Afrofuturist theory provides a pedagogical roadmap and support for technology in an Africana Studies classroom. Afrofuturism takes up representations of the lived reality of Black people in the past as well as those in the present, and it investigates alternate narratives in an attempt to construct new truths from prevailing understandings of the Black diaspora. For example, by analyzing the way alienation occurs, Afrofuturism works to connect the African diaspora with its history and knowledge of racialized bodies through a lens that provides an insight not possible without technology. It also evaluates past and present futures in order to imagine a world that promotes the better conditions of Black people through literature, music, technology, and art. Afrofuturism can be understood as a series of social, political, and artistic movements that challenge us to imagine a world in which peoples of African descent and their cultures play a central role in the creation of a better world. Afrofuturism is simultaneously a philosophy, science fiction, and history that traverses the Black “Diasporic” culture and technology. It refers to a thriving contemporary movement of Black, African American, and Black diasporic writers, artists, musicians, and theorists. It encompasses cultural production, thought, literature, visual arts, photography, film, multimedia art, performing arts, music, and theory imagining greater justice and free expression of Black subjectivity in the future through alternative places, times, and realities.

Although there are many definitions of Afrofuturism, including the themes of re-publication, Black liberation, the revision of the past, and an understanding of the future through a Black technocultural lens, all are interrelated and reflexively build upon one another. The concept is presented as heuristics to make Black artistic production visible for a future that wants to escape dystopian extinction and appear more real. Ytasha L. Womack suggests that “Afrofuturists seek to inspire and forge a stronger self-identity and respect for humanity by encouraging enthusiasts to reexamine their environments and reimagine the future in a cross-cultural context” (Womack 2013). While the focus of most discussion related to Afrofuturism is on creative and speculative fiction, music, art, film, comic books, and other aspects of popular culture, I posit that the very same ideas that define Afrofuturism also support an evolving definition of Digital Africana Studies, which has the potential to exemplify culturally focused Digital Humanities projects.

Applied Afrofuturism is my way of seeing the various theories of Afrofuturism brought to life in the classroom or in practice through other means such as exhibitions, community projects, social justice activities, or performance. Afrofuturism fills the theoretical gap between the evolution of technology, represented by a rapidly climbing line on a line graph, and the curricular evolution of Black or Africana studies programs, represented by a line that gradually moves in an upward trajectory. If we imagine the horizontal line of that graph representing the curricular design of most Black Studies programs as that curriculum responds to popular culture and social justice activities or those topics of importance to Black or Africana Studies programs. The vertical line that progresses upward very quickly represents the evolution of technology. That space that lies between these two lines is where Afrofuturist theory resides along with the Digital Africana Studies curriculum and applied Afrofuturism, effectively filling the gap between the sometimes traditional curricular design of Black Studies and the rapidly advancing pace of technology. Dr. Howard Rambsy’s Mixtape project encourages students to use performance creative writing, photography, and other forms of multimedia along with popular music to critique societal issues related to the Black community. In doing so, students are able to not only critique the community but also its interaction with the broader society outside of the community to include the various systems that have historically been racist. It is through this reflexive conversation between students and their lived experience, and various aspects of popular culture, that they are ultimately able to understand themselves and the society in which they live in a different way. Ultimately, my goal is to demonstrate how Afrofuturism’s higher education mission also serves to strengthen underserved communities. We see a growing number of Digital Humanities incubators incorporating responsible community engagement as part of their mission. Those centers working with underserved or minoritized groups, more specifically Black communities, can be discussed or critiqued through Afrofuturist theory.

Digital Humanities is a relatively new field that involves the use of computational tools for teaching, learning, and researching within Humanities disciplines. Finding a definitive definition of Digital Humanities has been difficult for those involved in this area and a consensus on what it means has yet to be reached. Although significant trends have been implemented in networked and multimodal work that encompasses social, visual, auditory, and tactile media, much of the field still focuses on documents and texts in order to differentiate them from work in digital research, media studies, communications studies, information science, and sociology. Even the most ardent proponents argue that the area does not yet have a ready-made definition, and that we need to explore the potential for it with the tools and methods available. The digital humanities specifically cover a wide range of subjects from the collection of primary sources and text data to the dismantling of large cultural datasets for topic modeling. Through the production and use of these new applications and techniques, Digital Humanities is fast becoming a field of science at the interface between computer or digital technology and disciplines in the humanities, facilitating a new types of teaching and research, and at the same time examining and critiquing their impact on the cultural heritage and cultural capital of the humanities. In the course of the development of Digital Humanities, the humanities and computer sciences are increasingly linked with other fields such as those in STEM, social sciences, media studies, and for the purposes of this work, Africana Studies. Of course, it is impossible to discuss what Digital Humanities is without also what has traditionally not been considered Digital Humanities and where that border exists.

Arriving at the University of Arizona in 2012, I was not totally sure what to expect with regards to a Black community and what it would be like to be Black in the desert Southwest. I soon discovered that because of our proximity to the Southern border that topics surrounding the border, migration, and Borderlands Theory were at the forefront of conversation. The term “Borderlands” has been recognized as an important concept in the field of Latina/LatinX Studies and contributes to cultural studies in the USA, Europe, and Latin America. It is of fundamental importance for the conceptualization of marginalized identities and possibilities of action in today’s transnational feminism. Gloria Anzaldua’s own writings suggest a symbolic and far-reaching dimension to this concept (Equality Archive). Anzaldua questions the concept of the border as a dividing line between the so-called majority and Western culture in the prose and poetry sections, encourages an active interest in oppressed people to change their attitudes, and encourages the development of borders (Wikipedia 2022). Although her writings focus on the Chicanx experience in the Southwest, Anzaldua believes that the borders between the US and Mexico are physical, social, cultural, and psychological, created to mark those who are less than others in the eyes of the dominant culture (Cahuas 2019). In her New Mestizo Theory, Professor Maria L. Amado describes Anzaldua’s borderlands as one of racial inclusiveness. Borderlands is a reality check for readers of all races and cultural barriers, an introspection into the search for true identity.

Anzaldua’s articulation of intersectional realities broke paradigms for more than 30 years (Shift7 2020). These realities were revolutionary, transdisciplinary, and similar in scope to the disruptive nature of Digital Africana Studies and Afrofuturism. The borders that have been created between what is considered Digital Humanities and Digital Africana Studies/Afrofuturism are often determined by the relevancy of the project to the community in which it is deployed or the investment in it by community/student developers. Far too often, Digital Humanities projects are deployed into communities by academics spouting abstract theories as the defining factor. What Digital Africana Studies/Afrofuturism does is liberate the individual from the colonizing ideas of the dominant culture. It is true that the victor usually tells the tale, and this tale is one that suggests that people of color within the community have no agency or creativity to create a valid Digital Humanities project, therefore, assistance must be provided from outside the community. Unfortunately, this reminds me all too well of how missionaries sought to Christianize the heathens because their religions are not valid.

Paulo Freire suggested that the key to liberation is the awakening of a critical awareness of the individual’s thought process. This can only be done through a new kind of education that creates a partnership between teacher and pupil, which enables pupils to engage in dialogue and initiates the process of humanizing thought and its corresponding actions (Freire 2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed is one of the fundamental texts in the field of critical pedagogy that seeks to help students question and challenge the rule, beliefs, and practices of rulers (Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Freire calls traditional education pedagogy the “banking model of education” in the book because it treats students like empty vessels to be filled with knowledge, like piggy banks. Freire argues that pedagogy should treat students as co-creators of knowledge. This is similar to Gloria Ladson-Billings’s culturally relevant pedagogy where the subject matter is particular to the background of the student or community. She suggests that:

Geneva Gay’s notions related to culturally responsive pedagogy, which is a dialogue between student, teacher, and content, and she argues that culturally appealing teachers combine cultural knowledge, previous experience, performance styles, academic knowledge, and intellectual tools in a way that legitimizes what they already know, and that is why culturally engaging teaching is important (Kozleski n.d.). Django Paris who has developed culturally supportive pedagogy, broadens assets-based teaching approaches such as culturally relevant pedagogy, effectively bringing them into the twenty-first century. Paris (2012) expanded this approach to go beyond the use of culture and language for students to use the classroom as a bridge to academic success. In addition to ensuring that Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) students preserve their own heritage and community practices and have access to dominant practices, culturally supportive pedagogy integrates students and young people into culture and practice by recognizing young people as producers of culture and not consumers. By accepting and affirming the background of students of color and by viewing culturally relevant pedagogy as a link between cultural knowledge and past experiences through a frame of reference, we see that appealing pedagogy and culturally supportive pedagogy view school as a place where cultural ways in which communities of color are preserved and not eradicated.

Culturally relevant pedagogies that consider the heritage, community, and cultural practices of BIPOC students as resources to be appreciated and explored are culturally sustainable when expanded (transforming practice). It is through these varied teaching practices that students develop literacies that will help them succeed in life. Dr. Muhammad’s Framework for Historically Responsive Lit...