Summary/Abstract |
This paper sheds some light on the new landscape of digital feminist activism in Saudi Arabia, which has been rarely analyzed using the lens of social movements theories. I specifically focus on the Twitter campaign to end the male guardianship system, in which a growing number of Saudi women have reclaimed the use of Twitter to disseminate their claims and demand social reforms, maneuvering by that a constraining political environment that is characterized by a dearth of channels for civic engagement, lack of traditional forms of feminist organizing, and different calculations for mobilization, and in this way the women’s movement does resemble a state of abeyance. Consequently, the paper presents new evidence that challenges the traditional take on abeyance by emphasizing on how Twitter can be used as a catalyst for the emergence and preservation of ad-hoc abeyance networks that enables and sustains the feminist movement activities.
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