Theorizing Literacies as Affective Flows: Attuning to the Otherwise Possibilities of Hip-Hop's “In-the-Red Frequencies”

In this theoretical and conceptual article, we consider how meaning-making, literacies, identities, power, privilege, and in/equities are entangled with/in non/human sociomaterial force relations. Inspired by Rose, we build theoretically on the philosophical principles of hip-hop—flow, rupture, layering, and sampling. Conceptually, we invite literacy educators to attune to “in-the-red frequencies,” or “noisy” political philosophies and practices that Black people have used to create alternative realities to white supremacist patriarchal systems of oppression. Afrodiasporic approaches to mobility and sounding pivot us away from humanist ways of knowing/being/doing/researching literacy and toward more creative, emergent, and “fugitive modes.” Ultimately, we argue that theorizing affective literacies via flow↔rupture↔layering↔sampling enables ethical teaching, learning, and research practices that respect multiple perspectives, histories, and truths; account for affect, power, privilege, positioning, and complicity; and highlight “otherwise worlds” not predicated on hegemonic whiteness, anti-Blackness, and sociopolitical violence.