CyberRace Constructs: Transnational Identities in R. Kempadoo's Ghosting

Abstract

In debates concerning the underpinnings of cybertheory, the issue of race has become increasingly contentious. As C. Fusco argues, the "rather euphemistic discourse about the post-human era" has, not surprisingly, decommissioned race as a marker of identity in favor of constructs emphasizing disembodiment as the determining experience of cyberspace (xvi). Given that cybertheory remains predominantly eurocentric, it is not surprising that discourses on "new technologies" only perpetuate existing "strategies of dominion" instead of transcending them (xvi). This situation is not uncontested. Black diasporic theory, for example, offers a powerful counterpoint to western domination of cybertheory by emphasizing subjectivities that "are constructed through, not outside difference" (Hall 4). Given this context. I will investigate Ghosting, an artwork by British digital artist, Roshini Kempadoo. By exploring Kempadoo's aesthetic engagement I will consider how the artist foregrounds the racialized body as a crucial element of transnational Caribbean identities.