Letter to Natalia Romualdo: academic writing in epistolary format

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on the conduct of research whose centrality consists in the study of anti-racism on the internet. To carry out this reflection, it will focus on performances of youtubers who are both self-declared black and committed to serving content related to the anti-racist agenda on their channels, inside the YouTube platform. To tackle this task, this article uses theoretical and methodological paths that dare to challenge the hegemonic constructions of academic writing. In this sense, epistolary writing was adopted as a strategy to expand the viability of dialogue between the researcher self and the relationship with the interlocutors of the same community. Thus, thinking about the praxis of decolonial epistemologies, I dedicate this article(letter) to Natalia Romualdo, black woman, journalist, anti-racist activist and founder of the Papo de Preta Channel, who died in 2022.