Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on publicly shared same sex family photographs on Instagram, in relation to queer visibility. How, and in which ways, can same sex family photographs function as subversive objects in relation to queer visibility? How are normative notions of family challenged, and/or reproduced?

Paper long abstract:

In technology-integrated societies today an ever-increasing number of family photographs are taken daily and shared on social media. The parental digital sharing practice called sharenting (share/sharing + parenting) has in a few years become so widely applied that it has "almost become a social norm" (Brosch 2016, 226). On Instagram an increased queer family visibility can be noted. Mundane family photographs and sharenting practices open for qualitative ethnographic knowledge production on and about the social, cultural, and political aspects of everyday life (cf Ehn & Löfgren 1996), as well as parenting and family life, in and through digital media in a digital age.

From a queer theoretical perspective, this paper focuses on publicly shared same sex family photographs on Instagram, in relation to queer visibility. The paper discusses and empirically exemplify how, and in which ways, same sex parents' public displays of their families and everyday family life can be understood as "proud pictures" - forms of (personal) political statements, both as an outspoken activism and in more subtle, yet present ways. How, and in which ways, can same sex family photographs function as subversive objects in relation to queer visibility? How are normative notions of family challenged, and/or reproduced in same sex families' publicly shared family photographs on Instagram?