This paper explores the methodological and epistemological assumptions that have foregrounded my research into discursive activism in Australian feminist blogs, and a discussion of my research methods and why they were appropriate to this study.  

My approach brings together theories of agonistic democracy, internet ethnography and feminist standpoint theory. These theoretical perspectives are compatible with a view of subjectivity that allows for discursive political agency, and also encourage an ethics of listening and respect for difference that includes considerations of affect, inequality and power relations in the study of online communities. 

This paper discusses the relation between this epistemological understanding of the political and the methods I have used.