Mediating embodied protest: Performative body in social protests in the Internet age in China

Abstract

The performative body treats the body as a potential site of resistance. Situated in the specific Chinese context, this study explores the female performative body and its emotional, spatial, and visual manifestation in the embodied protests. Particularly, this article uses Ye Haiyan, a famous Internet celebrity in China, as a particular case to illustrate how the deployment of the performative body can provide a site of embodied protests in a specific Chinese context, why it is reasonable and possible, and what is its implication. By examining Ye Haiyan’s bodily practices, this article illustrates how Ye Haiyan turns her body into a site of struggle and a political resource, how she deploys her body as a weapon to evoke broader emotional and moral resonances, and how she provokes Internet users to spectate, interpret, and imitate her body images, making possible a space of appearance in cyberspace. The article finally discusses its possible contribution and limitation.