Locating Social Media in Black Digital Studies

Abstract

This chapter reflects on Black digital studies in Britain, with an emphasis on Black feminist work, to consider how such scholarship meaningfully locates social media and examines how it is bordered by attending to regional, national, and transnational dimensions of Black people’s digital and scholarly experiences. Highlighting the pivotal work of PhD and early career researchers, the chapter outlines how Black digital studies in Britain developed in ways shaped by this specific geo-cultural context and Black digital diasporic dynamics (e.g. discussions between Black people in the US and Britain). Instead of just being interpreted as sole-authored work, this chapter is best understood as being in conversation with a rich history and future of Black digital studies that involves more of an interest in provocations, ponderings, and collaborative parsing than any investment in proprietarily foreclosing discussion and debate surrounding how Black digital encounters are conceptualized, theorized, experienced, and located. “Locating Social Media in Black Digital Studies” is part of continued efforts to make clear and critically analyze the geo-cultural embeddedness and elements of many Black social media and digital experiences. Such work is intended to prompt helpful questions and considerations concerning Black digital studies and its connection to different Black geographies.