A look through her photographs: The case of Vanessa, a young Afro-Mexican woman

Abstract

The article presents some results of the Master's thesis "Young Afro-Mexicans in the Face of racialization: photography on Instagram as a form of resistance." On this occasion, we delve into the experience of Vanessa, a young Afro-Mexican woman who uses the social network Instagram to show her position on her experiences in the face of racialization. The photographs created by Vanessa included a virtual ethnography exercise, which was selected and analyzed based on Corona Berkin's model (2011), with the denotative, connotative, and dialogic levels. These integrated the research categories formulated under self-representation and resistance against racialization. The work was complemented with the development of in-depth interviews. The results emphasize the connotative and dialogic levels, through which Vanessa's position is evident to re-signify her corporality and establish a position against the stereotype of the sexualized black woman. This reflects the construction of a discourse of self-representation reflected in her photographs, where this practice becomes a means to make various forms of resistance to racialization visible.