About
Ashley Crooks-Allen (They/Them) is the Dubois-Mandela Rodney / Anti-Racism Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan. They recently obtained their PhD from the University of Georgia, where they focused on Black ethnic identity, social movements, and social media. Their dissertation is titled, “Mestizaje Undone: A Qualitative Social Media Analysis of Afro-Latinx Identity & Social Movements.” This work takes a qualitative approach to understanding how Afro-Latinx people use social media to make identity claims in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Dr. Crooks-Allen's master's research, also at the University of Georgia, focused on Afro-Caribbean identity and experiences with the Black Lives Matter movement in Georgia. They also completed a graduate certificate in women’s and gender studies. They graduated from Emory University with a major in creative writing and a minor in sociology. While at Emory, they were a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow.
Current Work
My current project examines the relationship between Afro-Latinx identity and the #BlackLivesMatter movement via social media. My research questions include: 1) How do Afro-Latinx social media users understand the Black Lives Matter Movement in relation to their identity? 2)How do social media users utilize these platforms to assert and affirm their identities? And how does gender impact or intersect with this process? 3) How might #BlackLivesMatter have impacted the proliferation of #AfroLatinx*?
Cox (2017) and Ince and colleagues (2017) make the case for analyzing social media as it provides data on how people are reacting to events as they occur, as well as social media’s ability to provide a platform for traditionally marginalized voices. Social media has the benefit of creating a digital #BlackLivesMatter archive for this type of research; even in periods where the physical demonstrations associated with the movement decline, it continues to live on via the internet.
Research Area Keyword(s)
Social movements, social media, Afro-Latinx, Black Lives Matter