Narrative constructions of online imagined Afro-diasporic communities in Spain and Portugal
Article / Journal
Author(s) / editor(s):
Danae Gallo González
,
Julia Borst
Year: 2019
Open Cultural Studies 3.1 (2019): 286-307.
Keywords: Afro-European studies, diaspora studies, digital media, Iberian cultural studiesLanguage(s): English
Abstract:
This article focuses on representative digital platforms created and coordinated by African
and Afro-descendant people from Spain and Portugal. It argues that, by sharing and articulating mutual
narratives online, these platforms act as spaces where Afro-diasporic communities are being imagined. To
that effect, this paper not only builds on theoretical reflections on how Blackness and Afrodescendance
are conceptualised on the internet. Adopting a cultural studies’ approach that offers an interpretation of
selected posts, it deduces the main narratives displayed and the diverse identificational spaces intertwined
in those narratives. In doing so, the paper shows that these platforms challenge biased perspectives on
Afro-diasporic communities and, within the digital space, conceptualise alternative, decentred—national
and transnational—communities of Afro-diasporic people that are based on shared experiences of
displacement, exclusion, resistance and self-empowerment.
https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/culture-2019-0026/html
Post created by: Lymor Wolf Goldstein