The memeing body: More-than-activism in the more-than-real

Abstract

This article explores the ways that bodies are imagined and enrolled in a digital political project in the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Using data from online and in-person fieldwork over the course of 2020–22, I follow a small group of young people in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who spend their days running CAT (Citizens Against Terrorism), a self-described anti-fascist meme group active on platforms such as Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as their own website. Behind the seeming unseriousness of this endeavour is a deliberate approach, grounded in the view that Bosnian youth are not apathetic, but ignored; that they are actively being targeted by the far right through memes and other mirthful means; and that attempts to engage youth in left political action must meet them on their own turf. As they attempt to meet young people where they are, the CATs engage in what they call “more-than-activism”, a serendipitous nod to the more-than-real spaces they create through their digital and physical activities. Drawing on cyberfeminism and recent work in digital geography, the article argues for an approach to young people’s politics that is sensitive to their embodied experiences, including in the digital parts of their lives. Through a more-than-real approach, we can understand how seemingly ephemeral objects like memes come to matter in the making and unmaking of political projects.