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Keynote speaker

The keynote speeches will be streamed via video conference. To participate, please send an email to: afroeuropecyberspace@uni-bremen.de

Keynote 1, 17 June 2026, 10 am

Francesca Sobande (Cardiff University):
(Post-)Digital Diasporic Forecasts and Futures

The generative notion of “digital diaspora” (Anna Everett 2009) has been theorised and analysed in a wide range of insightful ways that particularly tend to Black life and histories. Accounting for how digital technology and online platforms are implicated in diasporic experiences, “digital diaspora” is a term that has been turned away from as well as being embraced. How might the related concept of “(post-)digital diaspora” help us to grapple with the current digital and socio-political landscape – from the intensified impact of “artificial intelligence” (AI) and changing networked platforms, to the normalisation of documenting local, national, and international atrocities and solidarities on social media? What might be gained, lost, or remixed by shifting a focus away from the lens of “digital diaspora” and toward engaging with the challenges and possibilities presented by the idea of “post-digital diasporic forecasts and futures”? Does the “post-” in such a concept refer to a time after the digital or the diaspora as “we” know it, and why does the distinction matter? Guided by these questions, this session reflects on the recent history of digital diasporic realities, ruptures, and imaginaries, while considering what may lie ahead.

Reference
Everett, Anna (2009) Digital Diaspora: A Race for Cyberspace. Albany: SUNY Press.

Francesca Sobande

Dr Francesca Sobande is a writer and reader in digital media studies at Cardiff University (Wales/Cymru). Her books include The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Consuming Crisis (SAGE, 2022), and Big Brands Are Watching You (University of California Press, 2024). Francesca is also co-author of Look, Don’t Touch: Reflections on the Freedom to Feel (404 Ink, 2025) and Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022), as well as the free self-published graphic novel, Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us (2023). Her most recent writing includes the free self-published zine, Black Life in / and "Alt" Music Subcultures (2025), in addition to essays on “Echoes: Soft Space and Solidarity in the Legacy of Hardcore Punk” (Folding Rock), “She Burns: The Heat of Black Women in Blues and Punk” (Shuddhashar) and “The Inhale and Exhale of Art” (Shuddhashar). Francesca is currently working on a self-published comic, Balsamic Night, and an illustrated poetry collection, Haar.

Keynote 2, 18 June 2026, 9:30 am

Mayra Santos-Febres (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto Río Piedras)