Black Women’s Digital Diaspora, Collectivity, and Resistance

Dr Francesca Sobanda, Cardiff University

Chair, Dr Jen Ross

Abstract

This seminar is based on over five years of research and focuses on Black women’s digital diasporic content creation and communication experiences. There is discussion of how Black women’s digital activity involves forms of creativity, pleasure, knowledge production, collectivity, and resistance. This session considers some of the potentially liberatory components of the digital experiences of Black women in Britain, while reckoning with conflicting aspects of counter-cultural practices which exist in the context of digital consumerism. Overall, this seminar focuses on Black women’s digital experiences and accounts for how these are shaped by hierarchical global dynamics and media flows. Open access chapter "Black Women's Digital Diaspora, Collectivity, and Resistance", from The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain.

Biography 

Dr Francesca Sobande is a lecturer in digital media studies at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture (Cardiff University) and an affiliate of the Data Justice Lab. She is director of the BA Media, Journalism and Culture programme and is communications co-chair of the international Race in the Marketplace (RIM) Research Network. Her research has been published in journals such as European Journal of Cultural Studies, European Journal of Marketing, IPPR Progressive Review, Marketing Theory, Celebrity Studies, Critical Studies in Television, Communication, Culture & Critique, and Consumption, Markets & Culture. Francesca is author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and co-editor with Professor Akwugo Emejulu of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (Pluto Press, 2019). She tweets at @chess_ess and more information about her work is available at: francescasobande.com