Against the aesthetics of cruelty: #MahsaAmini, vulnerability, and feminist resistance in Iran
Abstract
This article examines the #MahsaAmini protests through the lens of political aesthetics, vulnerability, and feminist resistance. Drawing on feminist theory, affect studies, and Middle Eastern scholarship, it analyzes how Iranian women's embodied acts of defiance confront the state's aesthetics of cruelty. Focusing on Instagram as a key semiotic battleground, the article shows how women's bodies became sites of political poesis. Using semiotic and digital ethnographic methods, it traces visual and affective motifs in protest media. Situating Iranian feminism within transnational frameworks while preserving its specificity, the article highlights vulnerability and collective action as transformative forces against authoritarian power.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Islamic Studies and History
Feminism
Gender
and Intersectionality
Security
and Conflict
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 353–369
- Publication date
- 17 May 2026
- Language
- EN