CFP: Influencers and Gender Politics in South East Asia

Event Date: 09 May 2025

Published On: 13 Mar 2025

Organizer: Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (Curtin University) and Asian Cultural Research Hub (University of Melbourne).

About the Conference

When: Friday, 9 May 2025
Mode: Online
Send your abstract on or before 31 March 2025

Convenors: Dr Annisa R. Beta (University of Melbourne), Dr Hao Zheng (Curtin University), Prof Crystal Abidin (Curtin University).

Call for Papers

Traditionally positioned as ordinary internet users who seek high online visibility while maintaining reliability and close connections with audiences, influencers today encompass an expanding group of social media users that have a presence, visibility and influence on digital platforms (Abidin 2015; Abidin 2021; Riedle, Lukito, and Woolley 2023). This symposium aims to explore influencers’ multifaceted yet omnipresent impact on identity and gender politics with specific focus on South East Asia. We take a broad approach to the conceptualization of ‘influencers’, broadly examining the practices, narratives, cultures, and discourses related to public figures or personas, internet celebrities, content creators, and opinion leaders on social media platforms.

On popular platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, influencers are instrumental in building connections and communities as well as producing and distributing knowledge and strategies around gender engaged with identity, norms, and power dynamics (Mahy, Winarnita, and Herriman, 2023; Radics and Abidin 2023; Tirocchi and Taddeo, 2024). While some influencers advocate for gender rights and challenge dominant structures (Tang 2023; Nielsen and Nielsen 2024), others promote gender discrimination, furthering patriarchal values under the guise of entertainment or personal beliefs (Banet-Weiser 2018). Questions have also been raised about the blurring between solidarity and self-promotion in influencer activism (Dean 2024), when political endorsement is entangled with neoliberal narratives and capitalist interest (Kanai and Gill 2020). This raises critical questions about influencers’ broader impact on gender politics. Thus, the symposium seeks to explore the intersections of influencer cultures and gender politics across social and cultural contexts in contemporary South East Asian societies. It examines how influencers reinforce, contest, or complicate dominant public discourses on gender politics in the region.

Influencers take on various roles in politics, blending personal interests, financial motivations, and public engagement (Soriano and Gaw 2022). They shape public opinion on social media, inspire protests, and even impact parliamentary discussions. Some use personal experiences as activism for niche audiences (Beta 2019), while others build networks to drive policy changes or leverage their visibility for commercial collaborations and empowerment initiatives (Arnesson and Reinikainen 2024). Their role in gender politics includes influencers advocating for identity rights (Duffy, Miltner, and Wahlstedt 2022), gender equality and feminism (Saraswati 2021; Fahadi 2022), and actions against gender-based violence (Molnar 2022). At the same time, influencers contribute to gendered misinformation, spreading narratives infused with misogyny, sexism, and transphobia (Milne, Cambazoglu, Haslop, and Ringrose 2024; Czerwinsky 2025).

While their growing influence in formal political spaces has been widely studied (Suuronen, Reinikainen, Borchers, and Strandberg 2022; Harff and Schmuck 2023; Riedl, Lukito, and Woolley 2023), influencers also play a key role in everyday political conversations, where people negotiate social norms and resources that shape society (Highfield 2016; Yates 2022). There is a need to explore influencers’ impact on everyday cultural and identity politics, especially how their engagement with gender politics beyond formal and legal debates on equality, sexuality, family, and morality, shapes people’s everyday lived experiences and personal engagements with gender norms and identity.

In South East Asia, social media dominates everyday life. With 63.7% active users, social media engagement in South East Asia has surpassed the global average of 59.4%, reinforcing its influence across family structures, cultural production, labour markets, and political discourse (Lim 2024, 18). Researchers examining grassroots activism in South East Asia have shown how social media drives explicitly political movements, from electoral campaigns to pro-democracy protests and rights-based advocacy (Sinpeng and Tapsell 2020; Tapsell 2021). The extant studies also acknowledges the role of social media exchanges in circulating information on sexual and gender diversity rights in the region (Langlois 2022; Tang and Wijaya 2022). Beyond the formal political and advocacy spaces, questions remain about how influencers shape everyday cultural and identity politics, particularly in relation to gender politics in South East Asia. More research is needed to explore how influencers engage with activism and advocacy while navigating local and transnational gender politics, reshaping the landscape of gender discourses. With one of the world’s highest numbers of internet users, the region is a battleground where influencer cultures intersect with diverse but predominantly collectivist and conservative societies. It is an important site for examining how influencers navigate, reinforce, or challenge gender norms.

This symposium and the resulting edited volume aim to critically examine the relationship between influencers and gender politics in South East Asia. With a particular focus on South East Asia, the symposium aims to encompass studies and discussions based in or related to eleven countries—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam—as well as the diverse migrants and diasporas in and from South East Asia, such as generations of Chinese migrants in Singapore and Malaysia and the growing population of digital nomads in Thailand and Indonesia. We welcome submissions from scholars, including graduate researchers and early-career researchers, who focus on influencers associated with, residing in, or otherwise closely connected to South East Asia. We encourage interdisciplinary work and collaborative research produced with non- academic partners.

We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions on (but not limited to) the topics listed below:

Influencer-led or centred activism and advocacy related to gender politics, for e.g. #MeToo, Women Also Know Stuff, Movember
Commercialisation of gender politics among influencers, for e.g. how-to manuals for tradwives, influencer-produced courses on various parenting tips
Audience responses to and engagement with influencer’s gender discourses, for e.g. fandoms or anti-fandoms
Gendered aesthetics of influencer cultures, for e.g. storytelling, self-branding, and the spectacle of empowerment
Intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, religion and ability discussed, represented, speculated and demonstrated by influencers, for e.g. Muslim feminist influencers in rural areas
Localised influencer cultures and gender politics, for e.g. navigating socio-cultural and political contexts in relation to geographical locations and origins
Roles of influencers and influencer cultures in shaping gender discourses, for e.g. digital activism, online debates on gender inequality, rhetorics of male supremacy, the promotion of conventional femininity

Submission Guidelines

We invite submissions of extended abstracts (800-1,000 words, excluding bibliography) addressing the symposium theme. You may use any citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, or others) you prefer, as long as it is consistent. Please also provide a bibliography. Your bibliography is not included in the extended abstract word count limit. We suggest the extended abstract to include:

a brief discussion of the context of your research and how it addresses existing research literature or practices;
the research question(s) or issue(s) to be discussed;
the key argument/main finding and a brief explanation why it is important, relevant, and interesting;
the methodological approach and/or the methods/techniques used for the research;
a short discussion of data or research materials and analysis; and
a discussion of the (preliminary) findings.

The symposium conveners are currently pitching an edited volume to a leading publisher as an output of the symposium. Shortlisted presenters are expected to submit a full chapter (4-5,000 words) draft by 2 June 2025 (three weeks after the symposium) for inclusion in the volume. As such, please ensure that you submit to the symposium only if the work is original and previously unpublished, and if you are willing to be considered for the edited volume.

Submit your application, including the extended abstract, via the Google Form by 5pm (AEDT), 31 March 2025.

Important dates:

Extended abstract submission deadline: 5pm (AEDT), 31 March 2025
Notification of acceptance: 14 April 2025
Symposium date: 9 May 2025 (Online)
Full chapter submission deadline: 2 June 2025
Anticipated edited volume publication: 2026

Contact:

If you have any enquiries regarding your submission, please email both Annisa R. Beta (annisa.beta [at] unimelb.edu.au) and Hao Zheng (hao.zheng [at] curtin.edu.au).

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