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WHAT IS THE MAIN ARGUMENT, NARRATIVE OR E/AFFECT?

         Gallon seeks to highlight how technology can further expose humanity as a racialized social construct by conceptualizing a relationship between digital humanities and Africana/African American/Black studies, which she names black digital humanities. Naming black digital humanities as such helps to put a name to the unnamed, bringing the concept into existence—though precise definitions of what it constitutes might continue to be elusive.

http://centerforethnography.org/content/kim-gallon-making-case-black-digital-humanities

The primary argument that the author puts forward in the essay is two fold:1. There needs to be a concerted effort to draw connections between African American studies and digital humanities in order to reveal the politics of race and power that constructs the tools of the former as well as the entire itself.

http://centerforethnography.org/content/kim-gallon-making-case-black-digital-humanities

Digital humanities, as the article argues, is the next frontier for academic research in terms of theory, themes, 'case studies' as well as insitutional support for the same. Perhaps the frontier has already started to become the new 'normal''. Archives and ethnography are no different and archive ethnography as a method as well as field is constantly engaging with the digital humanities ( websites, digital tools, virtual installations, virtual ethnography, etc.

What is the main argument, narrative, or e/affect?

Gallon connects the digital humanities to Black studies by using the concept of technology as a space for “expos[ing] humanity as a racialized social construction” (Gallon 2016, 1). Pointing to the nearly nonexistent literature on Black studies represented through the digital humanities, Gallon makes a case for considering technology as a moment in a longstanding mode of Black resistance within practices of Eurocentric oppression. I liked especially that Gallon points out practices of “black technophobia” within academia – the idea that Black people have an aversion to technology.

Archive Ethnography: What is the main argument, narrative, or e/affect

What is the main argument, narrative, or e/affect?Gallon examines the relationship between the digital humanities and Black studies, emphasizing the racialization of “humanity” within the humanities and how racialized systems of power continue to shape “blackness” and marginalize the voices of black peoples within both the fields of the humanities and digital studies. Gallon argues that through Black Digital Studies, the intersection of digital humanities and Black studies, scholars can “bring forth the humanity of marginalized peoples through the use of digital platforms and tools” (p.

Archive Ethnography: What concepts, ideas and examples from this text contribute to the theory of archive ethnography?

What concepts, ideas and examples from this text contribute to the theory and practice of archive ethnography?The concept Gallon provides in terms of a “technology of recovery” is important for rethinking the ways in which digital tools and platforms such as those used in archive ethnography work can serve to challenge the racialized systemic norms present in the humanities and social sciences, providing spaces for resistance to these hegemonic structures in recovering and preserving marginalized voices. As Gallon notes, we must recognize that race itself can serve as metadata.