Joseanne Dudjoe
#BlackTechnoResistance: The influence of Black socio-cultural traditions in shaping and bolstering Black online users’ collective resistance strategies.
My work centers Black online users within the growing discipline of Digital Humanities and Techno-Culture. In this presentation, I argue that digital social movements like #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and the digital natural hair movement are not solely the fruit of Internet exceptionalism. Instead, I will contend that these digital movements are the product of the affective labor of Black diaspora members who are transitioning longstanding modes of collectivity and resistance into a new virtual medium. Black men and women have long-established precedents for carving out physical and metaphoric spaces for restoring, affirming, and defending each other. Throughout the presentation, I will highlight some of these traditional Black socio-cultural norms and practices and identify how they influence Black users’ counter-hegemonic online behaviors.
For example, I shall show how the rich history of storytelling, the use of African African-American Vernacular English, and the practice of using cultural and racial similarities as the foundation for establishing fictive family structures echoes in the use of hashtags and memes for congregating, commiserating, and collectively challenging hegemonic structures. I do not offer the deterministic view that social media usage is a prerequisite to contemporary social change. Instead, I note that technology and culture mutually interface to shape current sociopolitical life. In presenting social media platforms as sites for the production of alternative media texts, I demonstrate how the tools, functionalities, and viral nature of these sites enable Black online users to continue the legacy of challenging anti Blackness by building virtual communities, creating spaces of joy, negotiating around Black identity politics, and mounting liberation movements
Date: March 10th
Time: 8:00 AM
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 987 0607 4684
