ABOUT
Black Girlhood in Motion
I’m Mimi Owusu—an ordinary African student (if you know, you know—shoutout to Coming to America), a fierce advocate of Ghanaian jollof, a Black feminist and a lover of everything that holds space for Black girlhood in all its complexity. Through my five-year doctoral journey, I explored the beauty, brilliance, and unyielding spirit of Black girls and Black women, centering my research on how we create, resist, and heal. My podcast, Blackgirl Choreography, is an audio archive of my dissertation—a living testament to the stories I encountered and the inner[Black]girl child I (re)discovered along the way. For me, storytelling isn’t just a method—it’s a lifeline, a practice of witnessing, healing, and reclaiming space for Black girls and women everywhere.
I am also a sister, a friend, a daughter, an auntie, and partner, who finds joy in holding space for the people I love. A dancer, space curator, and curriculum designer, my creative spirit is anchored in community, healing, and a vision for Black women and girls to live lives unbound by trauma and filled with joy. My life’s work is a love letter to Black girlhood and a call for Black women to imagine healing not as an obligation, but as a birthright. Blackgirl Choreography is my offering to the world. It’s a reminder that everyone, especially Black girls and Black women deserves to be witnessed as we are, with unconditional love and care.
Blackgirl Choreography unpacks my experiences holding space for Black girls during my five-year doctoral journey researching Black girlhood. Through storytelling, I center my experiences anchored in my identity as doctoral student, researcher, educator, and a Black woman learning to love herself as much as she loves Black girls. I deepen my understanding of these experiences by (re)membering moments of my girlhood. In the process, I encounter not only the Black girls and Black women in my stories, but the inner[Black]girl child/children that exist within me. I want everyone, especially other Black women who engage Black girlhood in research and practice, to witness the knowledge that came from this work and the healing that resulted therein. I hope that witnessing my journey helps Black women to make sense of their own as they continue the lifelong project that is healing.
In my dissertation, I recounted six stories that I shared through essays, journals, and audio with Black women I trusted to hold me with tenderness, care, and accountability. We facilitated dialogue in the process of receiving and gifting feedback, which resulted in me creating audio responses to these stories, and finding ways to incorporate their voices in my project. It only made sense to make my findings chapter, which is typically written in dissertations, a series of audio reflections. I concluded my project with conversations with people who have witnessed me through it all: my therapist, mentor, yoga therapist, and spiritual adviser. These audios have been remixed and revised to create what this project has become—- Blackgirl Choreography.
This work honors the lives and labor of Black women and girls and asks: What if we healed just because we deserve to? What if we no longer had to explain our work, but instead allowed it to be witnessed and felt? Blackgirl Choreography is an offering, a remembrance, and a reclamation.