm proud’: Young people's activism and feminist identities in Estonia, Spain and the UK

Abstract

This paper explores the upsurge in young people's activism across Europe by drawing on three ethnographic studies of feminist and LGBT activism. The studies include a feminist organisation, UK Feminista, in a stable liberal democracy, the Feministes Indignades in post-fascist Spain, and the LGBT movement in post-communist Estonia. The paper argues that feminist identities, both individual and collective, are critical to the feminist and LGBT movements studied; that affect, both positive and negative, contributes to processes of mobilisation and identity formation; and that, while social media are an important element of repertoires of action in all three cases, the forms of action engaged in draw on a range of cultural resources, many of which derive from earlier cycles of protest. It pays particular attention to the ‘coming out’ stories of activists, the transformation of fear and shame into anger and pride which is central both to transforming individual identities and creating collective identities, and how these processes differ in the three case studies.