Remembering through #LetUsTalk: an affective archive narrating Iranian women´s everyday trauma and resistance habits

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the intersection of hashtag activism, remembering practices, and the diaspora by focusing on the #LetUsTalk hashtag. Employing feminist memory studies, it examines the evocation of objects, occasions, and experiences associated with the hashtag, particularly focusing on diasporic Iranian women´s memories of compulsory hijab and how these memories are embodied and remembered. This article argues that #LetUsTalk is a form of hashtag memory activism enabling diasporic Iranian women to shape an archive of affect. Within this archive, a diverse range of affective responses, bodily reactions, and resistance habits emerge as participants recall forgotten, mundane, and unwanted memories. Through conducting memory work, it sheds light on the capacity of hashtag memory activism to create a space for collective remembrance. In this type of collective remembering, non-participants add their voices to hashtag contributors to unveil hidden struggles of everyday life in connection with mundane memory objects, leading to the generation of new political and transformative actions even if they perform in a minor key.