This seminar is based on research regarding the digital and media experiences of Black women in Britain, as well as analysis of how brands attempt to opportunistically project the image that they support Black activist and racial justice movements.

There is discussion of Black women’s experiences of digital cultural and knowledge production, as well as consideration of the relationship between this and how brands are (mis)using commercialised notions of feminism and Black activism as part of marketing that may be referred to as “woke-washing”.

By accounting for how Black women’s digital experiences often exist within inherently commercialised contexts, this seminar explores the tensions between the potential for such experiences to be enjoyable and liberatory as opposed to constrained by the racial capitalist underpinnings of digital and consumer culture.