Transnational Feminism and Affective Communities as Resistance to Technopatriarchy: The Instapoetry of Nikita Gill and Monika Radojevic

This article aims to provide a feminist approach to community which moves away from patriarchal communitarian models and towards feminist genealogies, an ethics of care, and affective communities. It engages with the communitarian theories of Jean-Luc Nancy and Maurice Blanchot, particularly those of operative, inoperative and unavowable communities. The article then moves towards a feminist approach to community construction informed by concepts of vulnerability, affect and transnational feminist solidarity, drawing on genealogies from scholars such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Monika Rogowska-Stranget. The authors propose Feminist Affective Communities as a framework that promotes respect for alterity, situated knowledges, and an awareness of oppression–particularly regarding gender. This model emphasises intersectional connections, the collective over the individual, and voluntary, affect-based alliances capable of evoking change. Such transnational alliances are essential to resisting technopatriarchy and forging solidarity in a globalized world. The article also examines the relevance and context of the 'transnational turn' in literary studies and its link to how Instapoetry is read. By applying a feminist close-reading methodology, the authors reveal how Feminist Affective Communities take shape through the interactions between author, text, and readership within a digital, transnational environment. Finally, case studies of two transnational poets, Nikita Gill and Monika Radojevic, are analysed to illustrate how the theory of Feminist Affective Communities informs a critical reading of Instapoetry and how these communities are mediated by literary forms and affective responses.