The Museum of Black Girl Play

<aside> ✨ #girlhood #play #racial-health #interactive-exhibition

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Project Abstract

The Museum of Black Girl Play is ultimately intended to be a digital companion piece to my dissertation project, which is tentatively titled, “Past is Prologue: Chronicling Black Girl Play Across Time and Space.” The purpose of this project is multifaceted. I intend to use it as a home for the living archive of Black girl play that I will create for my dissertation, as a space where people can learn about how Black girl play supports Black girls’ racial health, an interactive space for Black girls to play online, and a space where I can interface and collaborate with Black girls in future research projects.

Because my research is focused on understanding play both as a way to understand how Black girls develop a healthy racial identity and as the avenue through which Black girls drive global popular culture, I hope that The Museum of Black Girl Play will become a hub for the intersections of my research. Black girl play is a widely studied phenomenon, as evidenced in The Games Black Girls Play (2006), Black Girlhood Celebration (2009), and Taking on the Light (2022), but in the limited digital archive of this phenomenon is oversaturated by white teens and young adults who mimic and profit from Black girl play. Ideally, this museum will create an accurate digital picture of Black girl play and become a hub for Black girlhood researchers. My hope is that when Black girls, and Black people see in masse that there is research being done about their cultural experience by people within their culture group, that they will look at themselves with a stronger sense of racial health and a stronger sense of self-confidence.

Presently, I plan to continue to grow and build out this archive in tandem with my dissertation writing so that they are both completed at the same time. However, with the help of the tGASP program, I would hope to complete the site in advance of my dissertation and begin the work of teaching about the relationship between Black girl play and racial health as soon as possible.

Meet Renee

<aside> 🧭 twitter @_nishawn

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Renee is a PhD student in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at University of Maryland. With research interests in post-Civil Rights girlhood, African American Culture, and play, Renee investigates Black Girl Play and Joy as mechanisms for promoting racial health among Black girls. Prior to pivoting to academia, Renee was an administrator, teacher, and curriculum designer for various DC Public Schools, Charter Schools and educational organizations.


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