CARGC Colloquium: Jinsook Kim, “Sticky Activism: Online Misogyny and Feminist Anti-Hate Activism in South Korea”

In this presentation, digital media are analyzed as a key battlefield in the intense cultural and political conflict between feminists and misogynists that has been playing out in South Korea since 2013. Drawing on textual, discursive, and institutional analyses of digital media platforms and interviews with feminist activists, I show how new modes of feminist activism on and offline have contested the pervasive misogyny in the country by increasing public interest in gender issues and extending the reach of feminism. Foregrounding the concept of “sticky activism,” which encompasses affect, media capacity, and participants’ activities, I argue that these efforts have contributed to the formation of affective feminist counterpublics that have served to articulate gendered discontent with misogynistic culture and society, to contest and challenge deep-seated gender violence, and to develop new feminist subjectivities.