Criminalisation of feminist protest: the case of young students' collectives in Mexico

Abstract

This article documents the characteristics of the recent collective experience of young feminist activists in universities in Mexico, combining interviews with organized groups of students with ethnographic analysis of social networks. The investigation encompasses both their activism on social networks, and the criticism and censorship to which they have been subjected by university authorities, the media, and formal power structures in the country. Beginning in 2016 and continuing to the present day, these young people have become a highly important confrontational political force, both as real-world social movement and a form of online activism, provoking massive eruptions in the public sphere, a political mobilization which has been amplified to great effect within virtual spaces and social networks.