Complicating Visuality From the Margins: Muslim Female YouTubers Claim a Re/presentational Space of Their Own

• In Event: 35.082 - Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: 35.082-15 - Speaking To/From/Against: Media Representations and the Gendered Self

Abstract

This paper reports on a collaborative visual ethnography involving the researcher and two Somali-Canadian, Muslim, female, youth You-Tubers. We inquire into their media making practices, live(d) experiences, and sense of identity. With limited resources at their disposal, they formed a media production company. Three years later, they have numerous videos, a fan base on YouTube, and an advertising contract with Google. This paper focuses on how the content of their videos and their participation in YouTube culture speak back to visual representations of Muslim women in the mass media and the absence of marginalized identities in the school curriculum. While their primary audience is the Somali Diaspora, their videos are also filtering into other curricular spaces as a disruptive force.

Author

• Diane Patricia Watt, University of Ottawa