The performance of protest: Las Tesis and the new feminist radicality at the conjunction of digital spaces and the streets

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I conduct a multimodal analysis of videos of Las Tesis’ performance “Un Violador En Tu Camino,” posted on YouTube and Twitter, with the aim of obtaining deeper insights into how digital platforms encourage the creation of large-scale, transnational feminist mobilizations and how the encounter with narratives of multiple violences can enable new types of feminist radicality. Rather than locating the digital at the center point, a non-digital centric approach opens up for attending to the digital as part of something wider, and I analyze the interplay between the digital and non-digital in the building of a multifaceted feminist collectivity. I find that the variegated enactments “Un Violador” illuminate feminism as a transnational feminist collective through shared meanings and values, characterized by commonalities as well differences. These dimensions allow feminist performances to move across multiple scales and borders and become a radical, transversal social phenomenon on a macro scale.