Digital enclaves of well-being: Black feminist epistemologies and the ethics of caring in online communities

Scholars theorized Black enclaves as spaces intentionally formed to avert the white gaze. This viewpoint is consequential because it centers the dominant group in Black sociality and discourse. The current research challenges this orientation and positions Black social media users as knowledge producers who do not solely or primarily generate reactionary discourses. I conducted 28 semi-structured interviews with Black women content creators who distributed content through one of three digital well-being networks: #therapyforblackgirls, #blackvegan, or #blackgirlsrun on Instagram. I argue that examining Black women’s digital health networks as enclaves that create generative discourses highlights how these networked interactions produce co-constructed written, sonic, and visual texts that serve as archives of care grounded in Black feminist epistemologies. I refer to these online networks as digital enclaves of well-being. Finally, I discuss the implications of theorizing and analyzing enclaves for future research.