Between experiences and differences in digital media: : modes of using #seráqueéracismo

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between modes of use and identification processes related to #seráqueéracismo on Twitter. It examined how social differences were articulated in the discursivities about "experiences of racism", by analyzing contents published on digital media. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with influencers and producers of intensely shared narratives, using the analytical foci of "experiences" and "differences", based on Queer Theory. In these negotiations about differences, the hashtag - a communication mode about itself - was intensely used to both demonstrate the controversial practice of perceiving a specific dominant racist norm, in some narratives, or to generate a discussion about a lack of recognition and inferior treatment of certain "experiences about racisms" reported in other narratives. In this interplay of ambivalences of experiences, normalizations of differences were at times reproduced through demarcations of positions and stereotyping of subjects and subjectivities, and at other times were contested. The reports of "the racism of others" was also very frequent, directly linked to a desire for social and subjective recognition that guide these usage modes (which, in many cases, was denied to black people, who were conferred to victimization and accountability for the existence of the "racist experiences " reported).