Space, Place, and Mapping ILA387 Spring 2016

Callahan and Johnson Articles

In this article Callahan and Johnson state that media has the ability to extend cultural perspectives, including the cultures of marginalized people. The Garifuna People are marginalized in both their native countries and in the United States, falling in the in between of not being African American, White or the “traditional” mestizo. Although they are indigenous their black skin removes them from the unification of their mestizo based countries. This creates a cognitive need to orientate themselves in an environment where they can express themselves. Before the boom of Facebook 2007 it was as if the Garifuna outside of academia was left out of the global conversation. The authors chose to study Garifuna people because there is not much published articles about them and the Garifuna succeeded to varying degrees in maintaining their identity and languages, despite the pressure from surrounding host cultures and languages (Callahan & Johnson 322). In this study the subject pool was limited to Honduras, disregarding the population across Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, and the United States. This hypothesis cannot be generalized. The significance of this work is Callahan and Johnson defend and prove that the younger generation (16-35) have taken over organization and forming unity across borders. This illuminates the use of Facebook for building community and communication in the Garifuna community. The dependency on social media is a current resource that expands the reach of the Garifuna communication; they are no longer limited by the need of a calling card. Although many do not have internet access in their homes, through their phones and social hot spots they are all connected to each other. 

They continue their idea in 2015 with the statement that Garifuna people continue to cluster together in homogenous grouping centered in large cities (75). Callahan and Johnson make reference to the double consciousness of minorities as presented by Du Bois, where the two identities conflict with each other in America. The limitation of this article is their use of terms such as “American sense of consciousness”; this separates American from blackness hence making the foundation of American identity whiteness. Through open- ended interview questions in the Garifuna community. Through this interviews they realized that Garifuna people experienced a double consciousness prior to immigrating to the United States. (Check Black Atlantic for explanation).



"Social Media has become a powerful toll in helping the Garifuna Keep grounded in their culture, while adapting to culture in their new surroundings" (Callahan, Johnson 95).
"They have begun to create a supraterritorial space inside social media for Garifuna social expression. This space spans various social media outlets and has allowed Garifuna from all over the world to connect with each other" (Callahan, Johnson 331).

Johnson, Jared L., and Clark Callahan. "Minority Cultures and Social Media: Magnifying Garifuna." 
Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 42.4 (2013): 319-39. Print.
Johnson, Jared L., and Clark Callahan. "Media and Identity in the Margins: The Garifuna Response to Social Media." 
The Journal of Social Media in Society 4.2 (2015): 73-105. Print.

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