Mapping Black Imaginaries and Geographies (MAPPING BIG) is an umbrella public humanities project inspired by Black Digital Humanities ideology and aligned with Critical Afrofuturist Frameworks. These project seeks to explore black spaces and ideologies that shape them. By taking this approach, Mapping BIG recognizes that contemporary activism networks mirror the formal and informal systems created by African-Americans throughout the U.S. experience. The key to the project is to utilize digital methodology to break down barriers of geography and chronology by mapping, visualizing, and cataloging the production of these black knowledge across spaces.
Mapping BIG utilize digital humanities methodology examine black space both geographical and ideological. This approach builds on previous recovery projects such as Advocate Recovered, which reconstructed post Reconstruction black newspaper in Central Florida and documentary podcast projects.
Mapping Black Imaginaries and Geographies (MAPPING BIG) is a public humanities project inspired by Black Digital Humanities ideology and aligned with the emerging field of Afrofuturism. Borrowing from the writing of Afrofuturist thinkers such as Alondra Nelson, who argues for Afrofuturism as a framework to understand black knowledge production and action across multiple fields of expression and Reynaldo Anderson, who argues that social media shaped the network form of 21st-century interpretation of Afrofuturism, this project seeks to explore black spaces and ideologies that shape them. By taking this approach, this project recognizes that contemporary activism networks mirror the formal and informal systems created by African-Americans throughout the U.S. experience. The key to the project is to utilize a digital methodology to break down barriers of geography and chronology by mapping, visualizing, and cataloging the production of these black spaces.
One of my first efforts to theorized Mapping BIG came at the University of Kansas Digital Humanities Forum in 2019. This address highlights the ways race and space intersect and critical work being down across disciplinary boundaries to address racialize geographies.
