“Lo vamos a conseguir”: Instapoetry as a vehicle for feminist movements in the contemporary Spanish context

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this addition to the European Journal of English Studies special issue, the author reflects on the employment of social media application Instagram by contemporary poets in peninsular Spain as a tool for projecting societal concerns specifically related to feminism and social equality movements, proliferated by technological affordances such as the graphological hashtag (#). By analysing the connections between poetry, digital culture and feminist activism, this article examines the poetry of popular Instapoetas Elvira Sastre and Leticia Sala and its underlying feminist message, as well as the implications of writing in and of the so-called “fourth wave of feminism.” Where the poetic content, visual imagery and captioned employment of hashtags are seen to perpetuate the work of offline, feminist activism, Instapoetry can be seen as an assistant or a “valid contribution” to collective action.