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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores contemporary forms of digital activism in relation to a field marked by larger discursive practices and enactments of difference, diversity and belonging. I concur with the call for a careful rethinking of the ethnographic and conceptual understanding of digital activism.

Paper long abstract:

During my ethnographic fieldwork I observed several artistic campaigns or trends on the social media created by people working in the art and cultural sector."If Mustafa isn't Norwegian, what the hell am I?" was an attitude campaign which spread at full speed through social media. However, the general social media practices of the participants of this research consisted mainly on posting and sharing dissent content related to topics such as trauma, racism, shame, childhood neglect, sexual abuse, migration, domination, inequality, representation, diversity, unbelonging and the condition of being culturally betwixt and between, among others. These media practices seems not to qualify as digital activism, usually associated with organised social movements or networks and the unfold of different strategies online/offline.The posting and sharing I observed were on the contrary spontaneous and part of a broaden creative process, and the moral concern of individuals. It nevertheless might challenge the establishment, by generating alternatives to the dominant. Therefore, I concur with the call for a careful rethinking of the ethnographic and conceptual understanding of digital activism. Based on an ethnographic fieldwork, I explore the dissenting social media practices of Norwegians with minority background and adoptees in the art and cultural sector in Norway. I wonder how to conceptualise a practice that appears as activism but without activists.