The racial economy of Instagram

Abstract

This paper explores the mechanisms of white supremacy within digital spaces in relation to the body/embodiment, social justice movements, and the nature and expression of contemporary feminism. New digital political economies work through social media such as Instagram to colonise, disempower and obscure the work of Black feminists in the sphere of fat liberation (re-framed as ‘body positivity’), and in terms of imperatives for self-care, which have been co-opted by an emerging online wellness industry. I call to account the pervasiveness of neoliberal logics which are re-shaping (post)feminism and re-inscribing white supremacy onto bodies online and offline through ‘disciplined whiteness’.