Research project The research study Proud Pictures – Performing Queer Kinship on Instagram examines Sweden-based LGBTQ individuals’ public sharing of family photographs on Instagram. The study investigates how the practice of publicly sharing family photographs on Instagram can be understood from different queer positions, and what public image sharing is expected to do, mean, and entail.
A central research objective is to understand how queer parenthood, family, and kinship are constructed through publicly shared visual material, as well as in captions and hashtags, which – beyond the visual representation – provide meaning to the image. The study will also analyze publicly shared images as objects on Instagram and family photographs as a photographic genre when they are created and published digitally in relation to what the digital platform enables, constrains, and/or encourages through its specific features, design, interface, and so forth.
Digital platforms offer new arenas for representing and making visible family relations and kinship through digital image sharing. For example, it has become increasingly common for parents, regardless of sexual orientation, to share images of their children online, a practice known as sharenting (share + parenting). One of the platforms where this is a common feature of the digital environment is Instagram. Such images are sometimes tagged with so-called hashtags—the symbol # followed by a word. Hashtags create searchable thematic image streams and are used not only to organize images into feeds but also as a way to add meaning and context to uploaded pictures. On Instagram, a large number of family-related hashtags can be found. In addition to representations of heteronormative nuclear families, an increasing visibility of queer family constellations can also be noted in such image feeds. This reflects growing opportunities and rights for LGBTQ individuals to form families, for example through reproductive technologies and adoption. Despite expanded rights, research studies show that queer lives are still, to some extent, surrounded by discrimination and invisibilization.
Based on LGBTQ individuals’ in Swedens public sharing of digital family photographs on Instagram, the aim is to understand how queer parenthood, family, and kinship are constructed through publicly shared visual material, as well as in captions and hashtags.
The aim is also to understand how family photographs are created as objects on Instagram in relation to the platform’s functions, design, interface, and so on, as well as how LGBTQ individuals’ digitally produced and publicly published family photographs can be understood in relation to family photography as a genre.
Digital ethnography constitutes the overall methodology of the study. This involves qualitative approaches and methods for conducting ethnographic research in digital contexts, based on the constantly changing conditions and premises created by “the digital” in a broad sense. Considerable emphasis is placed on ethical and reflexive considerations from the planning stage through the implementation of the study and the presentation of its results.
The collected material will consist of three types:
