Dr Francesca Sobande
Small Group Project 2019-20
Crossing Visionary Boundaries: A Transdisciplinary Photovoice Project of Race and Markets
With Guillaume D. Johnson
Combining critical race theory and photovoice methodology, this project aims to assemble a cross-national and cross-disciplinary team of scholars interested in race-based marketplace issues and local community stakeholders (community activists, artists, practitioners, policy actors) to discuss, compare and contrast their views on “race and markets”. France is the research context as its Republican Model constrains discussions on race and provides a challenging and provocative ethos for such a cross-national dialogue.
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Biography
Dr Francesca Sobande is a writer and reader in digital media studies, whose work addresses digital remix culture and music, Black diaspora(s) and archives, Black feminism and pop culture, nostalgia and subcultures, creative work and education, and the internet and cultural memory. Her most recent writing includes the free zine, Black Life in / and "Alt" Music Subcultures, and a Folding Rock essay on Echoes: Soft Space and Solidarity in the Legacy of Hardcore Punk.
Francesca is the author of Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (University of California Press, 2024), Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (SAGE, 2022), and The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She is co-author with layla-roxanne hill of the book Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022), and the free graphic novel Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us (ESRC/AHRC funded 2023), illustrated by Chris Manson, translated in Scots by Lesley Benzie, and translated in Scottish Gaelic by Naomi Gessesse. An accompanying animation, co-created with Leeds Animation Workshop, features music by Nathan Somevi. Other work by layla-roxanne and Francesca includes Look, Don’t Touch: Reflections On The Freedom to Feel (404 Ink, 2025), a book on how society nurtures and obstructs emotional expression, physical touch, and connectedness.
Francesca is the author of Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (University of California Press, 2024), Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (SAGE, 2022), and The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She is co-author with layla-roxanne hill of the book Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022), and the free graphic novel Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us (ESRC/AHRC funded 2023), illustrated by Chris Manson, translated in Scots by Lesley Benzie, and translated in Scottish Gaelic by Naomi Gessesse. An accompanying animation, co-created with Leeds Animation Workshop, features music by Nathan Somevi. Other work by layla-roxanne and Francesca includes Look, Don’t Touch: Reflections On The Freedom to Feel (404 Ink, 2025), a book on how society nurtures and obstructs emotional expression, physical touch, and connectedness.
Biographical details correct as of 30.04.26