Re-membering the self online: Joyce Ash’s quest for the pulse of community through social media-permeated writing

Abstract This article examines the works of the Cameroonian author Joyce Ash as a quest for the pulse of the community that experiments with potential sites for building intersubjective relations in both traditional and modern societies. In a critical engagement with her poetry collections A Basket of Flaming Ashes and Beautiful Fire , as well as her co-written (with Eric Chinje) memoir Lockdown Chronicles , I argue that her writings constitute an archaeology of modern social media, giving insights into its current practices as well as its antecedents. Through long-distance nationalism, Joyce Ash mobilises social media in order to re-imagine an inclusive and equitable postcolonial nation as well as to bear witness to experiences of resilience, personal and collective, especially in contexts of political exclusion and lack of freedom of expression. I therefore make recourse to the concepts of the public sphere and popular culture via the Internet as crucial avenues in understanding her works as forms of self-re-memberment and collective quest for healing in times of crisis.