Motherboards, Microphones and Metaphors: Re-examining New Literacies and Black Feminist Thought through Technologies of Self

ABSTRACT This article examines how two African American females composed counter-selves using a computer motherboard and a stand-alone microphone as critical identity texts. Situated within sociocultural and critical traditions in new literacy studies and black feminist thought, the authors extend conceptions of language, literacy and black femininity via the agentic, powerful and knowledgeable selves of African American women, constructs that are often missing from the scholarship on young African American women and their practices of self-definition. The motherboard and microphone serve as analytical constructs for understanding critical new literacies and subject malleability, which crisscrosses in complex configurations across the experiences, histories and relationships that carry meaning for those who struggle through scenes of silence. Motherboards and microphones act metaphorically as technologies of the self, which resist and reformat cosmologies of black femininity that have long patterned gender oppression. The findings suggest that technologies exist everywhere, and technology related to literacy and language exists in many forms, including vocabularies of motherboards and microphones. The authors conclude that using such vocabularies for expressing identity can work through the power of metaphor in its richest sense to offer new conceptions of self, whereby the subject becomes a personal artifact capable of immense transformative potential. The things we call ‘technologies’ are ways of building order in our world. Many technological devices and systems important in everyday life contain possibilities for many different ways of ordering human activity. (Matlow, 2000, p. 167

Co-constructing Place, Space, and Race: African American and Latinx Participants and Researchers’ Representations of Digital Literacy Research in the South

In this paper, we examine the processes, struggles, and interactions that shape the coconstruction of digital literacy programs and research for African American and Latinx parents and children in the South. The guiding questions of this piece are: (1) What do African American and Latinx1 participants’ counter-stories tell us about place-space and raced literacies? and (2) How do we, as digital literacy researchers, negotiate and co-construct counter narratives in institutional spaces? We draw on analytic reflexivity tools (Anderson, 2006) to describe how our positionalities as researchers/practitioners of color collaborate with multiple stake-holders in the design and implementation of community and school-based digital media projects for African American and Latinx parents and students. Within these contested spaces are distinct binaries of social, political, historical, and cultural literacies that resound in our digital literacy research in communities where we (the researcher-practitioners) are often positioned as cultural insiders

Homeless Adults, Technology and Literacy Practices

Some research has explored perspectives held by the homeless on technology use (Borchard, 2010; Eyrich-Garg, 2010, 2011; Harpin, Davis, Low, & Gilroy, 2016; Hersberger, 2002/2003; Pollio, Batey, Bender, Ferguson, & Thompson, 2013). Few studies have however focused on understanding this population’s use of technology for literacy purposes (Hendry, 2011; Muggleton & Ruthven, 2012), as distinct from their more general technology use, such as acquiring the skills to improve their station in life or to enhance their health, or utilize social services. Employing symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) as a conceptual framework and using semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study examines technology use for literacy purposes by the homeless. It also investigates the meanings that these participants direct toward technology. The findings suggest diverse technology uses that enhance the participants’ access to social services. Other responses indicate differences in the conceptions and uses of technology for literacy purposes. The participants also made recommendations to us for the state and the nearby state university to support their literacy practices and access to technology. The insights from this study should be of value to educators, policy makers, city governments, and social and community personnel in improving adult literacy and social services programs

Literacy Scholars Coming to Know the People in the Parks, Their Literacy Practices and Support Systems

In this research, literacy scholars present the voices of the people who live in the parks near their state capital and university in a south-eastern city in the United States. Through the recorded, transcribed and analyzed conversations, we report the literacy practices of the people in the parks and their insights into the nested state and university structures that restrict and empower their quality of life opportunities. The general findings show our participants to be avid readers of a variety of genres and users of technology but with limited access to state and university resources and infrastructures due to laws and regulations and community members’ negative perceptions that restrict their use. Recommendations are made for more urban community state and university collaborative initiatives to increase understandings and respect for people who live in the parks to honor their motivations for greater social capital and attainment of their life goals

An African American Mother's Stories as T.M.I.: M.N.I., Ethics, and Vulnerability around Traumatic Narratives in Digital Literacy Research

This article examines how an African American mother's affinity for digital tools relates to her telling of traumatic narratives, and how the very personal information contained in such narratives often problematizes the methodology of reporting qualitative research methods. These tensions include the concept of T.M.I. in qualitative research, as well as related ethical issues such as participant vulnerability, informed consent, and risks and benefits. This work addresses three key roles relevant to T.M.I.: that of the participant, the researcher, and the journal reviewer. It also provides researchers with various recommendations for conducting unconventional, agentic, and activist research

The Bad Bitch Barbie Craze and Beyoncé African American Women’s Bodies as Commodities in Hip-Hop Culture, Images, and Media

In this special issue of Taboo, the authors use Beyoncé’s album, Lemonade, to introduce the concept of the Bad Bitch Barbie, a term used to identify a woman who embraces her body while simultaneously using it as a commodity. Representing a Black body ideal in Lemonade, Beyoncé uses images of Black women’s bodies to express empowerment, boldness, and resilience as Black women struggle to live in a racist and sexist society. There has been recent interest in the ways Black women have been portrayed in current media and popular culture, and many individuals have taken the opportunity to honor Black women’s beauty, power, and resilience in the era of #BlackGirlMagic by paying homage to women who use music, sound, and the arts to tell their stories (Wilson, 2016; also see Jessica Care Moore’s website, “Black Women Rock” [http://www.blackwomenrock.com]). In this article, our aim is two-fold: first, we offer a historical review of the ways Black women and their bodies have been portrayed in music as well as in the political, cultural, and social spaces associated with Black women’s worldviews. Second, we review songs from Lemonade to describe the Bad Bitch Barbie, who welcomes glamorization and embraces the profitability associated with the racialization, sexualization, and subjugation of Black women’s bodies. This information is vital in discussions about how young African American girls emulate the likes of Beyoncé, and represent themselves in a mainstream culture whose beliefs are informed by socio-historical experiences concerning sexual imagery. The Bad Bitch Barbie figure recognizes—and, to some extent, accepts—her objectification; she negotiates her image and helps to direct the ways in which she is represented