"She Get It From Her Mama": Exploring Sista Circles, Black Storytelling, and Mediated Identity-Making

• In Event: Biographical and Life Writing Approaches Across Disciplines

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study considers the impact of mass media when it converges with other systems of influence and learning on multiple generations of Black women. We examine the aspects of identity-making, sensemaking, and meaning-making through audience reception using Black feminist epistemologies and critical race theory. While scholars have recognized that audiences are active recipients that deconstruct and decode the messages they are consuming (Hall 1980), we note that Black audiences often engage in oppositional [life] readings, create counterstories, and confront dominant depictions that have cast them in stereotypical and incomplete ways. Using sista circles in the U.S. South, we explore how Black women viewing Black women-centered media is a pedagogical practice at home, in classrooms and in social groups.

Authors

• Sherella Cupid, Louisiana State University
  Presenting Author

• Asha S. Winfield, Louisiana State University
  Presenting Author