Social reproduction in the live stream

Abstract

In this paper I seek to explicate how alternative, particularly feminist, modes of social reproduction emerge through digital networks in contemporary social movements, using Concordia University Television’s live streaming of Quebec’s 2012 student strike as a case study. By examining this struggle in the light of more contemporary movements and technological changes. In this I seek to aid an understanding of technology use in social movements that presents itself not simply as a new or alternative political project, but as a new way of collaboratively accounting for collective interests. Sketching the changes since 2012 by looking to the live streaming initiatives in the anti-police brutality protests in Ferguson and Baltimore 2015, this paper will suggest future horizons of digital and embodied activism around social reproduction focused on media forms within social movements. Based on ethnographic research, including participant observation and interviews, I argue that the practices and projects of live streaming can expand forms of social reproduction autonomous from both the state and capital. The digital practices of social reproduction emerging in contemporary struggles can contribute to circumventing power while at the same time constituting sites of resistance within and beyond social and political contestations.