Let’s play with memes! Bagladies re-create internet memes as rebellious research disruptions to adult/child binaries.

Louise Hawxwell, Liz Latto, Julie Ann Ovington, Jo Albin-Clark

Research output: Contribution to conferenceAbstract

Abstract

As scholars of childhood who use story-telling and story-sharing as part of our ever-evolving collective baglady~narrative~methodology, this iteration of bagladies turns to notice internet memes that perpetuate the young child as less than, marginal from and always ‘othered’. In attending to meme cultures and their sticky, spreadable and replicable nature, we trouble how children’s subjectivity is co-opted and absorbed as they are re-made as objects of late-stage capitalism. We explore how children’s rights can be repeatedly diminished as the value of this re/presentation are monetised in each act of re-creation and re-posting. Firstly, we notice a series of internet memes that feature children and ponder their liveliness within social mediated online platforms as a troubling of how they are positioned. We question the exploitative nature of adults co-opting children’s images for their own entertainment and amusement. Consideration is also given to how non-human algorithms not only perpetuate this affect, but actively create digital spaces where this thrives and mutates. Secondly, we re-create memes with our own images in disruptions of adult/child binaries and ask questions of ethical response-ability, an ongoing and always-increasingly complex dialogue. Through our choice of memes and the imposition of our own image, we ourselves become vulnerable. This play-full act invites others to question our interpretation and positionality. As Western, White, educated women working within the academy we are privileged and somewhat protected from the affect of questioning adult/child binaries and other established dominant discourses. However, what would happen should we post our own memes? Why have we not done so already? Perhaps we feel that we are not so protected after all. Finally, we invite participants to baglady with us and ponder their relationality with meme cultures, and how far such approaches might offer generative, hopeful and rebellious forms of research as playful activisms
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 8 Jan 2025
EventEuropean Congress of Qualitative Inquiry - University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Duration: 8 Jan 202510 Jan 2025
Conference number: 8
https://ecqi2025.exordo.com/programme/presentation/218

Conference

ConferenceEuropean Congress of Qualitative Inquiry
Abbreviated titleECQI
CityEdinburgh
Period8/01/2510/01/25
Internet address

Keywords

  • memes
  • baglady
  • adult/child binary
  • response-ability
  • positionality

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