#depression: Singaporean Muslim Women Navigating Mental Health on Social Media

Abstract

Over the past few years, Singaporean Muslim women have increasingly used Facebook, Instagram, and blogs to discuss the intersections among mental health, stigma, and religious socialization. Their use of online platforms to reconfigure dominant narratives on Islam and mental health while firmly positioning themselves as minoritized ethnic, religious, and gendered subjects point to the ways that social media facilitate novel possibilities for critiquing normative assumptions, while foreclosing others. Despite these critical discursive transformations, minoritized Muslim women’s social media navigations elide scholarly analysis. Within a context whereby social media platforms and various publics are constantly evolving, this article examines the ways that Singaporean Muslim women stake a claim for themselves, expanding the discursive spaces that both consolidate and contest authoritative discourses on mental illness and contributing to the formation of digital counterpublics.