Voices from the Global South: the mediatization of feminisms in a podcast by Brazilian women around the world¹

Abstract

The podcast Femigrantes BR is defined as “a space for conversation among feminist-immigrant women around the world”. The podcast had 21 episodes, gathering stories of Brazilian women who live and work in several countries. In the voices of the interviewees, life stories expand beyond the personal account and connect with firmly established structures such as racism and the unequal relations between the Global North and South. Taking that object and scenario, I investigate what has been the contribution of feminisms, as political discourse, to the “empowerment” of those migrant women and analyse how the media coverage of the feminist debate reflects on the way they act in the public life of the country in which they now live. In the effort to attend to these points, I engage in an immersion in digital media and, in dialogue with contributions from feminist media, technology, decolonial, postcolonial studies, I discuss how the feminist occupation of the internet can potentiate social transformations in unequal gender structures and contribute to challenge hierarchies between North and Global South.

Keywords: Femigrantes BR; feminist podcast; mediatisation; decolonial feminism; Global South