Slack and Deep Familism in the Digital Age
“None of us just live in a silo. Everything is in context. My mother used to… she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’ You exist in the context of all you live and what came before you.” —Kamala Harris In 2024, I turned 62. My birthday was marked by calls from my sisters and greetings from family members across the UK, USA, Barbados, and Jamaica—my family of orientation and procreation. It was a joyful occasion, and as I sat down to a Senegalese oxtail dinner at an African-themed restaurant in Albany, New York, I found myself reflecting on the layered nature of family, identity, and connection in the digital age. My birthday was culturally mixed and social media-mediated. In many ways, it was typical of our time, yet entirely different from the birthday celebrations of sixty years ago. It reminded me that we are products of our histories—personal, familial, and national—and that we live in networks that stre...