Gendered social media communication around mining: patriarchy, diamonds, and seeking feminist solidarity online

Overview

Although it is increasingly well-known that mining generates a vast array of gendered impacts, less studied is how women in mining zones have turned to online social media to articulate concerns and mobilise for collective action. This article explores how gendered social media communication has conveyed injustices experienced by women in Zimbabwe’s diamond-mining areas and produced spaces of feminist solidarity in navigating structural violence, offering mutual support, and sharing daily developments and strategic initiatives. While Zimbabwe’s diamond-mining controversies have transformed over the years, communication online has continued to occur under the gaze of online state surveillance, and online spaces are never risk-free spaces. Seeking equitable development and inserting into politically sensitive topics, sensibilities of ‘online’ community-building have been different across a range of contexts and for different people. We explore communication online, bringing together discussions of gender-focused critiques of mining megaprojects, state violence, and feminist research in online spaces.