On the material consequences of (digital) literacy: Digital writing with, for, and against racial capitalism

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues that digital writing pedagogy needs to prepare students to deal with underlying oppressive realities within the range of everyday digital writing practices as opposed to simply focusing on affordances as unfettered opportunities. In particular, digital writing is increasingly mediated through digital apps and other interactive platforms whose designs enroll us into the social arrangements of racial capitalism, including through corporate interests, societal and language ideologies, social control, and other oppressive factors. As researchers and educators, we should especially be mindful of the participation of complex software such as algorithms. Machines are our coauthors, and machines are not neutral. Digital writing experiences, shaped as they are by design around idealized users and hegemonic social forces, are differentiated along intersectional lines. I discuss pedagogic implications for this as the context for understanding writing under contemporary racial technocapitalism, arguing for critical abolitionist design literacy as a way forward.