Surfing for Saras: Black Women in Webbed Worlds

• In Event: Technologies of Race and the Futurity of Desire: Feminisms, Gendered Narratives, and Cyberspace

Abstract

When searching “black women” using the Internet, the results return contemporary images of Black women that resemble the sensationalized Sara Baartman, the Venus Hottentot. This paper explores Hottentot stereotype within the context of Anthony Appiah’s (2005) argument, “in constructing an identity, one draws…on the kinds of person available in one's society... Collective identities… provide what we might call scripts: narratives that people can use in shaping their projects and in telling their life stories.” I demonstrate how narrative scripts about Hottentot impact the intimacies of Black women’s lives and the complexities in constructing Black femininities in digital spaces.

Presenter

• DaMaris B. Hill, University of Kentucky