Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17)

by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Jul 02, 2018 06:29 PM

With great pleasure we announce the second edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), an annual conference series initiated by the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at CIS to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) will be held at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017. It is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT-B and the CIS.

Event details

When

Mar 03, 2017 09:00 AM to
Mar 05, 2017 06:30 PM

Where

IIIT Bangalore, 26/C, Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore, 560100

Contact Name

Sneha and Sumandro

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Agenda (final): Download (PDF)

Programme: Download (PDF)

Poster (high resolution): Download (JPG)

IRC17: Key Provocations

Two critical questions that emerged from the conversations at the previous edition of the Conference (IRC16) were about the digital objects of research, and the digital/internet experiences in Indic languages. As we discussed various aspects and challenges of 'studying internet in India', it was noted that we have not sufficiently explored how ongoing research methods, assumptions, and analytical frames are being challenged (if at all) by the becoming-digital of the objects of research across disciplines: from various artifacts and traces of human and machinic interactions, to archival entries and sites of ethnography, to practices and necessities of collaboration.

We found that the analyses of such digital objects of research often tend to assume either an aesthetic and functional uniqueness or sameness vis-à-vis the pre-/proto-digital objects of research, while neither of these positions are discussed in detail. Further, we tend to universalise the English-speaking user's/researcher's experience of working with such digital objects, without sufficiently considering their lives and functions in other (especially, Indic) languages.

These we take as the key provocations of the 2017 edition of IRC:

How does the becoming-digital of the research objects challenge our current research practices, concerns, and assumptions?
How do we appreciate, study, and theorise the functioning of and meaning-making by digital objects in Indic languages?
What research tools and infrastructures are needed to study, document, annotate, analyse, archive, cite, and work with (in general) digital objects, especially those in Indic languages?

This conference series is specifically driven by the following interests: 1) creating discussion spaces for researchers studying internet in India and in other comparable regions, 2) foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, 3) accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and 4) exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) forms of objects of power/knowledge.

Dates and Venue

The conference is being hosted by the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) during March 03-05, 2017.

Address: 26/C, Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore, 560100, location on Google Map.

Session Details and Notes

Day 01, Friday, March 03

#DigitalIdentities: Details and Etherpad

#IndicLanguagesAndInternetCohabitation: Details and Etherpad

#SelfiesFromTheField: Details and Etherpad

#HookingUp: Details and Etherpad

Day 02, Saturday, March 04

#DotBharatAdoption: Details and Etherpad

#DigitalPedagogies: Details and Etherpad

#MaterializingWriting: Details and Etherpad

#RenarrationWeb: Details and Etherpad

Day 03, Sunday, March 05

#ArchivesForStorytelling: Details and Etherpad

#ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance: Details and Etherpad

#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing: Details and Etherpad

Session Selection Process

Call for sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call.

Selected sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions.

Please join the researchers@cis-india mailing list to take part in pre- and post-conference conversations.

About the IRC Series

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.

The IRC series is driven by the following interests:

creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,
foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and
exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.

The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series was held in February 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The Conference was constituted by eleven discussion sessions (majority of which were organised around presentation of several papers), four workshop sessions (which involved group discussions, activities, and learnings), a book sprint over three sessions to develop an outline of a (re)sourcebook for internet researchers in India, and a concluding round table. The audio recordings and notes from IRC16 are now being compiled into an online Reader. A detailed reflection note on IRC16 has been published.