2018
DOI: 10.1177/0163443718818356
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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 wh… Show more

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Cited by 6 publications
(5 citation statements)
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“…Our study echoes Soja's (1996) insight that people's long-term and fixed imaginations about the functions of public spaces greatly restrict spatial practices. Contrary to scholars who regard space as an existing physical and symbolic resource that activists could strategically employ (Cao, 2017;Daphi, 2014;Lin, 2018;Sewell, 2001), we argue that most alternative spatial practices will be undermined, co-opted, or even erased by authorityimposed spatial structures. We should not exaggerate the spatial agency of social movements in changing, resisting, or subverting the deep, latent, and normalizing capacity of power holders in shaping narratives to neutralize the spatial agency of social movements.…”
Section: Discussioncontrasting
confidence: 86%
“…Our study echoes Soja's (1996) insight that people's long-term and fixed imaginations about the functions of public spaces greatly restrict spatial practices. Contrary to scholars who regard space as an existing physical and symbolic resource that activists could strategically employ (Cao, 2017;Daphi, 2014;Lin, 2018;Sewell, 2001), we argue that most alternative spatial practices will be undermined, co-opted, or even erased by authorityimposed spatial structures. We should not exaggerate the spatial agency of social movements in changing, resisting, or subverting the deep, latent, and normalizing capacity of power holders in shaping narratives to neutralize the spatial agency of social movements.…”
Section: Discussioncontrasting
confidence: 86%
“…Yet, this study argues that the facelessness of the soldiers also served the purposes of the resistance movement since, through the daily use of mobile phones and social media, faces have become 'a new battleground' (Mann, 2019); thus, revealing or hiding one's face is a form of political action. Since the human face is a new site of politics in conflict situations driven by the use of social media and since the protesters themselves may use their bodies as well as the emotional, visual and spatial aspects of them (Butler, 2011;Lin, 2018), the facelessness of the soldiers allows more room for the protesters to 'reveal' their own faces, i.e. to show emotion through their bodily and facial expressions -expressions that are perceived as more authentic because elements of the truth effect contribute to the representation of 'reality' and help construct an emotional juxtaposition to the faceless power of authority, thereby emphasizing their humanitarian struggle.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In this way, the importance of pictures is especially significant for 'resource-poor protesters' (Lin, 2018) who are being repressed by the government. Using their own bodies, protesters may perform a spectacle for purposes of self-expression and gain media coverage for their causes by performing dramatic instances of civic action (Bob, 2005;Krastev, 2014) that have different types of societal impact, especially in terms of reproducing ideology by challenging prevailing cultural hegemony, communicating social knowledge by manifesting ordinary life and modelling citizenship through emotional engagement, as noted using the five functions of Hariman and Lucaites (2007).…”
Section: O N C L U S I O Nmentioning
confidence: 99%
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“…On this stage, it is possible to realize that social inequality plays out in alternative ways. Therefore, images ‘are no longer only the medium by which we communicate our political activities, but have also become an end in themselves: the very stuff that politics is made of’ (Bottici, 2014: 106; Lin, 2018).…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%