Afro-Latinx Digital Connections

This volume presents examples of how digital technologies are being used by people of African descent in South America and the Caribbean, a topic that has been overlooked within the field of digital humanities. These case studies show that in the last few decades, Black Latinx communities have been making themselves visible and asserting longstanding claims and rights through digital tools and platforms, which have been essential for enacting discussions and creating new connections between diverse groups.

Afro-Latinx Digital Connections includes both research articles and interviews with practitioners who are working to create opportunities for marginalized communities. Projects discussed in this volume range from an Afrodescendant digital archive in Argentina, blog networks in Cuba, an NGO dedicated to democratizing technology in Brazilian favelas, and the recruitment of digital media to fight racism in Peru. Contributors demonstrate that these tools need not be state-of-the-art to be effective and that they are often most useful when employed to sustain a resilience that is deep and historically grounded.

Digital connections are shown here as a means to achieve social justice and to create complex self-representations that challenge racist images of Afrodescendant peoples and monolithic conceptions of humanity. This volume expands the scope of digital humanities and challenges views of the field as a predominantly white discipline.

• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Afro-Latinx Digital Cultures: Towards Complex and Diverse (Digital?) Humanities
• 2. Digital Autonomy and Knowledge Production by Black and Brazilian Women: Interview with Silvana Bahia, director of PretaLab, Brazil
• 3. Afro-Latina Minimal Computing: Interview with Sandra Abd'Allah-Álvarez, Cuban activist and blogger
• 4. Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Cuban Digital Culture
• 5. Fighting Racism with Digital Weapons: Interview with Mónica Carrillo, LUNDU (Perú) and Proyecto Afrolatin@ (USA)
• 6. International Organization (IO) Theory and Online Afro-Latin America
• 7. Between Analog and Digital Activism in Afro-Colombia: Interview with Yancy Castillo and Dora Inés Vivanco, CNOA (Conferencia Nacional de Organizaciones Afro-Colombianas), Bogotá, Colombia
• 8. Towards the Creation of an Afrodescendant Digital Archive: The Cape Verdean Association in Buenos Aires
• 9. Borrowing Digital Tools to Connect the Periphery: Interview with Alí Majul, Artist and Activist, Colectivo Contextos and Canal Cultural, Cartagena, Colombia
• 10. Using Games to Build Connections in Africa and Beyond: Interview with Adebayo Adegbembo, founder of Genii Games
• Epilogue: Using Digital Tools to Build Afro-Latinx Connections and Futures
• List of Contributors
• Index

Eduard Arriaga, assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Indianapolis, is the coauthor of Las redes del gusto: la novela en Colombia 1990–2005.

Andrés Villar is a writer, artist, and independent scholar based in Ontario, Canada.