The presentation brought into conversation the two fields of gender studies and media studies in order to investigate how the central paradigms of feminism — autonomy and visibility — are re-envisioned when we take into account the performance of politics shaped by the affective workings of media technologies. How are the sensory workings of media — its materiality, textual forms, codes of address, and modes of circulation — intrinsic to contemporary modes of doing politics? How do the charged exchanges between media forms bring to the surface the performative dynamics of protests in different contexts in India? Political events from regional contexts in India, such as the Kiss of Love protests in Kerala, were used as anchoring sites to explore these questions.
These questions put forward the conception of the body as a porous and unstable site and allow for an engagement with scenography of protests in which resistance and embodiment is imagined a new.
Dr. Mokkil is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Women’s Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University; her work focuses on queerness, sexuality, the politics of visibility and media. She is the co-editor of Thinking Women: A Feminist Reader and author of Unruly Figures: Queerness, Sex Work, and the Politics of Sexuality in Kerala.