Faculty Research Fellows Zoom Talk by Melissa Brown

Melissa Brown: "Virtual Sojourners: Twenty-First Century Black Feminist Activism and Digital Culture.”

Join Dr. Melissa Brown as she discusses  the chapter  she is contributing to an upcoming volume, Networked Feminisms: Activist Assemblies and Digital Practice. In this chapter she uses Black feminist thought as described by Collins (2000) as a conceptual framework to understand contemporary digital activism and digital culture. Dr. Brown builds the case that Black women and LGBTQ users of social networking sites and other digital platforms act as virtual sojourners. These users adopt digital practices at the margins of the virtual public sphere to create a space through which they generate unique perspectives and shared community around how intersecting oppressions shape everyday life through which they envision new ways of achieving more equitable social relations for all people.

Melissa Brown, PhD Sociology, is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Clayman Institute.