(University of Oregon, 2018-09-06) Barreto, Andrea; Chavez, Christopher
This thesis analyzes how Latinas on Instagram actively resist social and cultural conventions of sexuality, propriety and femininity through the adornment and arrangement of their bodies. Taking into account expectations of women's behavior in public spaces, I examine the ways social media as a digital public sphere reliant upon user-generated visual content creates opportunities for rejecting mutually exclusive understandings of womanhood. The Latina users in this study employ raunch aesthetics and the performance of productive perversity, as theorized by Jillian Hernandez (2014) and Celine Parreñas Shimizu (2007) respectively, via accessories and nonverbal behavior to problematize racialized and classed representations of gender.
