Call and response in the digital age,from plantation blues to algorithmic hymns: Ethno-curatorial rememory and algorithmic authoritarianism

Abstract

This article introduces ethno-curatorial rememory, a practice where communities employ embodied curation—through ritual, oral history, and art—to resist algorithmic authoritarianism's erasure of collective memory. Grounded in Womanist frameworks and Black and Indigenous women's cultural curation, it highlights practices that reclaim memory across embodied and digital forms. Contrasting artificial intelligence's homogenizing logics, it reframes digital authoritarianism as contested terrain where rememory asserts epistemic sovereignty. Ethno-curatorial rememory transcends preservation, envisioning decolonial futures by turning curation into coalition and resistance. Initiatives like AnneMarie Mingo's Sister Scholars and Melva Sampson's Pink Robe Chronicles exemplify this praxis, weaving ritual, storytelling, and digital sanctuary. This framework advances memory studies and digital activism through culturally grounded, intersectional praxis.