Finding Methods for the Analysis of Afro-Latin Podcasting: Insights into the Creation of a Methodological Framework for the Study of Black Digital Media from Latin America and the Caribbean

On April 14, 2026, Fiona Quast, doctoral candidate at the GCSC of JLU Giessen, will give an online talk on “Finding Methods for the Analysis of Afro-Latin Podcasting”. For the Zoom link, please write an email to: afroeuropecyberspace@uni-bremen.de. This event will be moderated by Ximena Cervantes Englerth.

Abstract: Latin American slavery was abolished over a century ago, with Brazil as the last country to exit slavery in 1888. Nevertheless, Afro-Latin Americans’ historical exclusion remains evident in their current socioeconomic and sociocultural circumstances (Rojas Dávila 2018: 155), reflected in limited access to decision-making spaces and the mis- and underrepresentation of Afrodescendants in media (Htun 2014: 120). My doctoral research examines how racialized and marginalized Black and Afrodescendant people in Spanish-speaking Latin America resist these structures via digital media self-representations, particularly through podcasting. This presentation offers insights into the creation of a decolonial and Afrocentric methodological framework for studying Afro-Latin podcasting from Spanish-speaking Latin America and the Caribbean. Using my dissertation as an example, I share my journey toward finding suitable methods for studying Black digital cultural productions. Specifically, I demonstrate how I developed an appropriate analytical framework by applying a bottom-up, community-centered approach rooted in decolonial theory, specifically through Abdul Alkalimat’s (2016) D-7 method for digital artifacts and Brock’s (2018) Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA). This presentation provides insights into the research process of Afro-Latin podcasting, introducing manual and digital methods ranging from audio transcription to computer-based textual analysis.