Young artivists, social change and media literacy: Shifting the field through South-to-South connections in Kenya and Brazil

Abstract

This article discusses the interplay between artivism and media literacy in plural Global South(s) and its fight against marginalisation. It reflects on the production of an experimental animation Portrait of Marielle by Kenyan and Brazilian young media activists and artivists. This animated film honours the legacy of Marielle Franco, a Brazilian human rights activist and politician murdered in 2018. The article explores how creative media practices can be used as tools for youth movement building in the Global South. It achieves this by analysing creative experiences that take place in ‘third spaces’ and considering how the application of creative techniques can establish South-to-South dialogical spaces for young people and mobilise memories and histories. Embracing an ethnographic approach, we trace the journeys of these artivists and their animated film, analysing the creative production processes and the exhibition of the animations’ frames in venues across both countries. This enables us to document the development of a collective ‘we’, nurtured by a dialogue between the young artivists and mediated by the creative artefacts, moving from individual to collective experiences. By following these journeys, we unpack how the spaces created by these interactions interplay with an agentive theory of change for media literacy, composed of four elements: Access, Awareness, Capability and Consequences. The focus is on the latter two: Capability, which involves young people using their media literacy for particular purposes in their lives, and Consequences, which occur when media literacy capabilities are combined with an active desire for a media environment that is conducive to equality and social justice. We suggest that working across these domains offers two important contributions to our field: a conceptual framework for digital and networked artivism that is intertwined with media literacy and a shift of the frames of reference for media literacy towards activism and social change.