Namibia’s #ShutItAllDown and Contemporary Feminist Tactics: Social Media, Transgressive Practices, and Feminist Collaboration in the 2020 Protests

Abstract

This article considers how the 2020 #ShutItAllDown feminist protests elucidate contemporary Namibian feminist activist culture in contrast to earlier generations of Namibian feminist activism. The protests sprung up among youth (particularly women) mostly under 25  years old, a demographic with little political influence and traditional cultural power. Thus, the organisers used strategic,  transgressive disruption along with social media as fundamental to their activism. Given Namibia’s historically active and varied feminist  and gender activist landscape, the absence of older women and feminist activists (with the exception of Sister Namibia) at these protests  is noteworthy. This article asks: how does this absence speak to contemporary Namibian feminist activist culture? what role did social  media play in facilitating the dynamic movement that #ShutItAllDown became? how is this movement situated in the context of  contemporary transnational and global feminist and hashtag protests? I use mixed methodologies for understanding the movement;  along with excavating online spaces, I draw from informal discussions and interviews conducted in 2022 with young and older Namibian  women activists. I conclude that while the #ShutItAllDown movement is emblematic of a generational divide in protest practices between  contemporary feminist activists and those of previous generations, the acts of solidarity and collaboration between this movement and Sister Namibia, facilitated by social media, are reflective of a culture of feminist solidarity practices between Namibia’s early feminist  organisations and the contemporary groups, despite the generational divide. Furthermore, the use of social media in conjunction with  disruptive protest resonated with contemporary transnational and global hashtag protest practices, effectively drawing attention to the  movement nationally and across the continent.