Research Outcomes
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This chart summarizes our research objectives, the strategies we utilized to achieve them and the main conclusions we drew from our research. Each of these aspects will be covered in more detail below.
1. Identify and evaluate feminist social media research methods
Based on a literature review of existing feminist digital research methods, we identified the core aspects of feminist social media research (platforms, discourses, methods, representation, people, consent, emotions, and power) along with questions for thinking through this approach (e.g. how can we understand and reduce power hierarchies in social media research?). These questions guided the creation of our frameworks. To learn more about the literature review we conducted, please refer to the "Literature" tab in the navigation bar, or click here!
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2. Investigate how differently positioned scholars experience and practice social media research
We brought together a group of international scholars with the hopes of reflecting on and sharing our past experiences doing social media research through a feminist lens. Through this workshop, we discovered that paying attention to our affectual (affect + emotional) experiences can:
(1) offer insights on social media research practices and decision making
(2) enable better reflexivity and analyses of power
(3) support conceptualizations of social media technologies as simultaneously
place-based and intertwined across planetary-intimate scales.
We contend that researchers using social media must think carefully about the technological and place-based specifics of these platforms and how incorporating them into our research projects affects us and our research. This requires a deep form of reflexivity that traces new socio-spatial relationships between researchers, technologies, participants, and communities across social and geographic distances. One way to take part in this deep reflexivity is by sharing affectual experiences of social media research with other researchers. We see this approach as a feminist praxis.
If you are interested in learning more about this stage in our research project, check out our publication, "A blurring of worlds: A collective biography of how it feels to do social media research". This publication is currently under review, and will be linked when it becomes available!
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3. Develop, collaboratively refine, and disseminate frameworks for feminist social media methodologies
As we conducted our research, it became increasingly clear that one framework with one set of practices would not be sufficient in covering the various feminist social media research methodologies. In the end, we developed multiple frameworks in an attempt to account for the ways in which research methodologies need to change to fit the context of each specific project. What may be considered consistent with feminist ethics of care in one project, may be different in another. For example, while publishing the names of your participants may contribute to more equitable citational practices and reduce data extractivism in one project, keeping your participants anonymous may be required for participants' safety in a different project. In line with this understanding, our frameworks provide recommendations and things to consider while conducting (feminist) social media research rather than a concrete list of things which must be done in every project. We hope that researchers will adapt the suggestions that feel relevant to their projects! To learn more about the frameworks we developed, visit the "Frameworks" tab in the navigation bar or click here!
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Research Products
Publications
Kipp, A., Hawkins, R., & Militz, E. (2026). Data feminism for social media research in critical geography [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph.
Hawkins, R., Kipp, A., Beninger, C. and Militz, E. (2026). Practicing feminist approaches to social media research [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph.
Kipp, A., Militz, E., Hawkins, R., Thompson, S., Monnier-Reyna, M., Karsgaard, C., Duguay, S., Liu, C., Nelson, I.L., & Simpson, S.A. (2026). A blurring of worlds: A collective biography of how doing social media research feels [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph.
Militz, E., Benzinger, M., & Hawkins, R. (2026). Towards planetary-intimate social media research. Digital Geography and Society 10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2025.100154
Presentations/Conferences/Workshops
June 2, 2026 - Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Conference, Victoria B.C. Roberta Hawkins, University of Guelph: Practicing Feminist Approaches to Social Media Research.
April 30, 2026 - Ringvorlesung “Klimagerechtigkeit und sozialökologische Krisen” (University of Innsbruck, Austria).
Elisabeth Militz gave a talk (in German) in the context of a lecture series (title above).
Title of talk: Eine planetar-intime Perspektive auf Social Media
Author/Presenter: Elisabeth Militz
THINC Lab (Digital Humanities) Intersectional Feminism Speaker Series workshop - "Digital methodologies of care in social media research" by Kipp, A. & Hawkins, R.
March 24, 2025 - AAG Annual Meeting 2025 in Detroit (USA).
We organized a session entitled: “Innovative methodologies, creativity and technologies – let’s learn from one another”
Organizers and Chairs: Roberta Hawkins, Elisabeth Militz
Elisabeth Militz also presented a paper in that session
Title: Towards planetary-intimate social media research
Authors: Elisabeth Militz, Marlene Benzinger, Roberta Hawkins
March 7, 2024 - Geographiewerkstatt: “Discussing Geographic Method(ologie)s: Integration, Experimentation, and Innovation” in Innsbruck (Austria).
We gave a talk entitled: “Towards feminist social media research methodologies”
Presenter/authors: Elisabeth Militz, Roberta Hawkins, Vanessa Smikle
August 21, 2024 - Feminist and Queer Spatialities: Care, Connection and Change, conference in Dublin (Ireland).
We organized a session together entitled: “Feminist Social Media Research Methodologies”
Chairs: Roberta Hawkins, Elisabeth Militz
Elisabeth Militz also presented a paper in that session
Title: Exploring possibilities and limits of doing feminist geographic research on Instagram
Author: Elisabeth Militz
November 19, 2022 - Swiss Geoscience Meeting 2022 in Lausanne (Switzerland).
In the context of the symposium: “Human Geographies: Bodies, Cultures, Societies” we organized a session on “Feminist Social Media Research Methodologies”
Chairs: Elisabeth Militz, Aida Naizabekova, Aliya Tankibayeva, Takhmina Shokirova, Bermet Ubaidilaeva
June 15, 2022 - Feminist Geography Conference (Boulder, CO) (USA).
We organized a workshop entitled: “Feminist Social Media Research Methodologies”
Chairs: Elisabeth Militz, Leah Govia, El Muratov, Roberta Hawkins, Ingrid L. Nelson
(Social) Media
Blog - "Feminist ethics and digital methods: A different way of doing social media research?" Written by Meg Ingram with the Live, Work, Well Research Centre
Instagram – The Live Work Well Research Centre posted an infographic on their Instagram page summarizing the key points from Roberta Hawkins and Amy Kipp’s THINC Lab workshop