Taking up Digital Space:  Moroccan women and visual agency on Instagram

Imane Alqaraoui; Fatima-Zohra Iflahen

doi:10.21834/e-bpj.v10i33.7254

Authors

Imane Alqaraoui Doctoral Student, Cadi Ayyad University, UCA, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Languages and Humanities Laboratory, Avenue Abdelkrim Khattabi, Marrakech, Morocco
Fatima-Zohra Iflahen Full Professor, Cadi Ayyad University, UCA, Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Languages and Humanities Laboratory, Avenue Abdelkrim Khattabi, Marrakech, Morocco

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v10i33.7254

Keywords:

Visual Self-framing, Agency, Decolonial Feminist Theory, Digital Public Space

Abstract

This article examines how young Moroccan women utilize visual self-framing on Instagram to assert agency, challenge patriarchal constraints, and resist orientalist narratives through everyday visual practices. Grounded in decolonial feminist theory and based on a content analysis of 30 Instagram posts set in public and semi-public settings, the paper explores how ordinary female users construct agency and disrupt patriarchal and orientalist discourses through gaze, posture, clothing, spatial presence, and composition. These visual strategies position Instagram as a digital public space where Moroccan women engage in subtle, nonverbal acts of feminist resistance and self-assertion.

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