[Air-L] 2022 Nancy Baym Book Award Winner

[Michelle, Association of Internet Researchers]

We are excited to announce Catherine Knight-Steele's Digital Black Feminism
as the 2022 AoIR Nancy Baym Book Award winner.

*Digital Black Feminism* reclaims feminism for Black women and directly
intervenes in Internet scholarship. The book is historically informed,
considering how Black women have forged forms of resilience -- including
through engagements with technology -- prior to the Internet age. It then
shifts focus to more contemporary practices, developing provocative
metaphors such as the "virtual beauty shop" and devices such as putting
contemporary Black feminists on Twitter in conversation with historical
figures. Knight-Steele also considers Black influencer cultures and the
dangers of commodification of Black women's lives. This book is deeply tied
to to AoIR scholarship and pushes our intellectual community forward.

Committee members were effusive in their praise for this book. "*Digital
Black Feminism* offers an exceptionally liberating perspective in which
democratic rights are enhanced by the wide opportunities of the Internet,"
says Arantxa Vizcaino Verdu. "This book expresses in an innovative and
deeply personal voice a unique identity that today concerns women
worldwide". Robert Tynes adds, "*Digital Black Feminism* is what we hope
for in Internet studies--excellent scholarship, innovative analysis, and
salient vision, based on the most dire issues of today."

Regarding the dire issues of today, the committee made this selection
before the recent retrenchment of reproductive and privacy rights in the
United States. We know that Black women in the US and around the world have
suffered and been marginalized throughout modernity. The end of abortion
access in the US is only a further exacerbation of this marginalization --
Black women's reproductive autonomy in many parts of the world was already
highly curtailed before the US Supreme Court decision. Now, many poor
women, especially Black women, will suffer even more, not just for lack of
access to abortion, but through enhanced surveillance and even more
precarious access to healthcare.

Enter a book like this. As Knight-Steele writes, "Black women consistently
do the *radical* work of calling for the US to make right its promise of
democracy.... It is time for the left to understand that the future of
politics is women of color." Part of this future needs to be learning from
Black women's innovations in the cultural practices of digital media. That
can be part of AoIR's future, too.

While the committee has strongly endorsed *Digital Black Feminism* as the
winner, this was by no means an easy decision. The pool of books submitted
for consideration was deep, filled with excellent scholarship relevant to
Internet research. It was the committee's privilege to read them.

AoIR would like to acknowledge and thank the committee members –- Nancy
Baym, Jun Liu, Arantxa Vizcaino Verdu, Weiyu Zhang, Bjorn Nansen, Robert W.
Gehl (Chair), Jakob Jensen, Robert Tynes -– for their work in judging this
year. The Association also expresses thanks to Michelle, AoIR's Association
Coordinator, for routing books all over the world and keeping the committee
organized.

You can learn more about Catherine Knight-Steele at
http://www.catherineknightsteele.com/ and read the introduction to *Digital
Black Feminism* here [
http://www.catherineknightsteele.com/uploads/4/5/8/7/45879411/digital_black_feminism__steele_2021__introduction.pdf
].

You can buy the book here: https://amzn.to/3aifwFG