Introduction - Global Black Lives Matter: Representations of resistance, memory and politics

Viral videos, murals, graffiti, performance activism, tumbling statues, and Black Atlantic film screenings are all part of empowering audio-visual-digital narratives that contribute to the rising momentum against ongoing institutional racism - on the backs of the legacies of colonialism, slavery and exploitation across the world. From the Rhodes Must Fall movement that started in South Africa, the townships of Johannesburg, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Black Lives Matter in US and UK, to the reclaiming of rights of indigenous communities, migrant ‘braccianti’ in Italy, Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories among other ethno-racial minorities - audio-visual-digital conduits have connected local and global struggles for rights and recognition in the face of state brutality, corporate collaborations and racist violent attacks. This is amid growing awareness of the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on marginalised Black, migrant, minority, and indigenous communities – further linking social exclusion and health inequalities to ethnic or racial discrimination.

Triggered by the global protests that sparked in the United States following the atrocious murder of George Floyd in May 2020, we set out to explore such mediated representations and performances as ‘catalytic signifiers’ in moments of rupture (Kaur) that play a major contributory role in explosive uprisings (Grassilli) even while they may be limited in terms of their long-term effects (Stewart 2015). We recognise that this is not the first time that such revolt has occurred mobilised by grassroots media – the police killings of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner among many others also acted like lightning rods where their deaths were differently mediated as with in situ audio-visual testimony, post-death imagery, audio recordings before a fatal shot, and online calls in a series of recurrent hauntings (see Cox 2015).