The Diaspora Solidarities Lab (DSL) is a multi-institutional Black feminist partnership that supports solidarity work in Black and Ethnic Studies conducted by undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members, and community partners who are committed to transformative justice and accountable to communities beyond the Western academy. We sponsor both traditional analog and digital experimental scholarship to build knowledge communities across institutions and geographies, training participants in the practices and principles of radical media, ethics of Black feminist praxis, and decolonial and antiracist principles. We emphasize the literacies of the born-digital and in-person ethical collaboration.


The DSL comprises two research groupings that we characterize as archipelagos: the Open Boat Lab (MSU) and the Community Knowledge Lab (JHU). The DSL is directed by Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez and Jessica Marie Johnson with financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Michigan State University, and Johns Hopkins University.