This special issue of Feminist Media Histories arises from pressing questions about a historic convergence with significant political consequences: the joint rise of digital technologies and feminisms across hemispheric Latinx+ America.1 In contrast to even two decades ago, an increasingly plural feminism is now one of the most extensive social movements in the region, producing new political forms, knowledge, and subjects.2 In addition, the people(s) of Latinx+ America are—although unevenly—one of the most networked in the world. While in the United States an estimated 80 to 91 percent of Latinxs are connected to the internet, as of 2021 there were over 500 million Latin American users, and the region’s internet incursion reached 78 percent, surpassing China’s, at 74 percent.3 Latinx+ Americans are also among the most politically effective deployers of digital technologies.4 A striking example is the 2019 viral “Green Wave” mobilization to protest violence against...
Introduction: Paradoxical/Relation: Latinx+ America, Feminisms, and Digital Media
Frances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker, writer, scholar, and professor at Columbia University, where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities. Among her publications are: Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (CHOICE Award, 2004); The Latino Media Gap: A Report on the State of Latinos in Media (2014); and Sovereign Acts: Contesting Colonialism in Native Nations and Latinx America (2017). Negrón-Muntaner has received various recognitions, including the United Nations Rapid Response Media Mechanism designation as a global expert in mass media and Latin/o American studies; the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, the Latin American Studies Association Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award, and the Premio Borimix from the Society for Educational Arts in New York. Her most recent project is Valor y Cambio, a digital storytelling and just economy experience in Puerto Rico and New York (valorycambio.org).
Orianna Calderón-Sandoval is Junior Lecturer in Gender Studies and English Cultures at the University of Granada (UGR), affiliated with the Women’s and Gender Studies Research Institute of UGR. Her research interests are located at the intersections of gender/feminist and film/transmedia studies. Among her recent publications are “Debating Sexual Consent in the Teen Series The Hockey Girls: Reactions of Instagram Audiences,” cowritten with Isabel Villegas and Pilar Medina, Sex Education (2024); and “Entanglements of Feminist Activism and Gender Equality Policy in the Spanish and Swedish Film Industries: Between Convergence and Critique,” cowritten with Maria Jansson, Journal of Gender Studies (2024).
Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Orianna Calderón-Sandoval; Introduction: Paradoxical/Relation: Latinx+ America, Feminisms, and Digital Media. Feminist Media Histories 1 October 2024; 10 (4): 1–9. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2024.10.4.1
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