Translocal assemblage and the practice of alternative media toward racial justice: a pedagogical perspective

ABSTRACT

There is a growing cultural and social movement among youth who draw on spoken word poetry and documentary style videos to participate in the new media landscape. Many multimedia poems have appeared on social media sites such as YouTube and Vimeo as a form of participatory politics. In this article, the author takes up a discussion of translocal practices and ‘translocal assemblage’ wherein individuals and groups engage in the exchange of ideas across space and time. One example is a multimedia poem about the underrepresentation and invisibility of racialized minority students at a major American university. This viral multimedia poem remixed elsewhere based on students’ experiences at another university demonstrates not only the potential of translocal assemblage in participatory politics but also the practice of alternative media in the movement toward racial justice. That is, young people are finding civic resources and building on each other’s work to challenge the social order. Pedagogically, the author built on the theoretical underpinning of translocal assemblage to shape work with students in the college classroom who, in turn, produced other genres of alternative media. The resultant video documentaries about locally unjust social arrangements make evident the subtle nature of cultural flows that have direct consequences for critical studies in education.

KEYWORDS:

• Alternative media
• pedagogy
• race
• translocal assemblage
• youth cultural production

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. Special thanks to Tyrone Howard, Cheryl Matias, and Chris Tinson for conversations that further sharpened the argument presented here.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. ‘Black Bruins’ is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEO3H5BOlFk and ‘Black Beavers’ is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb6mXj9aenk.

2. ‘Barely Audible’ was produced by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Vivian Wenli Lin, and Katherine Copeland; the original poem was written by Chinaka Hodge. The video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC-hQvBvAyY.

3. During the process of inquiry, it came to our attention that BBC News had produced a similar segment on segregation and the dividing line of Delmar Boulevard in 2012. The video is available at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17361995.

4. ‘33’ is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y3C5KBcCPI.

5. ‘I, too, am Harvard’ is available at http://itooamharvard.tumblr.com.

6. For more information, visit blackyouthproject.com and byp100.org.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Korina M. Jocson

Korina Jocson is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research examines youth literacies at the intersection of media and literary arts, information and communication technologies, and issues of equity across educational settings. She is the author of Youth Poets: Empowering Literacies In and Out of Schools and editor of Cultural Transformations: Youth and Pedagogies of Possibility.

Ashley Carpenter

Ashley Carpenter is a doctoral student in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her areas of interests are college access, retention of students of color, and issues of diversity and racial climate in higher education.