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Journal of African American Studies

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19-11-2021 | ARTICLES

Infrastructure and the Black Panther Party: Toward an Infrastructural Politics

Author: D. W. Kamish

Published in: Journal of African American Studies | Issue 4/2021

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Abstract

The Black Panther Party was one of the most important American radical groups of the 1960s, although few scholars have examined them as a model of a revolutionary vanguard party. Following recent political theory, this study performs a discourse analysis of The Black Panther newspaper through the lens of infrastructure. It offers a reading of the Panthers as articulating an infrastructural politics by activating infrastructure as a site of political struggle, providing infrastructure to the people as a mode of political praxis, and drawing attention to the communicational infrastructures that sustain political movements. The study contributes to the growing literatures of infrastructure studies, critical theory, and the Black Panther Party.

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Title: Infrastructure and the Black Panther Party: Toward an Infrastructural Politics
Author: D. W. Kamish
Publication date: 19-11-2021
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of African American Studies / Issue 4/2021
Print ISSN: 1559-1646
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4741
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-021-09556-0

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The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service and the Politics of Art