Instagram provides key opportunities for self-expression and self-representation, especially among young women. There remains, however, pressure to conform to normative categories of beauty, femininity, and sexuality on the platform. Using narratives from religious, ethnic minority women, this paper examines perceptions surrounding ideal ‘Instagram identities’ and what it means to be worthy of visibility online. Social media are touted as fostering diversity, individuality, and cross-cultural engagement. Yet, portrayals of women on Instagram continue to uphold Western perspectives that associate agency with liberation and persistently stereotype religious groups. The prevalence of tokenised representations also risks further alienating already marginalised communities. To give voice to these communities, this study employs a feminist, exploratory, and interdisciplinary framework. It uses in-depth focus groups and individual interviews with Muslim, Jewish, and Christian women located globally, to better understand their expectations for representation and how they negotiate the expression of multiple facets of their identities online. The findings demonstrate how self-presentations of nuanced, lived experience are crucial to religious women’s agency on Instagram. Specifically, acts of curation, creation, and community building allow women to express pride in their religious identities while challenging Western ideals of beauty, sex, and femininity. Conversely, the discussions highlight the enduring pressures of reconciling religious duties with Instagram trends, which result in detrimental behaviours of comparison and self-surveillance. The research culminates in participants’ evaluation of whether representation is truly necessary on Instagram and how social media tools can be utilised towards diverse expressions of identity for future generations of religious women.

Authors:
Rachel Marie Abreu, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Rachel Abreu is a PhD Researcher in the Communications, Media, and Culture Department at the University of Stirling. Her research centres on social media, identity, and representation within a postcolonial, feminist framework.

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