Reconceptualizing Hip-Hop, Youth, and Social Media Through Paulo Freire

• In Event: Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Reconceptualizing Freire’s Critical Community

Abstract

This paper connnects Paulo Freire’s theoretical ideas surrounding “radical love” and social praxis to our empirical work surrounding social media, global youth, and hip-hop culture. Here we illustrate how global hip-hip intellectuals produce certain artistic practices in order to not only actualize their understanding of what forces give rise to injustice, but also to model specific cultural practices that have the power to transform self and society. Additionally, we highlight how social media tools provide a space of praxis as activism; they are at the center of bringing global youth and other concerned citizens together to act collectively for human well-being, equality, and social justice.

Authors

• Bradley J. Porfilio, California State University - East Bay

• Lauren M. Gardner, The Graduate Center at the CUNY

• Debangshu Roychoudhury, City College of New York - CUNY