Instagramming Diasporic Mobilities: The Black Travel Movement and Differential Spatial Racialization

Abstract

The 2010s saw the onset of the Black Travel Movement—an influx of travel companies aimed at a rising Black customer base, whose travel habits are redefining a traditionally White industry. This study interrogates how Black travel companies produce representations that create new possibilities for Blackness on a global scale. To that end, this article forwards the concept of differential spatial racialization. Differential spatial racialization builds from the Critical Race Theory (CRT) concept of differential racialization to explicate how race and racial meanings change across spatial contexts. This article undertakes a narrative analysis of the Instagram accounts of two prominent Black travel companies, Travel Noire and Nomadness Travel Tribe. Results reveal how Travel Noire and Nomadness Travel Tribe minimize the presence of differential spatial racialization by drawing on discourses of global Blackness. Simultaneously, their homogenous depictions and curated posts erase and idealize processes of differential spatial racialization in Black travel.