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The Many Faces Within
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within
<b>Blank Noise, as many other digital native collectives, may seem to be complete horizontal at first glance. But, a closer look reveals the many different possibilities for involvement and a unique way the collective organize itself. </b>
<p></p>
<p>One day, during
an afternoon stroll to the M.C. Escher museum in The Hague, I stumbled upon a
painting called ‘Fish and Scales’. On the first glance, I saw two big
black-and-white fishes and some smaller ones, but on a closer look I found
hundreds of fishes, heading to different directions and merging seamlessly into
the bigger fishes as their scales. Upon this discovery, I exclaimed out loud,
“This is just like Blank Noise!”</p>
<p> No, I do not mean to imply in any
way that the Blank Noise Project is like a fish, although it is definitely as
fascinating as the painting. Rather, I found that this painting from the master
of optical illusion is a great analogy to the structures of Blank Noise.</p>
<p>In
the words of Kunal Ashok, one of the male volunteers, the collective consists
not only of “people who volunteer or come to meetings, but anyone that have
contributed in any way they can and identified with the issue.” In this sense,
Blank Noise today consists of over 2,000 people who signed up to their e-group
as volunteers.</p>
<p> How does a collective with that many
people work? Firstly, although these people are called ‘volunteers’ for
registering in the e-group, I would argue that a majority of them are actually
what I call casual participants – those who comment on Blank Noise
interventions, re-Tweet their call for action, promote Blank Noise to their
friends through word of mouth, or simply lurk and follow their activities
online. In the offline sense, they are the passers-by who participate in their
street interventions or become intrigued to think about the issue afterwards.
These people, including those who do the same activities without formally
signing up as volunteers, are acknowledged to be a part of Blank Noise as much
as those who really do volunteer.</p>
<p>Blank
Noise is open to all who shares its concern and values, but its volunteers must
go beyond articulating an opinion and commit to collective action. However, Blank
Noise applies very little requirement for people to identify themselves with
the collective. The main bond that unites them is their shared concern with
street sexual harassment. Blank Noise’s analysis of the issue is sharp, but it
also accommodates diverse perspectives by exploring the fine lines of street sexual
harassment and not prescribing any concrete solution, while the latter is
rarely found in existing social movements. The absence of indoctrination or
concrete agenda reiterated through the public dialogue approach gives room for
people to share different opinions and still respect others in the collective.</p>
<p>Other
than these requirements, they are able to decide exactly how and when they want
to be involved. They can join existing activities or initiate new ones; they
can continuously participate or have on-and-off periods. This is reflected in
the variety of volunteers’ motivations, activities, and the meaning they give
to their involvement. For some people, helping Blank Noise’s street interventions
is exciting because they like street art and engaging with other young people. Many
are involved in online campaigns because they are not physically based in any
of the cities where Blank Noise is present. Some others prefer to do one-off
volunteering by proposing a project to a coordinator and then implementing it. There
are people who started volunteering by initiating Blank Noise chapters in other
cities and the gradually have a more prominent role. Some stay for the long
term, some are active only for several times before going back to become
supporters that spread Blank Noise through words of mouth. The ability to
personalize volunteerism is also what makes Blank Noise appealing, compared to
the stricter templates for volunteering in other social movements.</p>
<p> Any kind of movement requires a
committed group of individuals among the many members to manage it. The same
applies to Blank Noise, who relies on a group of people who dedicate time and
resources to facilitate volunteers and think of the collective’s future: the
Core Team. Members of the Core Team, about ten people, are credited in Blank
Noise’s Frequently Asked Question page and are part of a separate e-group than
the volunteers. In its seven years, the Core Team only went for a retreat once
and mostly connected through the e-group. In this space, they raise questions,
ideas, and debates around Blank Noise’s interventions, posters, and blog posts.
Consequently, for them the issue is not only street sexual harassment but also
related to masculinities, citizenship, class, stereotyping, gender, and public
space. However, there are also layers in the intensity of the Team members’
engagement.</p>
<p>The
most intense is Jasmeen, the founder and the only one who has been with Blank
Noise since its inception until today. Jasmeen is an artist and considers Blank
Noise to be a part of her practice; she has received funds to work for Blank
Noise as an artist. Thus, she is the only one who dedicates herself to BN full
time and becomes the most visible among the volunteers and the public eye. According
to Jasmeen, she is not alone in managing the whole process within Blank Noise.
Since Hemangini Gupta came on board in 2006, she has slowly become the other
main facilitator. “It is a fact that every discussion goes through her. I may
be the face of it, but I see Hemangini and me working together. We rely on each
other for Blank Noise work,<em>” </em>Jasmeen
said.</p>
<p>Hemangini,
a former journalist who is now pursuing a PhD in the U.S., explains her lack of
visibility. “Blank Noise<em> </em>could never
be my number one priority because it doesn’t pay my bills, so I can only do it
when I have free time and my other work is done.” The same is true for others
in the Core Team: students, journalists, writers, artists. Unlike Hemangini who
still managed to be intensively involved, they have dormant and active periods
like the volunteers. </p>
<p>The
Core Team’s functions as coordinators that facilitate the volunteers’
involvement in Blank Noise and ensure that the interventions stay with the
values Blank Noise upholds: confronting the issue but not aggravating the
people, creating public dialogue instead of one-way preaching. This role
emerged in 2006 when the volunteer applications mounted as the result of the
aforementioned blogathon. They have also initiated or made Blank Noise chapters
in other cities grew. Although some of them have also moved to another city due
to work, they remain active touch through online means. Together, the Core Team
forms the de-facto leadership in Blank Noise.</p>
<p> I am tempted to describe Blank Noise
as having a de-facto hierarchy in its internal organization. The form would be
a pyramid, with Jasmeen on top, followed by the coordinators, long-term
project-based volunteers, one-off-project-initiator volunteers, and then the
casual participants. After all, it was clear from my conversations with the
many types of volunteers within Blank Noise that they acknowledge that some
people are involved more intensely and carry more responsibilities than others
in the collective, that there is an implicit leadership roles. This is also
shown by the reluctance of many volunteers to call themselves as an ‘activist’,
claiming that the title is only suitable for people within those leadership
roles and preferring to call themselves ‘supporters’, ‘part of the group’, or ‘volunteers’ instead.
</p>
<p>However,
doing this will be a mistake in interpreting the internal dynamics within Blank
Noise. Firstly, the line between the types of participation is not as clear-cut
as it appears to be. With the exception of Jasmeen, everyone from the
coordinators to the one-off volunteers has active and dormant periods depending
on what happens in their personal lives; they can shift roles quite easily. Some
of Blank Noise coordinators, for instance, are now pursuing higher education
abroad and could only be very active when the return to India during the
holidays or when the school schedule is not as demanding. During momentary
dormant periods, they turn into casual participants because those are the only
roles they are able to take. Secondly, a hierarchy implies that casual
participants are not important for the collective, whereas they turn out to be
the main “target group” and the reason why Blank Noise has grown internally and
in the public eye. </p>
<p> This is again a reason why I was so
taken by Escher’s painting. There are definitely “big fish” leadership figures,
but their scales are actually smaller
fishes in different forms, symbolizing how the roles of a person in the
collective could shift from “big” to “small” and vice versa depending on your
perspective. The many fishes are not depicted horizontally, but also not in a
clear hierarchy. Instead, they are interconnected with each other. The type of
connection is not very clear and the fishes seem to be swimming in different
directions, but they make a cohesive unity. This is the beauty of both Escher’s
creation and Blank Noise.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the eighth post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS
Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>The photo of M.C. Escher’s painting
‘Fish and Scales’ is borrowed from:</em></p>
<p>http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/big.asp?IMAGE=fish_and_scales</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:41:53ZBlog EntryThe Digital Tipping Point
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point
<b>Is Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial factors behind the success. </b>
<p></p>
<p>What images popped in your head when you hear the term ‘digital
activism’? Those that popped in mine are of campaigns that originated in the
Internet, perhaps with a blog, a Youtube video, or a Facebook group, mobilizing
people to take part in a certain action to advocate for a cause or to respond
to a specific event. Whether the request is to sign a petition for a new
legislation or to wear a specific colour on a specific day, the campaigns also
ask people to spread the message, usually responded by re-tweets, status
updates, and link-shares that appear on my timeline. These campaigns, like the
famous Wear Red for Burma or the Pink Chaddi, are usually responses to certain
events and dwindle after the events have passed.</p>
<p>With its four blogs,
two Facebook groups, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account, at first glance Blank
Noise certainly resembles the images in my head. However, they popped one by
one as I got to know Blank Noise better. For one, as I have shared before,
Blank Noise was not a response to a specific event but rather the long term,
ongoing, structural problem of street sexual harassment. For another, street
interventions started as the main core of Blank Noise and have remained a
crucial element despite its prolific online presence. Blank Noise did not start
in the Internet nor did it immediately turn to Web 2.0 for its
mobilization.</p>
<p>The main blog was created soon after Blank Noise
started in 2003 to serve as an archive, information center, and space to
announce future street events. The diverse online campaigns, lively discussions
in the comment section of blog posts, and abundant blog post contributions by
people who have experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual harassment
started after two unexpected events that I call ‘the digital tipping point’.</p>
<p>The first was when
Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, started uploading pictures of her
harasser, taken with her mobile phone, to the blog in March 2005. The first
picture was of a man who had stalked and pestered her for coffee despite her
rejection to his unwelcomed advances. While some readers applauded her action,
many challenged the post. How is the action different from “Can I buy you a
drink?” Can it trigger the change wanted, especially since the guy might not
even have access to the Internet? Is the action of publicly labeling the man as
a perpetrator of street sexual harassment ethical, especially since the man has
not been proven guilty?</p>
<p></p>
<p>These challenges then spiraled into a long
discussion (72 comments!) about the grey areas of street sexual harassment and
the ethics around confronting perpetrators. Although Blank Noise still continue
to upload snapshots of harassers (this intervention is called ‘Unwanted’),
their pictures have since then been blurred until the face is unrecognizable,
including the one in the original post. This event was when Jasmeen realized
that the blog also has the potential of being a space for discussions,
opinions, and debates – the public conversation that Blank Noise aims for.</p>
<p>The second tipping point was when one of Blank
Noise volunteers proposed an idea of a blogathon to commemorate the
International Women’s Day in 2006. Blogging had become a major trend in India
around 2004 and the blogathon basically asked bloggers around India to write
about their experience with street sexual harassment in their private blogs and
link the post to the Blank Noise blog. The bloggers invited were both women and
men, people who have either experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual
harassment. The blogathon was an immense success, perhaps due to the
frustration on the silence and downplay of street sexual harassment into eve
teasing. Suddenly, eve teasing became a booming topic on the web and Blank
Noise received media and (mostly the cyber) public attention.</p>
<p>This is when the idea of online interventions
started. In the following year, Blank Noise created the first of its blogs that
consist entirely of contributions from the public: the <em>Action Heroes </em>blog, a growing compilation of women’s experiences in
dealing with street sexual harassment. It is then followed by <em>Blank Noise Guys </em>and <em>Blank Noise Spectators</em>, which
respectively concentrates on the experiences of men and people who have
witnessed street sexual harassment. Other than the community blogs, the main
blog also introduced collaborative online campaigns in 2008, such as the
‘Museum of Street Weapons’ (a poster project that explores how women uses
everyday objects to defend themselves against street sexual harassment) and
‘Blank Noise This Place’ (a photo collection of places where street sexual
harassment occurs). These interventions were not only online; they were also
collaborative and invited the public to participate.</p>
<p>These tipping points are intriguing not only for
being the triggers to Blank Noise’s transformation to one of the most important
digital activism in India (Mishra, 2010), but also for the reason why they are
successful in doing so: they are able to attract public participation.</p>
<p>The first tipping point was able to attract people
to participate by commenting on a post. The said post was very simple; it
consists of a picture and a one-paragraph text that depicts a conversation
between the harasser and the woman:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>“stalker no.
1: " Excuse me, have we met before?" machlee: no Stalker no. 1: Yes
we have! On commercial street! I work in a call centre. I am a science
graduate." machlee: why are you telling me all this? stalker no. 1: can I
have coffee with you? machlee: can i photograph you? stalker no. 1: yes! sure
you can! stalker no.1: blah blah blah</em>” (Patheja, 2005)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Having been used to NGO pamphlets and blog posts, I
have come to equate discussion on sexual harassment as a very serious
discussion with long text and formal language. This post is so different from
what I was used to, but it was clear to me that even though the language was
casual, the issue and intention were serious. The casual presentation
spoke to me “we would like
to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are an
established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of
professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the
space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted and comfortable to jump into the conversation.</p>
<p>The second tipping
point attracted the more active, substantial participation than commenting;
many people actually created texts, photos, or posters for Blank Noise. It was
possible because Blank Noise opened itself. Jasmeen opened up to an idea of a
volunteer, who opened up to the possibilities offered by the cybersphere.
Instead of depending on a core team to conduct an intervention, Blank Noise
opened up to a project that <strong>entirely</strong>
depended on the public’s response to be successful. Moreover, Blank Noise
opened up to diverse points of views and many types of experiences with street
sexual harassment.</p>
<p>It is widely
acknowledged that the success of a digital activism lies on its ability to
attract public collaboration; however, the digital tipping points of Blank
Noise underline several important factors behind the ability. Attracting public
engagement is not always a result of a meticulous pre-planned intervention. On
the contrary, it might spawn from unintentional events that welcome diverse
points of view, adopt a peer-to-peer attitude, invite contributions, and most
importantly, touched an issue that is very important for many different people.
Web 2.0 is an enabling tool and site for dialogue, but it is certainly not the
only reason behind the success of digital activism in galvanizing youth’s
engagement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the fifth post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series,</a> a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em><u>Reference:</u></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mishra, G.
(2010) ‘The State of Citizen Media in India in Three Short Ideas’. Accessed</p>
<p>19 May 2010
< <a href="http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/the-state-of-citizen-media-in-india-">http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/the-state-of-citizen-media-in-india-</a>in-three-short-ideas/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Patheja, J. (2005) ‘Unwanted. Section 354 IPC.’ Accessed 25 October
2010. < <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/stalker-no.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/stalker-no.html</a>></p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p> </p>
<p>SOURCE OF PICTURE</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/07/he-placed-his-hand-on-my-breast-and.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/07/he-placed-his-hand-on-my-breast-and.html</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalYouthSocial Networkingmovements2011-08-04T10:36:56ZBlog EntryThe Class Question
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question
<b>Blank Noise aims to be as inclusive as possible and therefore does not identify any specific target groups. Yet, the spaces and the methods they occupy do attract certain kinds of volunteers and public. This raises the class question: what are the dilemmas around class on digital interventions? Are they any different from the dilemmas on street interventions? </b>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">My first click to Blank Noise’s main blog was a
surprise. Having read so many media coverage about them, I expected to see a
professional, minimalist looking website like other women’s organizations<a name="_ftnref1" href="#_ftn1"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></a> where
the menu is immediately visible. Instead, I have arrived at the most common and
basic form of blogging: the personal blog.</p>
<p>I
was greeted by entries on their latest thoughts and activities with photos and
text with red font against a black background. I scrolled down a long list of
permanent links on the right side of the site and arrived only at its
Frequently Asked Questions link on the 28<sup>th</sup> item while it would be
one of the easiest to spot in other websites. For me, this discovery said, “we
would like to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are
an established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of
professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the
space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted to it.</p>
<p>Reflecting
on my own position, my familiarity with the space is due to my background as a
young, urban, educated, English-speaking woman for whom the Internet is a key
part of life. My ‘peers’ who are also attracted to this place apparently share
the same background with me. The main demography of Blank Noise’s volunteers,
almost equally men and women, are those between 16-35 years, urban, and English
speaking (Patheja, 2010). My interviewees were all at least university
educated, some in the U.S. Ivy league, and are proficient users of social
media, most of them being bloggers or Twitter and Facebook users.</p>
<p>This dominant
base reflects the discourse on the ‘youth of India’, which represents only a
fragment of India’s vast population of young people. The two narratives on the
youth of India are described by Sinha-Kerkhoff (2005) as ‘the haves’ and
‘have-nots’, a reflection on the broader discourse on the deep social economic
inequities in India. ‘The have-nots’ are the majority of Indian youth who are
struggling with the basic issues of livelihood, health, and education, while
‘the haves’ are painted as the children of liberalization: the mostly urban,
middle class, technologically savvy, and highly educated students and young professionals
up who maintain a youthful lifestyle up to their 30s.</p>
<p>Although
‘the haves’ only consist 10% of the total youth population, they are the ones
identified as <em>the </em>youth of India by
popular discourses. Lukose (2008) explained this by stating that youth as a
social category in India is linked to the larger sense of India’s
transformation into an emerging global economic powerhouse together with
Brazil, Russia, and China (popular as BRIC) after its liberal economic reform
in the 1990s. India’s information and technology industry is spearheading this
transformation, thus it feeds into the discourse of youth as Digital Natives.</p>
<p>Although
there are exceptions to this dominant demography, they are far fewer. Does this
then mean that Blank Noise is ‘contextually empowering’ (Gajjala, 2004), given
that it reaches only ‘the haves’ due to the digital divide and their sites of
participation? </p>
<p>The classed
nature of the virtual public space is something Blank Noise fully acknowledges.
Some interviewees stated that this is why street interventions are so
important; they reach people who may not be Internet users. However, people who
have been involved in Blank Noise for more than two years acknowledged that
class issues are also present in the physical public space.</p>
<p>Dev
Sukumar, one of Blank Noise’s male volunteers, explained to me that the British
colonial legacy still shape the way public spaces in Bangalore are organized.
The commercial areas in the city centre where Blank Noise interventions were
initially organized, such as M.G. Road and Brigade Road, are dominantly inhabited
by English speaking people, but in other parts of the city there are many who
can only speak the local language, Kannada. After recognizing this, Blank Noise
organized street interventions in such places, like the Majestic bus stand, and
making flyers and stencils in Kannada. In order to do this, Blank Noise
specifically called for volunteers who knew the local language.</p>
<p>The
interventions might be in a non-elite space, but the main actors remain those
from the middle class. Hemangini articulated the class issue in Blank Noise,
saying “Like it or not, a lot of the people in Blank Noise are from the middle
class and a lot of the people we have been talking to on the streets are of a
certain class. What is the ethics in a middle class woman asking ‘why are you
looking at me?’ to lower class men? It is if we already assumed that most
perpetrators are lower class men while it is definitely not true.”</p>
<p>The
reflexivity Hemangini shows led me to rethink the assumptions around digital
activism. It is often dismissed as catering only to the middle class,
privileging only one side of the digital divide. But then again, the class
issue is also present in the physical sphere. If middle class youth mostly
attracts their peers in their digital activism, is it problematic by default or
is it only problematic when there is no accompanying reflection on the
political implications of such engagement? How is it more problematic than the
ethical dilemma of middle class people addressing their ‘Others’ in street
interventions? Is the problem related to the sphere of activism (virtual versus
physical), or is it more about the methods of engagement and the reflexivity
required for it?</p>
<p>Hemangini
told me that her dilemma is being shared and discussed with other members in
Blank Noise’s core group, consisting of those who dedicate some time to reflect
on the growth and development of the collective. They have no answer just yet,
but they intend to continue reflecting on it. I have no idea what their future
reflection looks like, but I do know that the class implications of the cyber
sphere will be resolved with more than simply taking interventions to the
streets. Considering that the actors of youth digital activism are, like it or
not, urban, middle class, educated digital natives, Blank Noise’s reflection
will indeed be relevant for all who is interested in this issue. And if you
have your own thoughts on the strategies to resolve this dilemma, why don’t you
drop a comment and reflect together with us? </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the seventh post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>References:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gajjala, R.
(2004) <em>Cyber selves: Feminist
Ethnographies of South Asian Women. </em>Walnut Creek: Almitra Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Lukose, R. (2008) ‘The Children of Liberalization: Youth
Agency and Globalization</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">in India’, in Dolby, N. and Rizvi, F. (eds.) <em>Youth Moves: Identities and Education in a
Global Perspective, </em>pp. 133-150.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Patheja, J.
(2010) <em>Case Study: Blank Noise. </em>Accessed
7 November 2010 <http://www.indiasocial.in/case-study-blank-noise/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sinha-Kerkhoff,
K. (2006) ‘Youth Activism in India’, in Sherrod, L.R., Flanagan, C.A.</p>
<p>and Kassimir,
R. (eds.) <em>Youth Activism: An
International Encyclopedia, </em>pp. 340-348. London: Greenwood Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Source for
picture: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?fbid=73473166363&set=o.2703755288&pid=2095143&id=687356363"><em>http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?fbid=73473166363&set=o.2703755288&pid=2095143&id=687356363</em></a></p>
<div><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a name="_ftn1" href="#_ftnref1"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></a> For
example: <a href="http://www.jagori.org/">http://www.jagori.org/</a> , one of
the most established women organizations in India.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2011-09-22T12:45:35ZBlog EntryThe 'Beyond the Digital' Directory
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory
<b>For the past few months, Maesy Angelina has been sharing the insights gained from her research with Blank Noise on the activism of digital natives. The ‘Beyond the Digital’ directory offers a list of the posts on the research based on the order of its publication.</b>
<p></p>
<p>Have you ever
wondered what is really “new” about the activism of digital natives? In May
2010, the Hivos-CIS ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ Knowledge Programme started
a collaboration The Blank Noise Project in India and Maesy Angelina, a
student-researcher from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam – International
Institute of Social Studies in The Hague who is taking up the research agenda
for her final project to qualify for her Masters degree in International
Development with a specialization in Children and Youth Studies.</p>
<p>Maesy
has been blogging about the insights she gained from her field work in
Bangalore in the CIS website under the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series, which
consists of the following posts:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"><strong>1. <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause/weblogentry_view" class="external-link">Beyond the Digital: Understanding
Digital Natives with a Cause</a></strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Digital
natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina
argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth
digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the
contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial
first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey
to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research
with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge
Programme.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><strong>2. <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first/weblogentry_view" class="external-link">First Thing First</a></strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Studies
often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the
characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what
the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series
reverses this trend and explores how Blank Noise articulates the
issue it addresses: street sexual harassment.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link"><strong>3. Talking Back without “Talking Back”</strong></a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span class="description">The activism of digital natives is often
considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools
they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with Blank Noise
and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the
difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level –
how young people today are <em>thinking</em>
about their activism. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets/" class="external-link">4. Taking It to the Streets</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME?</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point" class="external-link">5. The Digital Tipping Point</a>
<p> </p>
<span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Is
Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so
successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the
transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium
into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial
factors behind the success.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/diving-into-the-digita" class="external-link">6. Diving Into the Digital</a><br /></span>
<p> </p>
<p>Previous posts in the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series have discussed the non-virtual aspects and presence of Blank Noise. However, to understand the activism of digital natives also require a look into their online presence and activities. This post explores how Blank Noise’s engagement with the public in their digital realm.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question" class="external-link">7. The Class Question</a></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Blank
Noise aims to be as inclusive as possible and therefore does not
identify any specific target groups. Yet, the spaces and the methods
they occupy do attract certain kinds of volunteers and public. This
raises the class question: what are the dilemmas around class on digital
interventions? Are they any different from the dilemmas on street
interventions? <br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within" class="external-link">8. The Many Faces Within</a></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Blank
Noise, as many other digital native collectives, may seem to be
complete horizontal at first glance. But, a closer look reveals the many
different possibilities for involvement and a unique way the collective
organize itself. <br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term" class="external-link">9. Activism: Unraveling the Term</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">After
discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current
post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture
the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions
from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about
how they relate with the very term of activism. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond" class="external-link">10. Reflecting from the Beyond</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">After
going ‘beyond the digital’ with Blank Noise through the last nine
posts, the final post in the series reflects on the understanding gained
so far about youth digital activism and questions one needs to carry in
moving forward on researching, working with, and understanding digital
natives. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><br /><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"></span>While the posts present bits and pieces of field research notes and reflections from data analysis, the full research products are:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">- Angelina, M. (2010) '<a class="external-link" href="http://thesis.eur.nl/theses/law_culture_society/iss/cys/index/863849405/">Beyond the Digital: Understanding Contemporary Forms of Youth Activism - The Case of Blank Noise in Urban India</a>'. Unpublished thesis, graded with Distinction. The Hague: International Institute of Social Studies - Erasmus University of Rotterdam.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">- Angelina, M. (2010) '<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-paper/view?searchterm=position%20paper%20digital%20natives" class="external-link">Towards a New Relationship of Exchange</a>'. Position paper for the Digital Natives with a Cause Thinkathon. </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesWeb PoliticsStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalCommunitiesart and interventionResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:33:39ZBlog EntryTalking Back without "Talking Back"
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back
<b>The activism of digital natives is often considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with The Blank Noise Project and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level – how young people today are thinking about their activism. </b>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="description">Last August, I had the opportunity to participate in the three-day grueling yet highly rewarding ‘<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back" class="external-link">Digital Natives Talking Back</a>’ workshop<b> </b>in Taipei. On the very first day, Seema Nair, one of the facilitators and a good friend, asked us to reflect about what ‘talking back’ means in the context of activism. At first glance, activism is almost always interpreted as a confrontational resistance towards an identifiable opponent over a certain issue - a group of activists protesting against a discriminatory legislation passed by a government, for example. Although this is definitely the most popular form, is this the only way activism could be done? </span></p>
<p><span class="description">While reflecting on Seema’s question, I thought of my conversations with people in the Blank Noise Project and how they seem to defy this popular imagination through their efforts to address street sexual harassment. From the way it articulates its issue (I have shared it before in <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first" class="external-link">here</a>), Blank Noise challenges the idea of an opponent in activism by refusing to identify an entity as the “enemy” or the one responsible for the issue, given the grey areas of street sexual harassment. The opponent is intangible instead: the mindset shared by all members of society that enables the violation to continue. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Consequently, Blank Noise ‘talks back’ differently. While it is common for many movements to set an intangible vision as its goal (for instance: a society where women is treated as equals with men), they also have a tangible intermediary targets to move towards the broader vision (e.g. a new legislation or service provision for women affected by domestic violence). Blank Noise sticks with the intangible. The goal is to form a collective where eve teasing is everybody’s shared concern, spreading awareness that street sexual harassment is happening every day and it is unacceptable because it is a form of violence against women. Pooja Gupta, a 19 year old art student who is one of the initiators of the ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook campaign, underlined this intangible goal by saying that “The goal really is to spread awareness. It is not about pushing any specific agenda or telling people what to do.”</span></p>
<p><span class="description">Because of this goal, I initially thought that there is a clear demarcation between people within the Blank Noise and the ‘public’ whose awareness they would like to raise – that there is a clear “us” (the Blank Noise activists) and “them” (the target group). However, I was corrected by Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, when we chatted one day. “I haven’t ever put it that way. Since the beginning, the collective is meant to be inclusive and there is no specific target group. The public is invited to participate and there is no audience, everyone is a participant and co-creator.” </span></p>
<p><span class="description">The strategy for this is to open up a public dialogue. When Blank Noise first started in 2003, it started with the street as the public space and uses art as its method of intervention. It takes many forms: performative art, clothes exhibition, street polls, and many others. Although today Blank Noise is much more known for its engagement with the virtual public through its prolific Internet presence (4 blogs, a Twitter account, 2 Facebook groups, many Facebook events, and a YouTube channel), the street interventions remain a significant part of its activities. Regardless of the methods, which I will elaborate more in future blog posts, the principles of creativity, play, and non-confrontation are always maintained. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">At this point, some critical questions could be raised. What is Blank Noise actually trying to achieve through the dialogue? Can public dialogue really address the issue? How does Blank Noise know if it is interventions have an impact?</span></p>
<p><span class="description">When I asked the last question, many people in the Blank Noise admitted that impact measurement is something that they are still grappling with. Some said that the public recognition of Blank Noise by bloggers and mainstream media is an indicator; others said that the growth of volunteers is also an impact. However, I found that this is not an issue many people were concerned with and was a bit puzzled. After all, if one were to dedicate their time and energy to a cause, wouldn’t s/he want to know what kind of difference made?</span></p>
<p><span class="description">The light bulb for this puzzle switched on when Apurva Mathad, one of Blank Noise male volunteers, said, “Eve teasing is an issue that nobody talks about. It seems like a monumental thing to try and change it, so the very act of doing something to address it and reaching as many people as possible right now seems to be enough.” </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Apurva basically told me that it is the action of doing something about the issue is what counts – and that it is the personal level change among people who are active within the Blank Noise is the real impact. I recalled that everyone else I talked with mentioned individual transformation after being a part of Blank Noise intervention – something I would elaborate upon in future posts. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">This observation was confirmed in a later conversation with Jasmeen, where I discovered that Blank Noise also has another goal that was not as easy to identify as the first: to allow people involved with the collective to undergo a personal transformation into “Action Heroes” - people who actively takes action to challenge the silence and disregard towards street sexual harassment. In this sense, Blank Noise is similar to many women collectives that became organized to empower themselves and hence could be said to also adopt a feminist ideology. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">The difference with most women collectives, however, lies on Blank Noise’s aim to allow a personalization of people’s experience with the collective. “The nature of this project is that people are in it for a reason close to them and they give meaning to their involvement as they see fit,” Jasmeen said. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Blank Noise does face challenges in doing this. Some people found it difficult to understand that an issue could be addressed without shouting slogans or advocating for a specific solution and others joined with anger due to their personal experiences. Hence, the non-confrontational dialogue approach becomes even more important. The discussion and debates it raises help the Blank Noise volunteers to also learn more about the issue, reflect on their experiences and opinions, as well as to give meaning to their involvement. This is when I finally understood the point of “no target group”: the Blank Noise people also learn and become affected by the interventions they performed. Influencing ‘others’ is not the main goal although it is a desired effect, the main one is to allow personal empowerment. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Going back to the ‘talking back’ discussion in Taipei, Seema then shared her experiences working with women groups in India and showed how ‘talking back’ could also be ‘talking with’, engaging people in a dialogue. It need not always address the state; it could also be aiming to make a change at the personal level in everyday life. It could also be ‘talking within’, keeping the discussion and debates alive within a movement to avoid a homogenized, simplification of the activism and provide a reflective element to the action. ‘Talking back’ could also take form other than “talking”, which usually is done through slogans and placards in a street protest, petition, or statements. It could be done through art, theatre performance, and many, many other possibilities. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Blank Noise is definitely an example of these different forms and its experience shows that the difference is not arbitrary. It is based on a well-thought analysis of the issue that extends to how it formulates its objectives which is then translated into its strategies. Blank Noise is not only an example of how activism is done differently, but also on how the thought behind it is different.</span></p>
<p><span class="description">As I looked around the workshop room I was reminded that Blank Noise was not the only one. A few seats away from me sat two people who combined technology and poetry to create everyday resistance towards consumerism in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.slideshare.net/zonatsou/huang-po-chih-tsou-yiping-presentation-20100816-reupload">Taiwan</a></span><span class="description"><b> </b></span><span class="description"> and a young woman who held urban camps in India to mobilize young people to <a class="external-link" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/MIE-My-India-Empowered/125105444189224">volunteer</a> Regardless of the issue and the technology used, many digital natives with a cause across the world remind us that ‘talking back’ could be done in many other ways than “talking back”. </span></p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><i>This is the third post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><b>Beyond the Digital </b>series</a>, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </i><span class="description"> <br /></span></p>
<p><br /><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><span class="description">*The photo is from one of Blank Noise's interventions in Cubbon Park, Bangalore. You can learn more about this intervention <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/06/learning-to-belong-here.html">here</a>.<br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismEve teasingDigital NativesYouthResearchBlank Noise Projectart and interventionBeyond the DigitalCommunitiescyberspacesStreet sexual harassment2011-09-22T11:37:54ZBlog EntryTaking It to the Streets
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets
<b>The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME? </b>
<p></p>
<p>In a previous
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first/" class="external-link">post</a>, I
have shared how Blank Noise is unique in articulating its issue: it does not
offer a strict definition of eve teasing nor does it propose a specific
solution. In <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">another</a><strong></strong>, I shared that Blank Noise’s main goal may seem to be to raise
public’s awareness on eve teasing, but it is actually secondary to its less
obvious objective to provide a space where people can become empowered through
its personal experiences in the collective. The main strategy employed to
achieve these goals is to create a public dialogue through artistic and playful
means, both at the physical and virtual spheres. The interventions attracted
media attention and volunteers, but the main impacts are internal: people are
able to personalize the meaning of their involvement in Blank Noise and undergo
individual transformations.</p>
<p> This post will flesh out how these
elements are actually translated in Blank Noise’s interventions. It is
difficult to pick one example Blank Noise a wide variety of interventions as it
evolves through the seven years of its existence. It started in 2003 as Jasmeen
Patheja’s final project when she was a student in the Sristhi School of Art and
Design in Bangalore. At this first phase, Blank Noise consisted of nine people
and dealt with victimhood through a series of workshops that became the basis
for small art interventions. As s many other activist groups before them, Blank
Noise took the initiatives to the physical public sphere: the streets, bus
stands, public transportations, parks – anywhere outside the home. Blank Noise
decided to move forward and try to engage the wider public in 2005 and engage
more volunteers than the initial group of nine. Despite being more well-known
lately for its virtual presence, the collective only started its first online
intervention in 2006 and street events remainan integral part of its being. Given
this history, and also because this is the one most often brought up in my
conversations with the Blank Noise people, I choose to share the ‘Y ARE U
LOOKING AT ME’ street intervention experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The experience starts with a post in the
Blank Noise <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org">main blog</a> and e-group, announcing a date and time for the next
street intervention. The announcement is accompanied by an invitation for anyone
who reads it to participate and come to a designated place (such as the popular
café Coffee Day or the famous Cubbon Park in Bangalore) for a preparation
meeting and also the actual intervention (sometimes immediately afterwards). When
the time comes to for the meeting, the faces that appeared are varied. Some are
regular faces in Blank Noise meetings and interventions: perhaps Jasmeen,
others who have been coordinating interventions, or regular volunteers. Some
faces are new: people who read the announcements online, heard it through word
of mouth, or those who were around and curious about the gathering. The number
could range from three to more than 100. Most who came were women although
there were also men.</p>
<p>After
a brief introduction of everyone present, the meeting proceeded with a brief
discussion on eve teasing and the intervention that will take place. ‘Y ARE U
LOOKING AT ME’ is an intervention where a group of women wears a giant letter
made of red reflective tape on their shirts. They then stand idly on the
streets or zebra cross, staring at the vehicles and passers-by without a word.
Together, the letters on their shirts form the sentence ‘Y ARE U LOOKING AT
ME’, demanding attention by asking a silent question. When the traffic light
flashed to green, these women will disappear to the sidewalks. A group of male
volunteers are already there, distributing pamphlets and engaging passers-by
about in a conversation about what they just saw and relate it to eve teasing. The
idea behind this intervention is an act a female gaze to reverse the male gaze
that often times could be considered as a form of eve teasing. Because it is so
unusual, onlookers often look away or feel embarrassed after an encounter with
the female gaze. Despite being done without a word, the twist of gender
dynamics in this intervention provoked the interest of people in the sidewalk
and opened up the space for public dialogue – the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">aim</a> Blank Noise strives to
achieve.</p>
<p>Jasmeen
told me that after this point some people started asking “But how will the
public get what we’re talking about?” The idea of addressing an issue with such
an ambiguous approach was indeed difficult to digest for some people –
including me. The intervention did not explicitly mention eve teasing nor did
it convey any clear message; there was no such thing as a placard that says
“Stop Eve Teasing” or something similar. There was no specific proposal. The
playful performance definitely is provocative enough to generate public
dialogue, but what change will it create?</p>
<p>Blank
Noise coordinators then encouraged people to experience the intervention first
before making conclusions. The various roles are introduced and the volunteers
were free to choose what they want to do. There are people who opted for the
backstage work of preparing the red tapes and printing the pamphlets, some
wanted to perform, while others are more contented to talk with the public
afterwards. After the intervention took place, Jasmeen found that the feedback
from the volunteers showed that the initial doubts disappeared.</p>
<p>Although
there were people who did not want to talk to the volunteers, in general they
were surprised by how open the public was to the conversations. “Maybe people
are tired of the old ways of just meeting on the streets and trying to convince
others through protests or petitions,” said Aarthi Ajit, a 25 year old research
assistant who helped organize a Blank
Noise Bangalore street intervention in
2008. “Maybe we need to look for different ways to get people’s attention and
the creative, playful, and non-confrontative approach will work better than
aggravation in making people think of the issue and become part of the movement.” She further explained
that widening definitions of street
sexual harassment and proposing tangible
solutions are helpful to create
the open attitude, while some people, especially men, could feel alienated by a poster that depicts men being
violent to women as all men were
labeled as perpetrators. This may be able to explain the public interaction as
well as the numerous media coverage Blank Noise received for these street
interventions. In this sense, people who doubted that the public would respond
no longer questioned whether Blank Noise’s message would get through.</p>
<p>However,
the question of whether the intervention made any change is still valid,
considering that there is no means for Blank Noise to follow-up with the many
people on the streets about whether they change their perception or behavior on
street sexual harassment. Instead, the change could be detected within the
volunteers.</p>
<p>Hemangini
Gupta, one of Blank Noise coordinators, recalled her first experience of performing
the intervention. “It felt strange, but fun and empowering in a way. I never
realized how disconnected I was from the streets before the intervention - I
would never look at people before. It felt very safe knowing that I could just
stand and look at people without any repercussions.”</p>
<p>Annie
Zaidi, another Blank Noise coordinator, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.anniezaidi.com/2006/10/empower-unpower-empower">blogged</a> about how her experience with Blank Noise interventions changed the way she
deals with street sexual harassment. “Something has changed. This time, my
reaction is different from what it would have been two years ago… I was
surprised, felt contempt and anger – but I did not feel fear. This, I realize
now, is because of Blank Noise, partly. .. It is as much about dealing with
women’s fear of public spaces and strangers as it is about dealing with
sexually abusive / intimidating strangers.”</p>
<p>Hemangini
and Annie’s stories were echoed by many other volunteers. Jasmeen said that it
was when Blank Noise started articulating that the change occurs internally
first and blurring the line between the audience and the “Action Heroes”. The
volunteers are as affected by the process as the viewers; they are mutually
dependent on each other for the intervention experience to be meaningful. That
is why Blank Noise does not think of “an audience”, everyone is a participant
and co-creator in the experience.</p>
<p>Instead
of shouting “Stop street sexual harassment!” or performing a street theatre
with spoken words, Blank Noise chose to quietly ask “Why are you looking at
me?” on the streets. They welcome many people, but the strength of its
interventions does not lie in numbers. Blank Noise thinks about their issues
differently and consequently, they also do things differently. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><em>This is the fourth post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-director" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*Photo courtesy of Jasmeen Patheja</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2011-08-04T10:33:19ZBlog EntryStorytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2
<b>This post compares the method of storytelling with performances. To illustrate this, we explore the narratives of the Blank Noise project and The Ugly Indian, two civic groups from Bangalore making interventions in the public space. Part 2 looks at the role of actors and the stage in performances to explore the role of agency and the public space in storytelling. </b>
<p align="justify">This is part 2 of our analysis of <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/">Blank Noise</a> and <a href="http://www.theuglyindian.com/">The Ugly Indian</a>, two civic groups thriving in Bangalore by making a strategic use of storytelling to intervene in the public space. In the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance">previous post</a>, we explored the mediums and narratives used by these organizations to craft an identity for themselves. This one will look at the impact of this identity on the agency and actions of their volunteers. We will also draw some final conclusions relating the analysis back to the Making Change project.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>How to navigate this post:</strong></p>
<p align="justify"><strong> </strong></p>
<table class="plain">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Section</th>
<th>Performance<br /></th>
<th>Storytelling<br /></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance#pre-production">Pre-production</a></td>
<td>Preparing all elements involved in a performance including locations, props, costumes, special effects and visual effects.<br /></td>
<td>Preparing all elements needed to convey the message of the story including: spoken word, text, images, audio, video or other artifacts.<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance#screenplay">Screenplay</a></td>
<td>A written work narrating the movements, actions, expressions and dialogues of the characters. <br /></td>
<td>Building a narrative in storytelling<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="#cast">Actors</a><br /></td>
<td>Actors performing characters in a production.<br /></td>
<td>The relationship between storytelling actors and agency<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="#stage">Stage</a><br /></td>
<td>Designated space for the performance of productions<br /></td>
<td>The public space as the stage for storytelling<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="#action">Action!</a><br /></td>
<td>Cue signifying the start of a performance<br /></td>
<td>When storytelling leads to action<br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong> <a name="cast"></a> </strong></p>
<p align="center" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong><strong>3.actor</strong><br /></strong>ˈaktə/<br />1. a person portraying a character in [a dramatic or comic] production<br />2. a participant in an action or process</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p align="justify">The cast of a production learns the script from beginning to end; rehearses the lines and internalizes the characters they have been chosen to represent. In the same way actors sustain the narrative of the production while they are on stage, we too act upon the identities we have chosen for ourselves in our day to day (Giddens, 1991). Oggs & Capps call this:<strong> constructing agentive identities:</strong> <em>“participants assume agentive stances towards present identities, circumstances and futures” (1996; Hull, 2006). Embracing a set of traits and integrating them to the ‘story of the self’ </em>(Gauntlett, 2002; Giddens 1991). This suggests there is a direct relationship between self-identity and agency, that will influence how we conduct ourselves in the public space.</p>
<p align="justify">As seen in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance#screenplay">last section</a>, The Ugly Indian’s self-ascribed identity frames their speech and action:</p>
<div align="center">
<pre><strong><a href="http://theuglyindian.com/about_us.html">The Ugly Indian
</a></strong>
We are a group of Ugly Indians who feel strongly about the state of visible filth in our cities.
Our<strong> philosophy </strong>can be described simply as: <strong>Kaam chalu mooh bandh. Stop Talking, Start Doing.
</strong>We believe in direct action, with a common-sense problem-solving approach.
We do not finger-point or blame the system. We aim to make a change from within -
one that sustains because everyone wants it and is comfortable with it.</pre>
</div>
<p align="justify">This means the online identity of the organization (on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian?fref=ts">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGBoRyfR4t4zyCZYWdPjzAw">Youtube</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/theuglyindian">Twitter</a> and their <a href="http://www.theuglyindian.com/">website</a>) must be consistent with the offline actions of volunteers in clean drives and TUI inspired activities.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong> </strong></p>
<table class="plain">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><strong>Indira Nagar Rising</strong></th>
<th><strong>Koramangala Rising</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=629410000451592&set=pb.123459791046618.-2207520000.1393395243.&type=3&theater"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/CleanDrive2.jpg/image_preview" title="Clean Drive 1" height="252" width="400" alt="null" class="image-inline image-inline" /></a></p>
</td>
<td>
<div align="center"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=649485601777365&set=pb.123459791046618.-2207520000.1393394885.&type=3&src=https%3A%2F%2Ffbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net%2Fhphotos-ak-prn1%2Ft31%2F1960858_649485601777365_1050385055_o.jpg&smallsrc=https%3A%2F%2Ffbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net%2Fhphotos-ak-prn2%2Ft1%2F1796618_649485601777365_1050385055_n.jpg&size=1496%2C1088"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/CleandriveTUI.jpg/image_preview" title="Clean Drive 2" height="238" width="462" alt="Clean Drive 2" class="image-inline image-inline" /></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>TUI Clean Drives </strong>(Click to enlarge<strong>)</strong> <br />Photos courtesy of The Ugly Indian Facebook Album.<br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian/photos_stream">Visit the rest of the album here.</a></p>
<div id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6cd7-d431-93a1-f09c2f3c06f6" style="text-align: justify;" class="pullquote" dir="ltr">"[Join us] if you think like us, and want to achieve something meaningful in your immediate surroundings."<br />
<div align="right">The Ugly Indian</div>
</div>
<p align="justify">Given the anonymity of the voices behind the narrative, the ideas and attitudes endorsed by TUI organizers can only remain at the discursive level, and it is TUI volunteers who collectively translate the set of beliefs into action. In other words, volunteers are the agentive extension of the movement, as they use their agency to execute the plan of action designed by the anonymous TUI organizers. The narrative in this case becomes somewhat of a ‘creed’ for responsible civic action, and while most volunteers choose to “stick to the script”, they are not really given the opportunity to explore their own narrative within.</p>
<p align="justify">In the case of Blank Noise, if we take another look at its mandate, it is collaborative by definition.</p>
<div align="center">
<pre><strong>Blank Noise</strong>
Blank Noise is a public and participatory arts collective that seeks to
explore the range of street interactions and recognize 'eve teasing' as
street sexual harassment/ violence.</pre>
</div>
<p align="justify">The processes to translate the Action Hero identity into action are far more open-ended than in the case of TUI. There is further room for volunteers to interpret what being an Action Hero means to them (as an identity), how they will respond to it (as agents), and how do they fit in the larger context of the Action Hero narrative (in the collective). The role of volunteers is to participate in the construction of a new narrative for the public space, defined by how women feel, what they think and do when they navigate it. It is not conclusive, and each intervention is an invitation for further dialogue.</p>
<div align="left">
<div>
<div align="justify" class="pullquote">"Adding agency to the equation gives the actor a purpose and new -revised- conception of the self and aligns its behavior with who he wants to be. "<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[2]</a></div>
<div align="center">
<p align="justify">Blank Noise volunteers take ownership of who they want to be in the public space. Through their testimonials and actions, they do not only draft an identity for themselves, but they create one -or many- for the streets, for women, for men, for sexy, for safety. Stretching out our 'performance' analogy even further, their type of action is what we would deem improvisational theatre: the improvisation and intuition of BN volunteers takes over the dialogue, action and characters, as these are<em> “created collaboratively by the players as [the play] unfolds in present time”</em><a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[1]</a></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><a name="stage"></a></p>
<p align="center" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong>4. stage</strong><br />steɪdʒ/<br />a raised floor or platform, typically in a theatre, on which actors, entertainers, or speakers perform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Finally, the stage. This is the space where actors display these learned identities in front of (or with) members of the audience. While stories are not necessarily presented on a conventional ‘raised floor or platform’, stories are meant to permeate "the stage" of the 'public space'. In spite of what Sartaj Anand told us in his <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-sartaj-anand">interview</a>:<em> “stories as increasingly personal and local”,</em> in order for them to trigger imagination and public discussion they must also be public and visible. Hannah Arendt posits in<em> Essays for Understanding</em>, that the task of storytelling is to extend the meaning of the actions, symbols and allegories into the public, making them visible to broader audiences and initiating a process of critical thinking among them (Jackson, 2002; Oni, 2012; Arendt, 1994). Hence, the role of storytelling in the public space has two functions:</p>
<p align="justify">a) <strong>Visibility</strong>:</p>
<p align="justify">Enhanced visibility is an extremely powerful asset. Narratives produced by activist-oriented storytellers do not only reflect greater autonomy of production, but also enjoy a wider rate of consumption<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[3]</a> (Vivienne, 2011). From a tech-optimist perspective, multimedia representations of these stories further this visibility, making it also accessible to broader online audiences.</p>
<p align="justify">The Ugly Indian in particular thrives on visibility, due to its beautification mission. Its highly visible presence online is used to ratify the work they are doing to erradicate "visible" filth:</p>
<blockquote>
<p align="left">"X was a big fan of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory">Broken Windows Theory</a> – which suggested that<span class="visualHighlight"> if a street looked ugly or neglected, it attracted more anti-social behaviour, while a well-maintained and beautiful street discouraged vandalism and often earned respect from passers-by.</span> [...] Could the ugly Indian’s civic behaviour be a function of the environment and the signals it gives him? If so, could changing the environment change behaviour?" <a href="http://theuglyindian.com/books/chapter-7-nudge/">Chapter 7 - Nudge</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="justify"><br /> In the case of Blank Noise, they use online visibility to re-introduce the testimonials collected through their interventions and installations, back into the public space.</p>
<div align="center">
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="justify"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Reportingtoremember.png/image_preview" title="Reporting to remember" height="253" width="179" alt="Reporting to remember" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
</td>
<td>
<div><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/02/reporting-to-remember_10.html">Reporting to Remember</a> (2009)<br /><br />Triggered by the Mangalore pub attack, the report wants to compile a list of incidents involving attacks on/threats to women under the pretext of culture, tradition and religion.<br /><br /></div>
<ol>
<li><strong>By who: </strong></li></ol>
<ul>
<li>Political parties</li>
<li>Religious groups</li>
<li>Individuals</li></ul>
<br />2. <strong>Nature of attack:</strong>
<ul>
<li> who they attacked</li>
<li>why they attacked</li>
<li>You can also send articles/links explaining that.</li></ul>
<br />3<strong>. When</strong>: Date<br /><br />4. <strong>Location:</strong> Region.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/MakeaSign.jpeg/image_preview" title="Make a Sign" height="158" width="176" alt="Make a Sign" class="image-inline image-inline" /></td>
<td><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/04/make-sign.html">Make a Sign</a> (2009)<br />Volunteers were welcome to say anything they wanted.<br /><br />What Blank Noise wants to say:<br />We are talking of safer cities not feared cities<br />We are talking of independent women, not paranoid women.<br />We are talking about collective responsibility- don't tell me to be even more 'cautious'.<br />We are talking about eve teasing as street sexual harassment and street sexual violence.<br />We are talking about autonomous women, not just mothers daughters and sisters amidst fathers brothers and sons.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Vocabulary.jpg/image_preview" title="Vocabulary" height="183" width="176" alt="Vocabulary" class="image-inline image-inline" /></td>
<td><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2007/08/tales-of-love-and-lust-coming-soon.html#links">Tales of Love and Lust</a><br /><br />The vocabulary project, stems from a need to build a dictionary of 'eve teasing', Blank Noise asked participants to email in to comments and remarks they had heard addressed to them on the street. BN compiled them into an 'eve teasing' vocabulary. <br /><br />The vocabulary was represented in the form of charts, school-style, simple lettering and graphics, in an attempt to desexualise and remove obscene reference from the terms that are used leerily at us on the streets.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p align="justify">Find the full list of interventions, campaigns and tactics <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2007/09/interventions-and-techniques.html">here</a>.</p>
</div>
<p align="justify">b)<strong> Political:</strong></p>
<div align="justify" class="pullquote"><em>"</em>[Politics is] the space of appearance that comes into being whenever men are together in the manner of speech and action, predating and preceding all formal constitutions of the public realm”<em> <br /></em>
<div align="right">Hannah Arendt (1989) <a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[4]</a></div>
</div>
<p align="justify">This visibility also re-conceptualizes how we do politics by creating <strong>political spaces.</strong><a name="fr1" href="#fn1"> </a>Setting up a ground for public discussion creates the opportunity to flesh out our ability to be political (Rawls 1971 in Sen, 2005). Hence, producing and consuming a story with, for and by the public, should constitute a political experience in itself -especially in the context of civic interventions as is the case of both our productions.</p>
<p align="justify">However, this does not seem to be the case for TUI. The identity of The Ugly Indian focuses on action; on collecting manpower to fill voids left by the state in waste management. In the words of Nishant Shah, they are aligning their work with needs and systems that have <em>already i</em>dentified by the state, as opposed to devising new modes of engagement or participation. Having said that, staying away from politics is an intentional mandate, and their focus today is removing all obstacles that stand between the middle class and their action in the public space; even if that includes extricating the group from its political nature. For now, spreading ‘action’ and its ‘visibility’ in the network is a priority. The bigger their beautification spectacle grows, the better.</p>
<p align="justify">Blank Noise has a different view of how to engage the middle class <a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[5]</a>. The group has identified the need to talk about ‘sexual harassment’ in public; a conversation that has not been addressed and is continually dismissed by the state. This void is hence being filled with stories and articulations of the communities involved <a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[6],</a>as a mean of resisting the stronger dominating narrative of silence around the issue. As opposed to TUI, the priority of Blank Noise is to reassert our ability to perform our role as active, visible and political agents in the public space; initiating a larger process of social critique in their network <a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[7]<br /></a></p>
<div align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/WWA.png/image_preview" alt="Never asked" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Never asked" /></div>
<p align="justify"><a name="fr1" href="#fn1"><br /></a></p>
<p align="justify">(We interviewed Jasmeen Patheja earlier in the project and discussed Blank Noise's political nature. Read the article <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship">here)</a></p>
<p><a name="action"></a></p>
<p align="center" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong>5. action!</strong> <strong>(and conclusions)</strong><br />ˈakʃ(ə)n/<br />something done so as to accomplish a purpose.</p>
<p align="justify">As per definition, action must be purpose-driven, and throughout the last two posts, we have unpacked how this sense of purpose can be built using storytelling. We explored this looking at its <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance#pre-production">methods</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance#screenplay">narrative identities</a>, <a href="#cast">actors</a> and <a href="#stage">spaces of action</a>.</p>
<p align="justify">In the case of both organizations, storytelling was imbued in their organizational identity, the interaction with their volunteers and; the way in which they disseminate information. Expanding on what we said in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-sartaj-anand">first installment</a> on storytelling: its interactive nature makes it a tool for empowerment. The identities created by both organizations resonated so much with their audiences, that volunteers adapted their own identities and actions in the public space to align with them and participate in their initiatives.<br /><br />The post also brought attention to the challenges of <strong>locating the ‘political’</strong> within the spectacle. Storytelling as a mode of engagement is effective: it captures people’s attention and participation. However, it becomes problematic when the story becomes a creed adopted without question, as is the case of The Ugly Indian. The lack of opportunities to craft new arguments in public discussion leads to an equally passive participation to the one the group intended to eradicate. Citizens get involved without making critical connections with the material realities they are working to reverse. The citizen is trapped in the performance of citizen awakening and they are ceasing to articulate new ideas. In the case of Blank Noise, the political precedes the spectacle, but at the end of the day, it still relies on a visible and manageable network to disseminate its narrative and attract new story-lines and actors into the discourse.</p>
<p align="justify">On the issue of <strong>visibility: </strong>at the outset of the project we asked the question: what is it about the spectacle that makes it so enticing, and what can we borrow from it to strengthen political participation? <a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[8]</a>. This post visited the three elements that, according to Shah, makes an event visible: legibility, intelligibility and accessibility<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[9]</a>; and started to answer some of these questions.</p>
<table class="plain">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Performance<br /></th>
<th>Storytelling<br /></th>
<th>Visibility<br /></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Pre-production</td>
<td><span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6f01-084a-6acd-e45ad9690117">The mediums chosen to tell the story (images, video, text, digital technologies) are used to give clarity to the message.</span></td>
<td>Legible</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Screenplay</td>
<td><span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6f01-45c7-d17e-68f73fb0a0ab">Creating (or borrowing narratives) from history and fiction makes stories easy to relate to, better understood and hence, better received by the audience</span></td>
<td>Intelligible</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Actors</td>
<td><span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6f01-8071-9fc1-37cb1d164a41">Acting out these identities shows the message was understood and internalized by the audience.</span></td>
<td>Intelligible</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Pre-production</td>
<td><span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6f01-9f82-8650-21c6165ebb25">Digital technologies are effective at disseminating the story and making it more accessible in the public online space.</span></td>
<td>Accessible</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Stage</td>
<td><span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6f01-b9d1-5c01-33ddfbe1a533">Telling the story in the public (online and offline) space makes participation and interaction more likely. </span></td>
<td>Accessible</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p align="justify">Finally, the main<strong> role of technology</strong> in storytelling is to provide and enhance visibility for stories (from all three fronts). As much as the thought piece criticizes the spectacle hype and suggests we move beyond it, this research is finding it useful to look further into: why visibility is desirable for advocacy and how it can bring new and different stakeholders into the process. At least, it seems to be working for The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise. Their outreach is for the most part<em> online</em> and digital media continues to be their best friend to scale up their visibility, showcase their actions and/or installations and sustain their narratives. <br /><br />I will not make a conclusive statement on whether we should use storytelling for social change or not. However, understanding the power of stories and learning how to craft consistent narrative structures is -as Ameen Haque, founder of <a href="http://www.thestorywallahs.com/">The Storywallahs</a> told me- as fundamental for storytelling, as it is for activism: At the end of the day, <em>"movements need supporters. Supporters need leaders; and leaders need to be good storytellers".</em></p>
<h2><strong>Footnotes:</strong></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">1</a>] Based on the Wikipedia Definition of Improvisational Theatre. "Improvisational Theatre, often called improv or impro, is a form of theater where most or all of what is performed is created at the moment it is performed. In its purest form, the dialogue, the action, the story and the characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script." <a href="http://bit.ly/1hnByRp">http://bit.ly/1hnByRp</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/1hnByRp">[</a><a name="fn1" href="#fr1">2]</a> <span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6ceb-8281-8acd-a886b0543322">(Oggs & Capps, 1996; Miller, 1995; Hull, 2006).</span><br /><br />[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">3</a>] Refer to Sonja Vivienne's ethnography: Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility. She puts forward the experience of activists from the LGBT community who used storytelling to reassert, negotiate and in cases, expose their identities. <br /><br /><a href="http://bit.ly/1hnByRp"> [</a><a name="fn1" href="#fr1">4</a>] Find resources to read more on Hannah Arendt's work on narrative and action here: <a href="http://stanford.io/1ge7JkX">http://stanford.io/1ge7JkX</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a href="http://bit.ly/1hnByRp">[</a><a href="http://stanford.io/1ge7JkX">5</a>] While the project does seek to collect voices across traditions, cultures, religions, etc; its reliance on digital technologies to crowdsource stories keeps the practice somewhat gentrified and homogenous. Lack of diversity in public discussion is a huge constraint for democracy, but from our conversations with Jasmeen, we understand this is a challenge to be tackled at a later stage of the project</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">6</a>] Refer to Nishant Shah's <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway">Whose Change is it Anyway?</a>. (Page 29): "only certain kinds of discourses are made possible through technology-mediated citizen action. This discourse is often alienated from specific histories, particular contexts, and the affective articulations of the communities involved. It leads to a gentrification of contemporary politics that discounts anything that does not fit into the quantified and enumerated rubric of citizen action in network societies."</p>
<p>[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">7</a>] <span id="docs-internal-guid--5cd61e2-6d08-6429-ef94-e5fb081d50c7">Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and philosopher, was a strong proponent of using dialectics to question social structures around class, and stories come across as a way to link issues around power back to our personal experiences Refer to: Shor and Freire, 1987 and Williams, 2003.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><br />[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">8</a>] Some of the questions we have been exploring in Methods for Social Change: <a href="http://bit.ly/OCKrgy">http://bit.ly/OCKrgy</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">9</a>] Refer to Nishant Shah's <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway">Whose Change is it Anyway?</a>. (</p>
<h2><strong>Sources:</strong></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Arendt, Hannah (1994) Essays in Understanding Edited with an Introduction by Jerome Kohn. The literary Trust of Hannah Arendt Bluecher.</p>
<p align="left">Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</p>
<p align="left">Hull, Glynda A., and M. Katz. (2006) "Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling." Research in the Teaching of English 41, no. 1: 43.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Jackson, Michael. (2002) The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity. Vol. 3. Museum Tusculanum Press,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Oni, Peter (2012). "The Cognitive Power of Storytelling: Re-reading Hannah Arendt in a Postmodernist/Africanist Context."</p>
<div id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Sen, Amartya. <em>The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian history, culture and identity</em>. Macmillan, 2005.<br /><br />Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? <em>Hivos Knowledge Program. </em>April 30, 2013.</div>
<p><br />Shor, I. and Freire, P. (1987) A pedagogy for liberation:dialogues on transforming education. Bergin & Garvey, New York.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Williams, Lewis, Ronald Labonte, and Mike O’Brien. "Empowering social action through narratives of identity and culture." Health Promotion International 18, no. 1 (2003): 33-40.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Vivienne, Sonja (2011). "Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility” Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review 7, no. 1.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseMaking ChangeResearchBlank Noise ProjectNet CulturesResearchers at Work2015-10-24T14:30:15ZBlog EntryStorytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance
<b>This post compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling. To illustrate this analogy, we explore the stories of the Blank Noise project and The Ugly Indian- two civic groups from Bangalore making interventions in the public space. This post looks at the stages of pre-production and the screenplay to explore methods and narratives in storytelling. </b>
<pre><strong>spectacle</strong><span class="lr_dct_ph">
ˈspɛktək(ə)l/</span>
a visually striking performance<strong>
performance
</strong>pəˈfɔːm(ə)ns/
an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people: the audience. Sometimes the dividing line between performer and the audience may become blurred, as in the example of "participatory theatre" where audience members get involved in the
production.</pre>
<p align="justify">One of the mandates of <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway">this project</a> is to locate discrepancies between "spectacles"<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[1]</a> and realities of change to identify less visible examples of citizen action. However, an alternative route is to identify the characteristics of the spectacle, and learn how they can be used to make activism more visible: that is, more legible, intelligible and accessible. In this context, storytelling comes across as a method that can provide the same experience and benefits of a performance. This potential manifests itself in two ways:</p>
<p align="justify">a) First, in its<strong> infrastructure. </strong>We find that the structure holding stories together plays an important role in their ability to deliver a clear message. By unpacking the process of staging a performance -from what happens in the dressing rooms to what happens on stage- we will identify the building blocks of performances and by default, those comprised in effective storytelling.</p>
<p align="justify"> b) Second manifestation occurs<strong> in the audience.</strong> The dynamic of performances resembles how we behave every day in our "socially and constructed worlds". We are constantly telling stories about ourselves and this 'sense of being' is what determines our actions and behavior (Holland et al, 1998). Furthermore, as social beings, we also build identities as a community and engage in "collective moments of self-enactment" (Urciuoli, 1995).</p>
<p align="justify">Linking this back to our project, understanding the performative potential of storytelling; its infrastructure and how it can touch on issues of identity, agency and collective action, is relevant to tackle challenges in activism and civic engagement -where the collective is very much linked to the political. To illustrate the relationship between storytelling and performance, I will use the example of two civic groups thriving in Bangalore: Blank Noise
(founded by Jasmeen Patheja, who we interviewed back in January) and The
Ugly Indian; and I will ask you to think about them as theatrical productions:</p>
<p align="justify" class="discreet">(The following images are 'Broadway posters' adapted to the identity of these groups. They were created merely for the purpose of this post and do not reflect the views of these organizations).</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/BatmanTheUglyIndian2.jpg/image_preview" alt="The Ugly Indian" class="image-inline image-inline" title="The Ugly Indian" /></p>
<p align="center"><strong>The Ugly Indian</strong><br />stop talking. start doing.</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/ChicagoBlankNoise2.jpg/image_preview" title="Blank Noise" height="224" width="299" alt="Blank Noise" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p align="center"><strong>Blank Noise</strong><br />set new rules for street behavior</p>
<p align="justify">These groups were formed (in 2003 and 2010 respectively) to re-conceptualize how we understand our presence in the public space; <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/">Blank Noise</a> focusing on sexual harassment and women safety and <a href="http://www.theuglyindian.com/">The Ugly Indian</a> on waste management and civic interventions. On this post, we will look at their campaigns and identify features of the spectacle/performance in the storytelling methods they are using to communicate their mandates and interact with their volunteers. So, without further ado, let's explore this glossary of tweaked theatrical terminology:</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>How to navigate this post:</strong></p>
<p align="justify"><strong>
</strong></p>
<table class="plain">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Section</th>
<th>Performance<br /></th>
<th>Storytelling<br /></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="#pre-production">Pre-production</a></td>
<td>Preparing all elements involved in a performance including locations, props, costumes, special effects and visual effects.<br /></td>
<td>Preparing all elements needed to convey the message of the story including: spoken word, text, images, audio, video or other artifacts.<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="#screenplay">Screenplay</a></td>
<td>A written work narrating the movements, actions, expressions and dialogues of the characters. <br /></td>
<td>Building a narrative in storytelling<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2#cast">Actors</a><br /></td>
<td>Actors performing characters in a production.<br /></td>
<td>The relationship between storytelling actors and agency<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2#stage">Stage</a><br /></td>
<td>Designated space for the performance of productions<br /></td>
<td>The public space as the stage for storytelling<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2#action">Action!</a><br /></td>
<td>Cue signifying the start of a performance<br /></td>
<td>When storytelling leads to action<br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><a name="pre-production"></a></p>
<p align="center" class="callout"><strong>1. pre-production</strong><br />ˈpri-prəˈdʌkʃ(ə)n/<br />the action of making or manufacturing from components or raw materials prior to the initial performance.</p>
<p align="justify">
The stage of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-production">pre-production</a> is when all the locations, props, cast members, costumes, special effects and visual effects are identified. It works in tandem with <a href="#screenplay">the screenplay</a> to ensure the maximum consistence, coherence and clarity in the story. In the same way, planning storytelling also implies selecting the right elements and materials to hold the story together. Initially, only traditional mediums were available, such as spoken word, text and images; but storytellers today (the directors orchestrating these productions) are experiencing an urgency to re-invent and adapt the language of their stories to make it accessible in the network<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[3]</a> (Hull and Katz, 2006; Urciuoli, 1995) and the practice has evolved into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling">'trans-media'</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_storytelling">digital storytelling</a>. Formats like audio-bytes, videos, sms, mobile apps are also part of its semiotic makeup and these mediums are mixed and matched to enhance the visibility of the message. As Scott McCloud suggests in ‘Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art’: “we need to invent new ways [and] develop new techniques of showing the same old thing” (1994) to make sure people still listen to what we have to say.</p>
<p>
Both Blank Noise and The Ugly Indian have led highly visual campaigns in the online space, as they combine blogging with videos, audios, images and active community managers that interact with their volunteers. A few examples of the mediums they are using to capture the public's attention:</p>
<p><strong>Video: </strong>Blank Noise did this art intervention, using real rape and sexual harassment reports from 2003 to challenge what we consider 'normal' and 'news'-worthy when it comes to sexual harassment and domestic violence:</p>
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dE6pyVfcwys" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Artifacts</strong>: <a href="http://bit.ly/1mnEhMJ">‘I never ask for it’</a> campaign: Blank Noise asked women to send garments they wore when they experienced ‘eve-teasing’ to challenge the notion “that women ask to be sexually violated”</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Ineveraskedforit.jpg/image_preview" alt="I never asked for it 1" class="image-inline image-inline" title="I never asked for it 1" /><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Ineveraskedforit2.jpg/image_preview" alt="I never asked for it 2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="I never asked for it 2" /></p>
<p align="center">I never ask for it. <a href="http://bit.ly/1mnEhMJ">http://bit.ly/1mnEhMJ</a></p>
<p><strong>Audio:</strong> Blank Noise documents and disseminates stories of sexual harassment as told by their Action Heroes' This is: <a href="http://bit.ly/1fK5qUw">Kitab Mahal's story.</a></p>
<p align="justify">The message transmitted by the garments, the video and the audio are based on cultural and social constructions of what ‘sexual harassment’ means. Removing one of the garments from the installation, for instance, removes it from its resistance identity and hence, it can only exist in the narrative context Blank Noise is constructing alongside its volunteers.</p>
<p align="justify">On the other hand, The Ugly Indian's mandate is to change people's "rooted cultural behaviour and attitudes [...] to solve India's civic problems"; starting with the visible filth on the streets. It does not pursue systemic change, but seeks impact at the behavioral level. One of the methods it uses to achieve this, is the dissemination of images and videos showcasing their work. Their publications minimize the use of text in order to drive attention to aesthetics:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Beforeafter.jpg/image_preview" alt="" class="image-inline image-inline" title="TUI Before After" /></p>
</td>
<td><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/TUIBeforeAfter2.jpg/image_preview" alt="TUI Before After 2" class="image-inline" title="TUI Before After 2" /><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p align="left">They recently complemented their graphic stories, by starting <a href="http://theuglyindian.com/books/chapter-1/">a blog</a> that documents "the philosophy and the process" that drives The Ugly Indian. This excerpt from Chapter 3 explains their visual strategy and why they have chosen before-after pictures to communicate their work:</p>
<blockquote>
“The citizens of the online world are brutal – they only care for instant gratification and real results. So are citizens in the real world. They too only care for results. [...] V & X know that and have focused all their energies on delivering this dramatic result, this single Before-After image, that is proof of dramatic change. And it has worked – in terms of creating initial positive impact (both on the ground and online). Whether it will survive and change community behavior is another story. But this initial impact is crucial, as we will discover later, in generating respect from the community and the authorities.”<br /></blockquote>
<div class="pullquote"><br />“When pictures carry the weight of clarity in a scene, they free words
to express a wider area. And when words lock in the meaning of a
sequence, pictures can really take off” Scott McCloud on comics</div>
<p align="justify"> </p>
<p align="justify">This is how pre-production is important for storytelling. Planning, designing and choosing the right elements, and how they interact with one another, will determine the level of legibility and meaning we give to the story (McCloud, 1994). Each medium: video, audio, text, music, etc.- becomes “a new literate space” or “symbolic tool” storytellers have on hand to portray narratives about the self, family community and society (Hull, 2006), and the introduction of digital technologies into storytelling space, coupled with the current hype around the method, signals we are moving towards a more strategic use of technology to produce and share knowledge more effectively. In this way, the choice of mediums and technologies will reflect a "conscious construction of identity" and "performances of the self" (Vivienne, 2011); a theme we will explore further in the 'screenplay' section.</p>
<p align="justify"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4138f50b-6259-ec34-716e-d1298c8e0176"></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-4138f50b-6259-ec34-716e-d1298c8e0176"></span></p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<a name="screenplay"></a>
<p align="center" class="callout"><strong>2. screenplay</strong><br />ˈskriːnpleɪ/<br />The script including descriptions of scenes and some camera/set directions.</p>
<p align="justify">The process of writing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenplay">screenplay</a> is a careful exercise of creation and articulation. The dialogues, expressions and actions of the characters are narrated and located in a specific context that will determine how the events of the play unfold. The ability to build a coherent narrative structure is, in itself, a powerful tool of self-expression that enables the storyteller to a) construct an identity for the story and b) expose it to the public. Let's take a closer look at each stage:</p>
<p align="justify">a)<strong> Self-expression</strong> is directly related to the amount of freedom we experience in our ecosystem. Barriers to expression can come through our political regime or in the form of social norms and taboos, as is the case of conservative pockets in India. In either context, storytelling comes across an alternative outlet to describe ambiguous, unapologetic and personal truths (Vivienne, 2011). It enables less visible voices to claim a space and construct their own narrative within. Blank Noise has been very active on this front, as it creates opportunities for its volunteers, participants (dubbed Action Heroes), and otherwise silent voices to articulate their emotional and physical experiences in the public space. One of the ways they did it was by publishing a step by step guide to unapologetic walking, and then requesting people to participate:</p>
<div align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/stepbystepguidetounapologeticwalkingposter.jpg/image_preview" alt="Step by step" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Step by step" /></div>
<div align="center">step by step guide to unapologetic walking: <a href="http://bit.ly/1bz3MZZ">http://bit.ly/1bz3MZZ</a><br /><em><br /></em></div>
<em>
</em>
<blockquote><em>
</em>
<p align="center"><em><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">" Our street actions over the last few years have been based on emphasizing small simple scenarios- which can be challenging even though they appear 'normal' and everyday. For instance- should it be hard to just 'stand'
on the street as an 'idle' woman?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"> Would you 'dare' try it?</span></span>"</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><br />The
idea behind this intervention is to re-conceptualize how women navigate
the public space, drawing inspiration, ideas and encouragement from the “personal truths” and stories shared by women who are doing
it. This grants them greater autonomy at representing themselves through
their online and offline presence and the narrative is continuously re-shaped through new submissions and testimonials. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">b) <strong>Self-representation</strong>
is how you create yourself: who you want to be and how you want others
to see you. Miller’s work on identity and storytelling explores the role
of storytelling in socialization and self-construction: <em>“stories change depending on who is listening”</em>
(1993) as we construct ourselves with and for other people. In the same way a character in the script cannot come to life without an audience, the identities we create for ourselves need a public that recognizes who we are and our role in the world. Anthony Giddens' work on identity also draws a relationship
between our identity and its narrative:<em> “self-identity
is not a set of traits but a person’s reflexive understanding of their
own biography (...) and the capacity to keep a coherent narrative going:
integrating events in the external world and sorting them into the
story of the self”</em>
(Gauntlett, 2002; Giddens 1991).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The Ugly Indian took a solid stance against middle class apathy and idleness in its narrative, and with this premise, it built an identity for the organization that represents the opposite: a selfless, active, responsible middle class citizen. These are some examples:</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="center"><strong>Anonymous identity
</strong></td>
<td align="center"><strong>Middle class citizen<br /></strong></td>
<td align="center"><strong>How they are different to the common middle class citizen<br /></strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>“They call themselves <span class="visualHighlight">The Ugly Indians and operate anonymously</span> [...]. If you
aren’t aware of The Ugly Indian (TUI), that’s understandable – <span class="visualHighlight">they work
hard to stay anonymous and underground, and want only their work to
speak for itself.”</span> (Chapter 1)</td>
<td>“<span class="visualHighlight">The
more the urban middle-class see ‘people like them’ </span>mucking about in
garbage, the more they will face up to the issue and start thinking
about it [...] This leap from ‘it’s someone else’s job’ to <span class="visualHighlight">‘it’s my duty
to fix this’</span> is what can transform our cities – <span class="visualHighlight">this leap has to be
made in the mind!” </span>(Chapter 6)</td>
<td>“There is a specific purpose to making Amir (the garbage truck driver)
talk. X and V are looking for cues on what really troubles him, what
improvement in his daily working life he will really appreciate. <span class="visualHighlight">Too
often, well-meaning urban middle-class do-gooders think they know what
the working class needs </span>(gloves, better equipment and so on) and <span class="visualHighlight">they
get it so wrong.</span> <span class="visualHighlight">Listening without being judgmental is an art, and X and
V are good at that.</span> (Chapter 8)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
You can read more about TUI’s story <a>here</a>.
<p> </p>
<div class="pullquote">
<div align="left">
“Human lives become more readable and intelligible when they are applied to narrative modes borrowed from history and fiction; and in function of stories people tell about themselves.”</div>
<div align="right">Ricoeur, 1991</div>
</div>
<p align="justify">The set of traits chosen by The Ugly Indian is important. Their initiative is intentionally gentrified as they <em>want </em>it to resonate specifically with the middle class (as they are "people like them"). But at the same time, they integrate a reflexive understanding of their role as citizens by mentioning the need for a personal awakening ("this leap has to be made in the mind!") and further interaction with stakeholders outside of their network ("making the truck driver talk"), that will enable the common middle class citizen transition into the level of 'street and citizenship authority' TUI is at. On top of this, their clean drives back up this discourse, and while their identity remains incognito, the work is widely shared on social media every week -drawing a coherent narrative between their speech and their actions.</p>
<p> c) <strong>Interaction with audience: </strong>Finally, once the storyteller has created a coherent identity, its sense of purpose must also be evident for the audience. The possibilities for this are endless, but I would like to draw attention to the super-hero narrative chosen by both Blank Noise and The Ugly Indian. Both groups are seeking an internal awakening in their volunteers by juxtaposing their experiences with what a 'hero' would do in the same situation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Bangalore Hero video on The Ugly Indian:<br /></strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/627R6TEuol4" frameborder="0" align="middle" height="315" width="420"></iframe>
<p> </p>
<em><span id="docs-internal-guid-1a1a53ce-5e81-f89d-6c02-60fd710855eb">“Our
message to all Bangalore citizens is simple. Go out and be a hero on
your own street.<br />Take charge of it. Don’t be helpless. You have the
power. You just need to go and us</span>e it”</em>
<p> <strong><br />Blank Noise's Action Hero game:</strong></p>
<div align="center">
<div align="left">
<pre>The <span class="il">Action</span> <span class="il">Hero</span> <span class="il">Game</span> is built on a series of personal challenges in the city.
The <span class="il">game</span> is <strong>simple.</strong> Your <span class="il">game</span> partner and opponent is <strong>you.</strong>
There is no one method or quick solution to be an <span class="il">Action</span> <span class="il">Hero</span>.
Each potential Action Hero goes to a new area in his / her city. On arriving there potential Action Heroes receive 'challenges' via phone messages
Action Heroes across locations receive a set of 6 tasks over 4 hours via sms
If you don't wish to do a task (eg task 1a) text us and we will send you another task (eg task 1B)
Are you an<strong> <span class="il">Action</span> <span class="il">Hero</span>? </strong>
Find out! Play this <span class="il">game</span>!<strong>
</strong></pre>
</div>
<p align="center">
<img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/ActionHero1.jpg/image_preview" alt="Action Hero" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Action Hero" /></p>
<p align="center"> <strong>Blank Noise Action Hero</strong> <br /><a href="http://bit.ly/1fld8cV">http://bit.ly/1fld8cV</a></p>
<div align="center">
<blockquote>
<p><em><span id="docs-internal-guid-1a1a53ce-5e84-d66f-0b84-28e1731e7d64">“Share your <strong>Action Hero </strong>experience: </span>An
Action Hero sets new rules for behaviour. She could experience fear and
threat, but devises ways to confront it. Being fearless is a process.
Every person is a unique Action Hero.Tell us how you said NO to sexual
violence. [...] This blog set out to record testimonials of when and how
you became an Action Hero; documents and shares the memory of when you
surprised yourself, did the unexpected. [...] You are an Action Hero not
by the magnitude of
what you did but how it made you feel. You are an Action Hero by the way
you define your own Action Heroism. We don't have a reference for you.]</em></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p align="justify"><br />They both advance ideals of courage, fearlessness and responsibility in the
public space through their campaigns. These are not only desirable
traits by any citizen -let alone marginalized or silenced voices in the
case of Blank Noise- but the strategy also speaks to a language of hope and
empowerment we can relate to at a human level. It sheds light on our fears, our limits and the extent to
which we are willing to use our power to act.<a name="fr1" href="#fn1">[3]</a><strong> </strong>Mediating this message with digital technologies also creates the illusion of an omniscient narrator who is drawing the volunteers' path to heroism and guiding their journey through it. As Ricoeur puts it:<em> "there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols and texts; and self-understanding will coincide with the interpretation given to these mediating terms"</em><span id="docs-internal-guid-4138f50b-6301-8f0c-4456-7cc57c648db2"></span> (1995) It is ultimately the interpretation the volunteers give to this ideal, and the magnitude to which they identify with it, what will determine their eagerness to emulate it and translate it into action. As said in the last post, one of the faculties of good storytelling is turning the experience being told, into the experience of those who are listening (Benjamin, 1955).</p>
<p align="justify">Before moving on to how 'action' unfolds in the performance, it is worth reflecting on the role of narratives, identities and mediation in collective action. Why do we need the hero narrative to mobilize agents? Why is heroic citizenship the gold standard and why does it work as a method for engagement? The topic is unfortunately out of the scope of this post, but the next one will attempt to address how identities as these ones can mediate our agency and action in the public space. <br /><br />******</p>
<p align="justify">Access Part 2 <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2">here</a> to look at the role of actors and the stage in performances to explore the role of agency and the public space in storytelling. We will also draw some final conclusions relating this back to the Making Change project.</p>
<em></em>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Footnotes:
</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">1</a>] Refer to Nishant Shah's <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway">Whose Change is it Anyway?</a>. He argues that global audiences engage with local causes that embody "spectacles of the rise of the citizen". This is problematic as the more significant -less visible/undocumented- acts remain unnoticed, while they may be central to understand what it means to make change in a networked and information society. He posits we need to move beyond this 'spectacle imperative',recognize the context of these revolutions and re-evaluate how we conceptualize 'action'.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">2</a>] Novelty: Quick exercise: run a quick google search of the
words: <a href="https://www.google.co.in/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=STORYTELLING+%2B+SOCIAL+CHANGE&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gfe_rd=ctrl&ei=rQQLU7SaOciL8Qee44CACQ&gws_rd=cr">‘storytelling + social change’</a>.
You will find stories by influential magazines and publications, including Forbes, the Huffington Post and Open Democracy, all from 2013-2014. ‘Storytelling’ seems to be
the newly (re)discovered tactic to advance business and social impact
objectives, noticed by activists and corporates alike.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">[<a name="fn1" href="#fr1">3</a>] For more on our power as agents and the role of narrative and identity, refer to Paul Ricoeur's work on the selves and agents (Oneself as another) and narratives (Time and Narrative). "As the most faithful articulations of human time, narratives present the moments when agents, who are aware of their power to act, actually do so, and patients, those who are subject to being affected by actions, actually are affected." Resources here: <a href="http://stanford.io/1c0pUwQ">http://stanford.io/1c0pUwQ</a></p>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Sources:</strong></p>
<p align="left">Benjamin, Walter. (1977): "The storyteller."89.</p>
<p align="left">Gauntlett, David (2002), Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction, Routledge, London and New York.</p>
<p align="left">Giddens, Anthony. "Modernity and self-identity: self and identity in the late modern age." Cambridge: Polity (1991).</p>
<p align="left">Holland,
Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, (1998). Identity and agency in cultural
worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.</p>
<p align="left">Hull, Glynda A., and M. Katz. (2006) "Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling." Research in the Teaching of English 41, no. 1: 43.</p>
<p align="left" style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">McCloud, Scott. (1993)."Understanding comics: The invisible art." Northampton, Mass</p>
<p align="left">Miller,
P. (1994). Narrative practices: Their role in socialization and
self-construction. In Neisser & Fivush (eds.), The remembering self:
Construction and agency in self narrative (pp. 158-179). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.</p>
<p align="left">Miller,
P. & Goodnow, J. J. (1995). Cultural practices: Toward an
integration of culture and development. New Directions for Child
Development, No. 67 (pp. 5-16). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Publishers.</p>
<p align="left">Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 19-43.</p>
<p align="left">Ricoeur, Paul (1991). "Narrative identity." Philosophy today 35, no. 1 : 73-81.</p>
<div align="left" id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Ricoeur, Paul. <em>(1995) Oneself as another</em>. University of Chicago Press,</div>
<p align="left"><br />Urciuoli,
B. (1995). The indexical structure of visibility. In B. Farnell (ed.),
Human action signs in cultural context: The visible and the invisible in
movement and dance (pp. 189-215). Metuchen, NJ & London: The
Scarecrow Press, Inc.</p>
<p align="left">Vivienne, Sonja (2011). "Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility” Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review 7, no. 1.</p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseDigital ActivismMaking ChangeResearchBlank Noise ProjectNet CulturesResearchers at Work2015-10-24T14:31:11ZBlog EntryReflecting from the Beyond
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond
<b>After going ‘beyond the digital’ with Blank Noise through the last nine posts, the final post in the series reflects on the understanding gained so far about youth digital activism and questions one needs to carry in moving forward on researching, working with, and understanding digital natives. </b>
<p></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">Throughout
the series, I have argued the following points. <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause" class="external-link">Firstly</a>, the 21<sup>st</sup>
century society is changing into a network society and that youth movements are
changing accordingly. I have outlined the gaps in the current perspectives used
in understanding the current form and proposed to approach the topic by going
beyond the digital: from a youth standpoint, exploring all the elements of
social movement, and based on a case study in the Global South – the uber cool
Blank Noise community who have embraced the research with open arms. The
methodology has allowed me to identify the newness in <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">youth’s approach to
social change</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within" class="external-link">ways of organizing</a>. Although I do not mean to generalize,
there are some points where the case study resonates with the broader youth
movement of today. In this concluding post, I will reflect on how the research
journey has led me to rethink several points about youth, social change, and
activism.</p>
<p>While
social movements are commonly imagined to aim for concrete structural change,
many youth movements today aim for social and cultural change at the intangible
attitudinal level. Consequently, they articulate the issue with an intangible
opponent (the mindset) and less-measurable goals. Their objective is to raise
public awareness, but their approach to social change is through creating
personal change at the individual level through engagement with the movement.
Hence, ‘success’ is materialized in having as many people as possible involved
in the movement. This is enabled by several factors.</p>
<p>The
first is the Internet and new media/social technologies, which is used as a
site for community building, support group, campaigns, and a basis to allow
people spread all over the globe to remain involved in the collective in the
absence of a physical office. However, the cyber is not just a tool; it is also
a public space that is equally important with the physical space. Despite acknowledging
the diversity of the public engaged in these spaces, youth today do not
completely regard them as two separate spheres. Engaging in virtual community
has a real impact on everyday lives; the virtual is a part of real life for
many youth (Shirky, 2010). However, it is not a smooth ‘space of flows’
(Castells, 2009) either. Youth actors in the Global South do recognize that
their ease in navigating both spheres is the ability of the elite in their
societies, where the digital divide is paramount. The disconnect stems from
their <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question" class="external-link">acknowledgement</a> that social change must be multi-class and an expression
of their reflexivity in facing the challenge.</p>
<p>The
second enabling factor is its highly individualized approach. The movement
enables people to personalize their involvement, both in terms of frequency and
ways of engagement as well as in meaning-making. It is an echo of the age of
individualism that youth are growing up in, shaped by the liberal economic and
political ideologies in the 1990s India
and elsewhere (France,
2007). Individualism has become a new social structure, in which personal decisions
and meaning-making is deemed as the key to solve structural issues in late
modernity (<em>Ibid).</em></p>
<p>In this era, young
people’s lives consist of a combination of a range of activities rather than
being focused only in one particular activity (<em>Ibid). </em>This is also the case in their social and political
engagement. Very few young people worldwide are full-time activists or
completely apathetic, the mainstream are actually involved in ‘everyday
activism’ (Bang, 2004; Harris et al, 2010). These are young people who are
personalizing politics by adopting causes in their daily behaviour and
lifestyle, for instance by purchasing only Fair Trade goods, or being very involved
in a short term concrete project but then stopping and moving on to other activities.
The emergence of these everyday activists are explained by the dwindling authority
of the state in the emergence of major corporations as political powers
(Castells, 2009) and youth’s decreased faith in formal political structures
which also resulted in decreased interest in collectivist, hierarchical social
movements in favour of a more individualized form of activism made easier with
Web 2.0 (Harris et al, 2010).</p>
<p>A collective of
everyday activists means that there are many forms of participation that one
can fluidly navigate in, but it requires a committed leadership core recognized
through presence and engagement. As Clay Shirky (2010: 90) said, the main
cultural and ethical norm in these groups is to ‘give credit where credit is
due’. Since these youth are used to producing and sharing content rather than
only consuming, the aforementioned success of the movement lies on the leaders’
ability to facilitate this process. The power to direct the movement is not
centralized in the leaders; it is dispersed to members who want to use the
opportunity.</p>
<p>This form of
movement defies the way social movements have been theorized before, where
individuals commit to a tangible goal and the group engagement directed under a
defined leadership. The contemporary youth movement could only exist by staying
with the intangible articulation and goal to accommodate the variety of
personalized meaning-making and allow both personal satisfaction and still
create a wider impact; it will be severely challenged by a concrete goal like
advocating for a specific regulation. Not all youth there are ‘activist’ in the
common full-time sense, for most everyday activists their engagement might not
be a form of activism at all but a productive and pleasurable way to use their
free time<span class="MsoFootnoteReference">
</span> - or, in Clay Shirky’s term, cognitive surplus
(2010).</p>
<p>Revisiting my
initial intent to put the term activism under scrutiny, I acknowledge this as a
call for scholars to re-examine the concepts of activism and social movements
through a process of de-framing and re-framing to deal with how youth today are
shaping the form of movements. Although the limitations of this paper do not
allow me to directly address the challenge, I offer my own learning from this
process for the quest of future researchers.</p>
<p>The way young
people today are reimagining social change and movements reiterate that
political and social engagement should be conceived in the plural. Instead of
“Activism” there should be “activisms” in various forms; there is not a new
form replacing the older, but all co-existing and having the potential to
complement each other. Allowing people to cope with street sexual harassment
and create a buzz around the issue should complement, not replace, efforts made
by established movements to propose a legislation or service provision from the
state. This is also a response I offer to the proponents of the aforementioned
“doubt” narrative.</p>
<p>I share the more
optimistic viewpoint about how these new forms are presenting more avenues to
engage the usually apathetic youth into taking action for a social cause.
However, I also acknowledge that the tools that have facilitated the emergence
of this new form of movement have existed for less than a decade; thus, we
still have to see how it evolves through the years.</p>
<p>Hence, I also find
the following questions to be relevant for proponents of the “hope” narrative.
Social change needs to cater to the most marginalized in the society, but as
elaborated before, the methods of engagement both on the physical and virtual
spaces are still contextual to the middle class. Therefore, how can the
emerging youth movements evolve to reach other groups in the society? Since
most of these movements are divorced from existing movements, how can they
synergize with existing movements to propel concrete change? These are open questions
that perhaps will be answered with time, but my experience with Blank Noise has
shown that these actors have the reflexivity required to start exploring
solutions to the challenges.</p>
<p>The research
started from a long-term personal interest and curiosity. In this journey, I
have found some answers but ended up with more questions that will also stay
with me in the long term. As a parting note before, I would like to share a
quote that will accompany my ongoing reflection on these questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>My advice to
other young activists of the world: study and respect history... but ultimately
break the mould. There have never been social media tools like this before. We
are the first generation to test them out: to make the mistakes but also the
breakthrough.</em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Tammy
Tibbetts, 2010)</p>
<p class="Heading1notchapter"> </p>
<p><em>This is the </em><strong><em>tenth and final</em></strong><em> post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond
the Digital </strong>series,</a> a research project that aims to explore
new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina
with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>References:</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Bang, H.P. (2004) ‘Among everyday makers and expert citizens’. Accessed
21 September 2010. <a href="http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf">http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Castells, M. (2009) <em>Communication
Power. </em>New York: Oxford University
Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>France, A. (2007) <em>Understanding Youth in Late Modernity</em>. Berkshire:
Open University Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harris, A., Wyn, J., and Younes, S. (2010) ‘Beyond apathetic or
activist youth: ‘Ordinary’ young people and contemporary forms of
participaton’, <em>Young </em>Vol. 18:9, pp.
9-32</p>
<p>Shirky, C. (2010) <em>Cognitive Surplus:
Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. </em>London: Penguin Press</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Image source:</em></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/08/street-signs.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/08/street-signs.html</a></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectCyberculturesBeyond the DigitalYouthResearchers at Work2015-05-14T12:21:29ZBlog EntryPublic Art, Technology and Citizenship - Blank Noise Project
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship
<b>Jasmeen Patheja speaks about the active citizen in the digital age, its challenges in the public and private spheres and interdisciplinary methods to overcome them.</b>
<div align="center">
<pre><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/copy2_of_copy_of_PhotoComic.jpg/image_preview" alt="Reconceptualizing Eve-Teasing" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Reconceptualizing Eve-Teasing" />
<strong>
CHANGE-MAKER:</strong> Jasmeen Patheja
<strong>
PROJECT</strong>: Blank Noise Project: A volunteer-led arts collective community
<strong>
STRATEGY OF CHANGE</strong>:
Fostering an active, participatory and horizontal model of citizenship,
empowering its volunteers to participate politically and address issues
of street sexual harassments in the public sphere.
<strong>
METHOD OF CHANGE</strong>: Public space interventions using community art and technology.</pre>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">To open the interview series for the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/" class="external-link">Making Change project</a>, I interviewed <a class="external-link" href="http://fellows.ted.com/profiles/jasmeen-patheja">Jasmeen Patheja</a>. She is the founder of <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/">Blank Noise</a>, a <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_Noise">volunteer-led arts collective community that started in Bangalore</a> and has now spread to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Lucknow. It seeks to address street sexual harassment and violence by triggering dialogue and building testimonials around notions of "teasing" and "harassment" in the public discourse. The collective has garnered attention and momentum since it was founded in 2003, and ever since, it’s fostering a model of active citizenship across India through its volunteer network. The story of Blank Noise and the working of community art with technology highlight the need to create spaces of expression and experience in which civic and political creativity can develop and unfold organically.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One of the main reflections stemming from my conversation with Jasmeen was the question of how technologies can create a sense of ownership and active citizenship. At the moment, we are moving on to a scenario in which technology has a more pervasive and complex presence. It is no longer judged merely on its connective utility, but is also understood as an actor, a space and a context within the ecosystem of social change and political democratic systems. For this reason, it is paramount to get to know the citizen that is being exposed to, influenced and impacted by these technologies and identify the ways in which his self-identity, social membership and political participation (King and Waldron 1988, Turner 1986, 1990) are being molded by them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In this post, I aim to unpack ‘active citizenship’ drawing from political science literature around citizenship and civic engagement. The analysis will be based on two dichotomies proposed by Turner: the tension between the active-passive citizen, and the contradictions between its private and public presence. I will then refer to Westmeister and Kahnein, Kabeer, Gaventa and Bennett to identify the type of citizen that Jasmeen Patheja hopes to yield through her project and the main challenges of manoeuvering in the public space. Finally, I will look at some of the tactics taken by Blank Noise to reconcile these tensions through community art and technology. This exploration of citizenship is a first stage in the journey of detecting the undertones of citizen action for social change in the digital era.</p>
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: justify;">Unpacking Citizenship</h2>
<h3><br />ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE CITIZEN</h3>
<p><strong>What is the difference between an active and a passive citizen?</strong></p>
<div class="pullquote">A passive citizen comes to existence as a subject, recipient or client of the state (...) regards its rights as privileges handed down from above (...)complies with norms yet does not act to change circumstances (...)and its security and survival are merely determined by constitutional and common law traditions</div>
<p align="justify">Turner places the citizenship question on two points of contention. The first: the vectorial nature of citizenship and how to recognize an ‘active or passive’ citizen. According to his analysis, a citizen either comes to existence from above as mere subject of the state, or from below as an active bearer of its rights (Mann 1987, Ullmann 1975, Turner 1990). The force and direction from which the citizen emerges has important implications for the self-identity of the individual, its confidence and disposition for political participation (Merrifield, 2001). A passive citizen regards its rights as privileges handed down from above, in such a way that citizenship becomes a strategy for social integration and cooperation (Mann, 1986). Westheimer and Kahne find the manifestation of this model in what they call a “Personally Responsible Citizen”: a dutiful citizen who complies with norms, pays taxes and obeys laws, yet does not act to change the circumstances of other communities (2004). However, defining the citizen as a passive actor constraints its role within its network. If the citizen’ security and survival are merely determined by constitutional and common law traditions, and the negotiation between institutions and the individual (Weber 1958 - refer to Turner 1990), the individual is a disempowered recipient or client (Cornwall, 2007) as opposed to the proactive agent Blank Noise looks to recruit and shape through heir interventions.</p>
<p>Patheja, as shown by the interview, aims to disrupt the passive citizen model by fostering political participation and putting its counterpart: ’the active citizen’ forward. Blank Noise believes the citizen must ground its claims from the grassroots and grow from below; yet still be visible and present in the public space, redefining problematic concepts looming in society’s social imaginary; what Turner would describe as revolutionary citizenship (1990).</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>How is your practice building a stronger model of citizenship?</strong><br />Change cannot happen only at one level. It would involve more people and different groups from different communities. For example, with citizen-led street action; we can’t end it there. It needs to push home the cause and make [the issues] visible with the government. How do we work with the government? Learning to ask and not assume it’s all their responsibility, but learning to assert our citizenship. What does it mean to do this? What does it mean to ask for safer cities in a way that it doesn’t become somebody else’s business entirely but that it’s about being able to see we are a society. We must understand the process of citizenship; what it means to be in a democratic country and what means to be a female citizen in it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship" alt="null" align="middle" title="Public Art, Technology and Citizenship - Blank Noise Project" /><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/SafeCityPledgeDelhi.jpg/image_preview" alt="Safe City Pledge - Delhi" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Safe City Pledge - Delhi" /></p>
<p align="center">Safe City Pledge - Delhi<br /> <img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/SafeCityPledgeMumbai.jpg/image_preview" alt="Safe City Pledge - Mumbai" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Safe City Pledge - Mumbai" /><br />Safe City Pledge - Mumbai<br />Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHMm">http://bit.do/fHMm</a></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p>The message is: “this is your city, this is your space. Don’t be apologetic for your presence” And over time, Action Heros are reporting change: ”I'm getting my space. I'm not thinking twice about what I have to wear.” [...]So it was not only about a vocabulary shift, but a shift in attitude.</p>
</blockquote>
<div align="justify;" class="pullquote">
<p><br />An active citizen comes from below as an active bearer of its rights (...), feels impelled to engage and mobilize its network (...) keeps government and community members in check (...) and evolves with a higher sense of individual purpose favoring solidarity and maintaining networks of community action.</p>
</div>
<p align="justify"> </p>
<p align="justify">Westheimer and Kahne label this stronger orientation towards a social-change approach as the second degree of civic engagement or as the behaviour of a <strong>‘participatory citizen</strong>’; an individual who feels impelled to engage and mobilize its network, skills and action to respond to a community need. This participation impetus is one of Patheja’s main expectations from its Action Hero Network. However, this entails relying on intimate shifts of behaviour and attitude among the volunteers, which are in essence hard to demand, inculcate and entrench by a third party.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Their approach also reflects a vision of citizenship that relies on collective action (Montgomery, 2004) to, not only keep the government in check as suggested by Westheimer and Kahnne, but other community and society members as well. From Bennett’s point of view and taking the role of information technologies into account, he would define the ideal Action Hero as a self-actualizing citizen. In contrast to its counterpart: the dutiful citizen, who sees its obligation to participate in government-centered activities, the AC evolves with higher sense of individual purpose, favouring and maintaining networks of community action, backed up by a growing distrust in media and the government. In this sense the role of technology is also paramount to how Blank Noise spreads its predicament and expands its outreach:</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="normal"><strong>What is the role of technology and media in your project?</strong><br />Using the web for example, we happened to stumble upon blogging and we realized there was a community there. Once [Action Heroes] started blogging and the press started writing about it, it created a community further. So, going back to the fact that our constant thread of conversation has been the web, there is a large percentage of the English speaking youth who are action hero agents anidd now have the responsibility of taking the conversations and actions forward.</p>
<p class="normal">On the other hand, this is not always the case. In Delhi we did an event in collaboration with Action Aid. Many of the Action Aid volunteers weren’t necessarily on Facebook. They were people who were largely Hindi speaking; their stories were about harassment in slums and these were men and women wanting to do something about the issue. So being a loose volunteer is one way, but identifying different communities is also important. Every space is a point of engagement and we use different forms of media to enable that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Citizen participation, communication and mobilization mechanisms, mediated by the state in the past, are now taken up by the people in the form of social protest, civil disobedience, digital activism, consumerism, etc. (Bennett, 2008). The emphasis on collective action also calls for a broader understanding of the citizen, away from the state-conferred rights and duties, and a definition that includes solidarity and membership to broader communities (Ellison 1997), Heater and Kabeer defines this as a “horizontal view” that stresses the relationship between citizens over that of the state and the individual (Heater 2002, Kabeer 2007) and Berlin has also made the connection between group identity and affiliation as a building block of citizenship (1969).</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="normal">[on Giving Letters to Strangers] We trigger a conversation and it takes its own journey. Over time, what does it take to lean back and relax? Each person participates establishing their own level of comfort and every person’s narrative is different. [The project is] happening in Delhi while it is happening in Bangalore; allowing it to happen in a very individual, self-confrontational and at the same time, collective experience. They are doing this alone knowing that others are doing the same.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br /><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/LettersStrangers.jpg/image_preview" alt="Giving out letters to Strangers" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Giving out letters to Strangers" /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Dear Stranger</strong>:<br />Giving out letters to strangers in the streets of Bangalore. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHJw">http://bit.do/fHJw</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHJw"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_LettersStrangers2.jpg/image_preview" alt="Giving out letters to Strangers 2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Giving out letters to Strangers 2" /><br /></a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In this way, Blank Noise has envisioned and designed a project that fosters an active, participatory, self-actualizing and horizontal model of citizenship. This combination builds a citizen prototype with a positive disposition and attitude to civic action; traits that Gaventa identifies as elements of empowerment and political agency that can derive into higher possibilities for social change. Having citizens identify community’s ailments as their own and their network’s responsibility, results in conversations that act as causal nexus of community action. The main challenge at the moment is the implementation of this model. To what extent will the Action Hero represent this model uniformly and steadily, preventing dissonance between Blank Noise’s discourse and its practice. And secondly, how will Blank Noise volunteers negotiate their political participation between public and private spaces?</p>
<h3>PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC SPACE</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Where should the active citizen operate?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second tension on citizenship, as identified by Turner, is its political expression on the public arena versus its manifestation on the individual’s private space. We asked Jasmeen about the crises and spaces in which Blank Noise is operating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>To what crisis is the project responding to?</strong><br />The project responds to the crises and experiences of street harassment. To the sense of getting defensive, agitated, angry; creating a wall and feeling vulnerable in a city. Blank Noise was initiated at a time were street harassment was disregarded and dismissed as teasing. This ‘eve-teasing’, just going by the pulse of things, included concepts of molestation and sexual violence. There was denial, there was silence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;">First point on the public vs. private dilemma lies on the issue at hand. Volunteers are working to re-conceptualize social norms around ‘safety’, ‘agency’ and ‘gender’, that are not only deeply entrenched in society, but that can also be traced back to the private domain of traditions and culture at the household level. By openly discussing ‘sexual harassment’ in the public space and enabling volunteers to express and act on the basis of a new understanding of citizenship and freedom, the collective is possibly also redefining dynamics at the private space of its volunteers. What is more, the motivation and determination to be an Action Hero, as mentioned by Patheja, must be grounded in a "<em>personal shift and challenge</em>".</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>How does this translate it into citizens taking ownership of the cause and sustained behavioral change in everyday practices?</strong><br />Anger is a good starting point. It is worrying when there is no anger. And then it has to be a personal shift. We’ve learned from conversations and feedback that volunteers who would say: “we came to address the issue and we are realizing that we are doing something in ourselves”. So what is the spirit of an Action Hero? Allowing something to shift and challenging something in yourself. Last year for example we worked towards having locality specific Action Hero networks and on how this intuitive citizen can become a full citizen, in terms of being an informed citizen as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="normal"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_ActionHeroGame.jpg/image_preview" alt="Action Hero Game" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Action Hero Game" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" class="normal">Acton Hero Game. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHKq">http://bit.do/fHKq</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="normal">The expectation of a personal pledge at the individual, community and public level, signals the project is blurring the lines between the private and public domain and fostering the politicization of the citizen at all fronts. This suggests that in order for the claims and behaviour of Action Heroes to become sustainable, they must also trickle into the common citizen’s routine. In words of Arendt: <em>“the space of appearance comes into being whenever men are together in the manner of speech and action, predating all formal constitutions of the public realm” </em>(1989). Establishing the private-public space as a common ground works towards bringing consistency and coherence to the interventions, yet it remains in many ways problematic and threatening to individual freedoms.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Does your project create new spaces for citizen expression and action?</strong><em><br /></em>Our role is to build testimonials and translate them back into the public domain. An example of this is the blogathon that happened in 2006, initiated by our Action Hero. She said: let’s invite bloggers to share their experiences of street harassment. 4-5 male and female Action Heroes made the event happen and in a couple of days we had hundreds and hundreds of testimonials and people talking about this for the first time. Maybe it was the first time speaking about it, remembering things that happened ages ago and that they had never shared. Suddenly the web was seen as a space where people could speak. Suddenly people had so much to say about the issue, the person dismissing the issue and their relationship with their body and the city.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/TalktoMe1.JPG/image_preview" alt="Talk to Me" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Talk to Me" /><br /><strong>Talk To Me:</strong><br />Creating spaces for conversation and collaboration. Courtesy of Blank Noise blog: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHKq">http://bit.do/fHKq</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Turner reflects on the French revolution tradition to shed light on this particular challenge for active citizenship, as what bound Frenchmen together was their citizen identity (Baker 1987). Passing on from state subjects, to actively voicing their political, civic and social aspirations coupled with meaningful mechanisms of participation. However, how do we reconcile this tradition of positive democracy with the American understanding of citizenship that enshrines the autonomous sanctity of the private space. American individualism values personal success and the main way to exercise political participation is through voluntary associations that do not represent a large-scale force -or a threat- with enough power to shape their lives (Bellah et. al 2008, Turner 1990). Translating this to the Bangalorean context: a changing society in which community- based traditions in the household are coexisting with an agitated and growingly individualist youth culture; the issues and interventions must be addressed in an implicational manner. The connections between the issue and individual freedoms must be made, in order for these actors to be willing to politicize their action in both the public and private spheres.</p>
<h3><strong>MIDDLE CLASS ACTIVISM<br /></strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Can everybody be an active citizen?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second challenge is rooted in the socio-economic group that comprises the body of volunteers of Blank Noise. I asked Jasmeen the extent to which the Action Hero Network was being led by middle class citizens.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Are you only reaching out to the middle class activist that has the resources to be part of the Blank Noise project?</strong><br /> Yes and no. A large percentage of our volunteers are usually web-savvy, English speaking, teenagers or in their early 20s. Others have been around for the last decade. The mainstream media also reports back mainly to the web-savvy groups. But it is also about one action hero inspiring another Action Hero. I find [the project] fascinating in terms of the spaces it leaks into. Some people tell me they were at their religious meeting and they overheard two women talking about the project, who were not necessarily web-savvy. Ultimately the media is not only reporting us but we see them as point of engagement in which more and more citizens take ownership of the issue. Although our network is largely urban middle class, we are at the point where we collaborate largely with other groups that are working with different communities so it completes the entire picture. The question is: how do you take the conversation forward? What can be that medium? and what kind of technology can get to people?</p>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;" class="pullquote"><br />
<div align="right">
<div align="left">“We use different strategies to enable dialogue across communities. It could be on the street, on the blog, within a workshop; the web has been a constant space. If you are an Action Hero, yes you may be web-savvy, but you also carry the responsibility to take the conversation to another space."</div>
Jasmeen Patheja</div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><br />This demographic is ultimately an interest group leading a movement and has taken on the responsibility of spreading the call to action among its network. Foregoing the assumption that every Indian citizen wants to challenge concepts of sexual harassment in the city, the fact that one group is spreading a specific opinion puts forward a tension between the dynamics of public social protest and the existence of privatized dissent. Turner reflects on Mill’s On Liberty and shows how this could entail a threat of spreading mass opinion to the extent it makes all people alike (Turner, 1990).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Kabeer also highlights this by exploring the tension between universality versus particularity — a debate that questions the extent to which human rights advocacy in the public sphere will be equally received and supported by every group, given diversity of opinion within as well as obstacles to freedom of speech. Nyamu-Musembi attempts to bridge this dichotomy by framing universality as “the experience of resistance to general oppression” and particularity as “how resistance speaks to each relevant social context”. In order to have the issue speak to all citizen groups, Blank Noise is currently also depending on the the ability of its Action Heroes to pass on a message that speaks to the different needs and cultural sensibilities of communities who do not belong to the Anglo-speaking middle class it is currently operating with.<br /><br />In response to having the protest of a specific social group translate into homogenized dissent, Jasmeen is looking to increase her outreach by approaching and working with other groups.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>How can you build effective solidarity networks among middle class activists, their networks and further communities?</strong><br />It is an attitude we are trying to push forward: have that conversation with your grandma; with your domestic help. We would love to do something with domestic workers for example. We don’t hear enough stories of who empowers or harasses them. That’s definitely a rising concern within the collective. We really need to have the complete spectrum and what kind of technology or strategies can be used to get it. Identifying these groups is a proposed future project and also an ongoing preoccupation. For now, our role is to trigger conversations and have them take their own journey.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">METHODS FOR CHANGE</h3>
<p><strong>How does the combination of art and technology foster active citizenship?<br /></strong></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;"></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some of the strategies Blank Noise has devised to overcome these obstacles relate back to the interdisciplinary design of its interventions. First, they are designed to be highly visible and aimed at triggering dialogue. This enables opinions and thoughts to flow from the private space into the public realm. Also, community art and technology as tools of expression and reflection, work as effective channels for responses to flow back and forth between both spaces.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Why did you take a multi-stakeholder approach and brought together technology and art?</strong><br />The entire collective is really based on defining strategies and identifying approaches to breaking denial and building conversation. Our role is enabling dialogue across forms of media and using different strategies to enable dialogue across communities. There are also lots of questions of how to create an art practice that can be collaborative and participatory. Where does art exist? How can art exist, be, feel confrontational? Can arte provoke? How can we build testimonials? Could be on the street, on the blog, twitter or within a workshop. The web has been a constant space. We also work with the web in a way that we have a growing community of Action Heroes, and if you are web-savvy, you carry the responsibility to take the conversation to another space.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Twitter.jpg/image_preview" alt="Twitter" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Twitter" /><br />Twitter campaign. Courtesy of: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHLK">http://bit.do/fHLK</a></span><br /><br /><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Ineverasked1.jpg/image_preview" alt="I never asked for it" class="image-inline image-inline" title="I never asked for it" /><br />Public art installation to redefine sexual harassment and eve-teasing. Courtesy of Caravan Magazine: <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHLV">http://bit.do/fHLV</a></span></p>
<p align="justify">Bennett and his work on civic engagement in the digital age, notes that one of the main strategies for positive civic engagement is nurturing creative and expressive actions in this generation.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>How does this approach work towards creating sustainable change?</strong><em><br /></em>We are creating tool kits for different ideas so the community can take it forward. There are many creative processes that equip them to initiate action in a community space. For instance, the Yelahanka Action Heroes workshop (http://yelahankaactionheroes.wordpress.com/), was a one month initiative that got Sristhi students to arrive to action heroism through games, like the Hahaha Sangha for example. We invited women out of their homes, and we would speak through pure laughter, gibberish and a sense of play. In doing that, people felt they knew each other. Anonymity was broken, people felt comfortable and safety was established. We are working towards creating safe public spaces and going beyond the biases that come from language or through age. But through the Hahaha Sangha we found there is still a need for facilitators to continue the project with the purpose of creating a safe space. Also, one of our interns is in charge of creating an Action Hero College Network and spreading information about different events, calendars, etc. It is still fluid but we are moving in that direction. Action Heroes are the strength of the project.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Hahaha.jpg/image_preview" alt="Hahaha" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Hahaha" /><br />Hahaha Sangha sessions - Courtesy of Blank Noise blog <span id="url_shortened"><a href="http://bit.do/fHMb">http://bit.do/fHMb</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The ideal of an engaged youth must be sustained by the empowerment of young people; getting them to recognize their personal expression and identities in collective spaces (Bennett, 2008). By setting in place mechanisms and opportunities to critically dissect societal problems and develop a political perspective as put forward by Westheimer and Kahne, as well as the awareness, self-identity and political confidence to act, as noted by Gaventa, the Blank Noise interventions become a context in which active citizenship is more likely.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Conclusion</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This analysis, part of the Methods of Social Change research project, aimed to shed light on how change-makers such as Blank Noise still place a heavy consideration on the notion of citizenship when designing, framing and implementing their projects. What is more, it is paramount to identify the working characteristics of an ‘active citizen’ and reflect on whether these are desirable and necessary in the populace to make political and social change more likely. It also contributes to the Making Change project by unpacking the workings of a change actor that is not confined to the ‘category of citizen’ but is still closely linked to processes of citizen action and social change in Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As seen throughout this post, the analysis of our citizen is not grounded on its relationship with the state, but instead on its disposition, self-identity and notion of social membership. After identifying our ideal active citizen: an active bearer of his rights, that defines itself horizontally in relation to other citizens and their rights, participates in political processes and is informed about and at odds with power imbalances, the Blank Noise experience demonstrated spatial tensions in implementing this ideal and practice in the public and private realms. Designing strategies and identifying technologies that enable a flow of thought and action between both spaces is a way of restructuring the ecosystem in which volunteers from the Action Hero Network interact with each other, reclaim their citizenship and alter the status quo from within. While Blank Noise is not starting a revolution, it is consolidating a process of steady and growing resistance in the public and private discourse of sexual harassment and eve-teasing in the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Shah also notes there are implicit codes allowing only certain people to embrace this model of citizenship. This was evident on the demographic that comprises the activist bases of Blank Noise and the risks of homogenizing the political space with their discourse of change. Jasmeen Patheja brought this point forward herself, but with full confidence on the ability of dialogue and conversation to keep luring other social groups and communities into joining the debate. We discussed opportunities from exploring the foreign women experience in the public space in India to expanding the Blank Noise basis through simultaneous international interventions enabled and coordinated through technology. The network is ever-growing and its mechanisms of change are constantly innovating and adapting through its content. In the meantime, the ‘active citizen’ remains at the core of it all, pushing the project forward; fighting among other battles, that of its identity’s reassertion in the landscape of change.</p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Sources</h2>
<ol>
<li>Arendt, Hannah (1989) The Human Condition. Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press.</li>
<li>Baker, Keith Michael. <em>The French Revolution and the creation of modern political culture</em>. Vol. 3. Pergamon Press, 1987.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Bennett, W. Lance. "Changing citizenship in the digital age." <em>Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth</em> 1 (2008): 1-24.</li>
<li>Berlin, Isaiah. "Two concepts of liberty." <em>Berlin, I</em> (1969): 118-172.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Bellah, Robert Neelly, ed. <em>Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American life: with a new preface</em>. University of California Pr, 2008.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Cornwall, Andrea, and Vera Schatten Coelho, eds. <em>Spaces for change?: the politics of citizen participation in new democratic arenas</em>. Vol. 4. Zed Books, 2007.</li>
<li>Ellison, N. (1997) ‘Towards a new social politics: citizenship and reflexivity in late modernity’, Sociology, 31(4): 697–717.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Gaventa, John, and Rajesh Tandon “Citizen engagements in a globalizing world." <em>Globalizing citizens: New dynamics of inclusion and exclusion</em> (2010): 3-30.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Heater, D. (2002) World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and Its Opponents, London: Continuum</li>
<li>Kabeer, Naila, ed. <em>Inclusive citizenship: Meanings and expressions</em>. Vol. 1. Zed Books, 2005.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Kathryn Montgomery et al., Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation. Center for Social Media, 2004. Retrieved February 15, 2007. <a href="http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/project.htm">http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ecitizens/project.htm</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Mann, Michael. "Ruling class strategies and citizenship". <em>Sociology </em>21, no.3 (1987): 339-354</li>
<li>Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? <em>Hivos Knowledge Program. </em>April 30, 2013.</li>
<li>Turner, Bryan. Outline of a Theory of Citizenship. Sociology (May 1990), 24 (2), pg. 189-217</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Westheimer, Joel, and Joseph Kahne. "What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy." <em>American educational research journal</em> 41, no. 2 (2004): 237-269</li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-citizenship</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseSocial MediaWeb PoliticsDigital NativesMaking ChangeBlank Noise ProjectResearchers at Work2015-04-17T10:43:55ZBlog EntryDigital AlterNatives with a Cause?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook
<b>Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have consolidated their three year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth, technology and change in a four book collective “Digital AlterNatives with a cause?”. This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around 'digital revolutions' in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South. </b>
<p></p>
<p><strong>I</strong><strong>ntroduction</strong></p>
<p>In the 21<sup>st</sup>
Century, we have witnessed the simultaneous growth of internet and digital
technologies on the one hand, and political protests and mobilisation on the
other. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic
expansion, political protocols and governmental mediation are undergoing a
significant transition, across in the world, in developed and emerging
Information and Knowledge societies.</p>
<p>The young
are often seen as forerunners of these changes because of the pervasive and
persistent presence of digital and online technologies in their lives. The “
Digital Natives with a Cause?” is a research inquiry that uncovers the ways in
which young people in emerging ICT contexts make strategic use of technologies
to bring about change in their immediate environments. Ranging from personal
stories of transformation to efforts at collective change, it aims to identify
knowledge gaps that existing scholarship, practice and popular discourse around
an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital technologies in
processes of social and political change.</p>
<p><strong>Methodology</strong></p>
<p>In 2010-11,
three workshops in Taiwan, South Africa and Chile, brought together around 80
people who identified themselves as Digital Natives from Asia, Africa and Latin
America, to explore certain key questions that could provide new insight into
Digital Natives research, policy and practice. The workshops were accompanied
by a ‘Thinkathon’ – a multi-stakeholder summit that initiated conversations
between Digital Natives, academic researchers, scholars, practitioners,
educators, policy makers and corporate representatives to share learnings on
new questions: Is one born digital or does one become a Digital Native? How do
we understand our relationship with the idea of a Digital Native? How do
Digital Natives redefine ‘change’ and how do they see themselves implementing
it? What is the role that technologies play in defining civic action and social
movements? What are the relationships
that these technology based identities and practices have with existing social
movements and political legacies? How do we build new frameworks of sustainable
citizen action outside of institutionalisation?</p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Rationale</strong></p>
<p>One of the
knowledge gaps that this book tries to address is the lack of digital natives’
voices in the discourse around them. In the occasions that they are a part of
the discourse, they are generally represented by other actors who define the
frameworks and decide the issues which are important. Hence, more often than
not, most books around digital natives concentrate on similar sounding areas
and topics, which might not always resonate with the concerns that digital
natives and other stake-holders might be engaged with in their material and
discursive practice. The methodology of the workshops was designed keeping this
in mind. Instead of asking the digital natives to give their opinion or recount
a story about what we felt was important, we began by listening to their
articulations about what was at stake for them as e-agents of change. As a
result, the usual topics like piracy, privacy, cyber-bullying, sexting etc.
which automatically map digital natives discourse, are conspicuously absent
from this book. Their absence is not deliberate, but more symptomatic of how
these themes that we presumed as important were not of immediate concerns to
most of the participants in the workshop who are contributing to the book<strong>.</strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Structure</strong></p>
<p>The
conversations, research inquiries, reflections, discussions, interviews, and
art practices are consolidated in this four part book which deviates from the
mainstream imagination of the young people involved in processes of change. The
alternative positions, defined by geo-politics, gender, sexuality, class,
education, language, etc. find articulations from people who have been engaged
in the practice and discourse of technology mediated change. Each part
concentrates on one particular theme that helps bring coherence to a wide
spectrum of style and content.</p>
<p><strong>Book 1: To Be: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p>The first
part, <em>To Be</em>, looks at the questions
of digital native identities. Are digital natives the same everywhere? What
does it mean to call a certain population ‘Digital Natives”? Can we also look
at people who are on the fringes – Digital Outcasts, for example? Is it
possible to imagine technology-change relationships not only through questions
of access and usage but also through personal investments and transformations?
The contributions help chart the history, explain the contemporary and give ideas
about what the future of technology mediated identities is going to be.</p>
<strong>Book 2: To Think: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook2/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong><strong>
</strong>
<p>In the
second section, <em>To Think,</em> the
contributors engage with new frameworks of understanding the processes,
logistics, politics and mechanics of digital natives and causes. Giving fresh
perspectives which draw from digital aesthetics, digital natives’ everyday
practices, and their own research into the design and mechanics of technology
mediated change, the contributors help us re-think the concepts, processes and
structures that we have taken for granted. They also nuance the ways in which
new frameworks to think about youth, technology and change can be evolved and
how they provide new ways of sustaining digital natives and their causes.</p>
<p><strong>Book 3: To Act: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook3/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<p><em>To Act</em> is the third part that concentrates on stories
from the ground. While it is important to conceptually engage with digital
natives, it is also, necessary to connect it with the real life practices that
are reshaping the world. Case-studies, reflections and experiences of people
engaged in processes of change, provide a rich empirical data set which is
further analysed to look at what it means to be a digital native in emerging
information and technology contexts.</p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Book 4: To Connect : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook4/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<p>The last
section, <em>To Connect</em>, recognises the
fact that digital natives do not operate in vacuum. It might be valuable to
maintain the distinction between digital natives and immigrants, but this
distinction does not mean that there are no relationships between them as
actors of change. The section focuses on the digital native ecosystem to look
at the complex assemblage of relationships that support and are amplified by
these new processes of technologised change.</p>
<p>We see this
book as entering into a dialogue with the growing discourse and practice in the
field of youth, technology and change. The ambition is to look at the digital
(alter)natives as located in the Global South and the potentials for social
change and political participation that is embedded in their interactions
through and with digital and internet technologies. We hope that the book
furthers the idea of a context-based digital native identity and practice,
which challenges the otherwise universalist understanding that seems to be the
popular operative right now. We see this as the beginning of a knowledge
inquiry, rather than an end, and hope that the contributions in the book will
incite new discussions, invoke cross-sectorial and disciplinary debates, and
consolidate knowledges about digital (alter)natives and how they work in the
present to change our futures<strong>.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/MyAccount_Login.aspx">Click here</a> to order your copy. We invite readers to contribute reviews of an essay they found particularly interesting. Contact us: nishant@cis-india.org and fjansen@hivos.nl if you want more information, resources, or dialogues</strong></p>
<p>Nishant
Shah</p>
<p>Fieke
Jansen</p>
<p><strong>For media coverage and book reviews,</strong> <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/media-coverage" class="external-link">read here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial mediaDigital ActivismRAW PublicationsCampaignDigital NativesAgencyBlank Noise ProjectFeaturedCyberculturesFacebookPublicationsBeyond the DigitalDigital subjectivitiesBooksResearchers at Work2015-04-10T09:22:29ZBlog EntryBeyond the Digital: Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause
<b>Digital natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">The last decade
has witnessed an escalating interest among academics, policy makers, and other
practitioners on the intersection between youth, activism, and the new media
technologies, which resulted in two narratives: one of doubt and the other of
hope. The ‘hope’ narrative hinges on the new plethora of avenues for activism
at the young people’s disposal and the bulge of the population, stating that
the contemporary forms of youth activism represent new ways of conceiving and
doing activism in the present and the future (see, for example, UN DESA, 2005).
The ‘doubt’ narrative, on the other hand, questions to what extent the digital
activism can contribute to broader social change (Collin, 2008) and some
proponents of this view even call it ‘slacktivism’, stating that online
activism is only effective if accompanied with real life activism (Morozov, 2009).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Before assessing
the potentials of youth’s digital activism to contribute to social change, it
is imperative to first gain a comprehensive understanding about this emerging
form of activism. A brief review of existing literature on the topic found that
most of the analyses are centered on three perspectives, each with its own
approach, strengths, and weaknesses: the technology centered, the new social
movements centered, and the youth centered perspectives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The technology centered
perspective places a great emphasis on the instrumental role of the internet
and new media (see, for instance, Kassimir, 2005; Shirkey, 2007; Brooks and
Hodkinson, 2008). It discusses how internet savvy young people are able to
exercise their activism differently, because the technology can remove
obstacles to organizing, provide a new platform for visibility and make
transnational networking easier. In this perspective, the Internet and new media technologies are seen as enabling tool sand the web is viewed as a new space to promote
activism. However, this perspective mainly stipulates that there is already a
formulaic form of activism that can be transferred from the actual, physical
sphere to the virtual arena; it does not consider that the changes caused by
the way the youth are using technologies in their daily lives may also create
new meanings and forms of activism. This perspective is the most dominant in
literature on the topic, being the lens used by the pioneering studies on
youth, Internet, and activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The new social
movements centered perspective goes beyond that and looks at how new meanings
and forms of politics and activism are created as the result of the way people
are using new media technologies and the Internet. This perspective is leading
the recently emerging literature on the topic and emphasizes on the trend of
being concerned on issues related to everyday democracy and the favour towards
self organized, autonomous, horizontal networks (for examples, see Bennett,
2003; Martin, 2004; Collin, 2008). However, this perspective treats young
people merely as ‘vessels’ of the new activism and neglect to examine how their
lives have been shaped by the use of new media technologies and the Internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The youth
centered perspective, represented for example by Juris and Pleyers (2009),
acknowledges that ICTs have always been part of young people’s lives and that
it intersects with other factors in shaping how they conceive politics and
activism. Most of the studies in this perspective were done with youth
activists in existing transnational social justice movements, such as the
global anti-capitalism or environmental movements. Nevertheless, this
perspective mainly views youth activists as ‘becomings’ by defining them as the
younger layer of actors in a multi-generational group that will be future
leaders of the movement. There are very few researches on autonomous youth
movements that are created and consist of young people themselves and look at
the youth as political actors in its own right. In addition, the majority of
studies also focused on the youth as individuals but not as a collective force.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">In addition to
the shortcomings of each perspective, there are also common gaps in the current
broader body of knowledge on the intersection of youth, new media technologies,
and activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Firstly, existing
researches tend to define activism as concrete actions, such as protests and
campaigns, and the values represented by such actions. It neglects other
elements that constitute activism together with the actions and values, such as
the issue taken up by the action, the ideologies underlying the formulation of
action, and the actors behind the activism (Sherrod, 2005; Kassimir, 2005). Divorcing
these elements from the analysis gave only a partial view of what youth digital
activism is.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Secondly, the
majority of studies zoomed into the novelty of new media technologies and how
they are being used as a point of departure to investigate the topic. This
arguably stems from an adult-centric, pre-digital point of view, which overlooks
the fact that internet and new media has always been ‘technology’ for most
young people just as how the radio and television have always been ‘technology’
for the previous generation (Shah and Abraham, 2009). This way of thinking
divorces the ‘digital’ from the ‘activism’ in digital activism; consequently,
it ignores all the other factors that are causing and shaping youth activism and
fails to capture how youth actors themselves are viewing or giving meaning to
this digital activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Finally, researches
on the issue skew excessively on developed countries. It must be acknowledged
that the ‘digital divide’, or the unequal access to and familiarity with
technology based on gender, class, caste, education, economic status or
geographical location, in developing countries is deeper and that the digitally
active youth are a privileged minority. Yet, a neglect to understand their
activism also means a failure to understand why and how the elite who are often
perceived to be politically apathetic are engaging with their community to
create social change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">The weaknesses
identified above demonstrate that our understanding on this particular form of
contemporary youth activism is currently obscured. Hence, the two narratives of
‘hope’ and ‘doubt’ lose their relevance given that the subject of assessment,
the digital youth activism, is not even clearly understood.</p>
<p>Based
on the above overview of the limitations, it is imperative to find a new way to
approach to understand the phenomenon of digital youth activism. I will explore
the possibilities of such an approach with the following arguments as the
starting point.</p>
<p>Firstly,
I argue that the key limitation lies on the adult-centric perspective in
viewing youth’s engagement with new media technologies, thus what is essential
is to go beyond the ‘digital’ and focus on the ‘activism’ part of youth digital
activism. Secondly, I argue that exploration of the
issue from the standpoint of the youth political actors themselves is crucial
to counter the adult-centric perspective dominating the literature on this
topic. Thirdly, since so many researches divorce the youth from the context of
their activism, it is crucial to focus on a particular case study to a tease
out the nuances of youth digital activism.</p>
<p>I
have the opportunity to explore the approach through a study with <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/">The Blank Noise
Project</a>, an initiative to address the problem of street sexual harassment in
public spaces that originated in 2003 in Bangalore. It has since expanded into
nine cities in India with over 2,000 volunteers, all young people between 17-30
years of age. Known for their unique public art street interventions as well as
their savvy online presence, The Blank Noise Project was also chosen because
its growth and sustainability over the past seven years are a testament to its
legitimacy and relevance for youth in India. </p>
<p>The
research does not aim to assess the contribution of The Blank Noise Project to
social change nor does it claim to represent all forms of youth digital
activism in India. Rather, it aims to offer insights on one of the forms of
digital natives joining forces for a cause. The research is interested in the
following questions: how do young people involved in the Blank Noise articulate
their politics? Who are their audience? What are their strategies? What is
their conception of the public sphere? How do they organize themselves? How do
they represent themselves to others? How do they see and give meaning to their
involvement with the Blank Noise? How can we make sense of their initiative? While
‘activism’ is the popular term that is also used in this research, is their
initiative a form of activism or is it something else altogether? More importantly,
how do these young people define it by themselves? For the next few months, I
will share stories, questions, and reflections that emerge along my journey of
exploring those questions with The Blank Noise Project on the CIS blog. </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p><em>This is the first post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS
Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </em><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>References:</strong></p>
<p>Bennett,
W.L. (2007) ‘Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age’, paper presented at</p>
<p>the OECD/ INDIRE Conference on Millenial
Learners, Florence, Italy (5-6 March).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Brooks,
R. and Hodkinson, P. (2008) ‘Introduction’, <em>Journal
of Youth Studies</em> Vol. 11:5,</p>
<p>p. 473 – 479</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Collin,
P. (2008) ‘The internet, youth participation policies, and the development of</p>
<p>young people’s political identities in
Australia’, <em>Journal of Youth Studies </em>Vol.
11:5, p. 527 - 542</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Juris,
J.S. and Pleyers, G.H. (2009) ‘Alter-activism: Emerging cultures of
participation</p>
<p>among young global justice activists’, <em>Journal of Youth Studies </em>Vol. 12 (1): p.
57-</p>
<p>75.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Kassimir,
R. (2006) ‘Youth Activism: International and Transnational’, in Sherrod,</p>
<p>L.R., Flanagan, C.A. and Kassimir, R.
(eds.) <em>Youth Activism: An International </em></p>
<p><em>Encyclopedia,
</em>p.
20-28. London: Greenwood Press.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Martin,
G. (2004) ‘New Social Movements and Democracy’, in Todd, M.J. and Taylor,</p>
<p>G. (eds.) <em>Democracy and Participation: Popular protests and new social movements</em>,
p. 29-54. London: Merlin Press.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Morozov,
E. (2009) ‘The brave new world of slacktivism’. Accessed 19 May 2010 <</p>
<p>http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shah,
N. and Abraham, S. (2009) ‘Digital Natives with a Cause? A Knowledge</p>
<p>Survey and Framework’. Accessed 7 April
2010 < <a href="http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause">http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause</a>></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Sherrod,
L.R. (2006) ‘Youth Activism and Civic Engagement’, in Sherrod, L.R.,</p>
<p>Flanagan, C.A. and Kassimir, R. (eds.) <em>Youth Activism: An International </em></p>
<p><em>Encyclopedia,
</em>p.
2-10. London: Greenwood Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shirkey,
C. (2008) <em>Here Comes Everybody: How
Change Happens and People Come </em></p>
<p><em>Together</em>. New York:
Penguin Books</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs / UN DESA (2005)</p>
<p>‘World Youth Report 2005: Young People
Today and in 2015’. Accessed 7 April 2010 <http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/wyr05book.pdf></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2012-03-13T10:43:37ZBlog EntryActivism: Unraveling the Term
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term
<b>After discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about how they relate with the very term of activism.</b>
<p></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph"><strong><em>Youth's Popular Imagination of Activism</em></strong></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">As a start, I need to clarify
that ‘activism’ is not a concept that the participants are generally concerned
with. For a majority of them, the conversation we had was the first time they
thought of what the term means and reflect whether their engagement with Blank
Noise is activism. Regardless of whether one identifies Blank Noise as a form
of activism or not, all participants share a popular idea of what activism is.</p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph"> Generally speaking, at an abstract level all
participants saw activism as passionately caring about an injustice and taking
action to create social change. At a more tangible level, all participants
mentioned three elements as popular ideas about <em>doing </em>activism. The first is the existence of a concrete demands as
a solution to the identified problem, such as asking for service provision or
state regulations. Since these demands are structural, activism is also seen
dealing with formal authority figures in the traditional sense of politics, the
state. The second is the intensity and commitment required to be an activist,
for many participants being an activist means having prolonged engagement,
taking risks, and making the struggle a priority in one’s life. In other words,
being an activist means “<em>... being
neck-deep, spending most if not all of your time, energy, and resources for the
cause” </em>(Dev Sukumar, male, 34). The third element relates to the methods,
called by some as ‘old school’: shouting slogans, holding placards, and doing
marches on the streets – all enacted in the physical public space. This popular
imagination of activism becomes the orientation for participants in deciding whether
Blank Noise is a form of activism and whether they are activists for being
involved in it.</p>
<p><strong><em>Activism
as the Intention and Action</em></strong></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>“I have an idea of what activism is but not what it exactly
looks like.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Apurva Mathad, male,
28).<em> </em></p>
<p>For
those who think that Blank Noise <em>is </em>a
form of activism, there was a differentiation between the idea at the abstract
level and how it is manifested at a more tangible level. The definition of
activism is the abstract one, while the popular ideas of doing activism do not
define the concept but present the most common out many possible courses of
actions. Blank Noise is fulfils all the elements in the abstract definition: a
passion about an injustice, having an aim for social change, and acting to
achieve the aim. Hence, Blank Noise is activism, but the way it manifests
itself does not adhere to the popular imagination of doing activism. The
distinction between Blank Noise’s methods with popular ones was emphasized,
along with the difference in articulating goals.</p>
<p>Interestingly,
not all participants who share this line of thinking called themselves as
activists for being involved in an activism. Again, it must be reiterated that
no participants ever really thought of giving a name to their engagement prior
to the interview. Instead of saying ‘I am an activist’, they said ‘I guess I
could be called an activist’ for the fact that they are sharing the passion and
being actively involved in a form of activism, albeit in an unconventional
manner.</p>
<p>Those
who would categorize Blank Noise as activism but not call themselves activists
related with a particular element on the popular idea of <em>doing </em>activism, which is getting “neck-deep”. They were helpers,
volunteers, idea spreaders, but not an activist because their lives are not dedicated
for the cause or their involvements were based on availability. On the other
hand, these participants all said that Jasmeen is an activist for being
completely dedicated to Blank Noise from its inception until today.</p>
<p><strong><em>Activism as Particular Ways of Doing and Being<br /></em></strong></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>“What are the repercussions if activism is so fluidly
defined? It can mean not questioning </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>privilege... not seeing the class divisions and still call
yourself activist.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Hemangini Gupta,
female, 29).<em> </em></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">Most participants did not consider
Blank Noise as an activism. Generally, this can be explained by the
discrepancies between Blank Noise and the popular imagination on the tangible
ways of <em>doing </em>activism. Blank Noise
does not propose a concrete solution or make concrete demands to an established
formal structure nor did it march on the streets and make slogans. However, the
underlying attitude to this point of view is not of a younger generation
finding the ‘old’ ways of doing activism obsolete. Rather, there was an
acknowledgement that the issue itself causes the different ways of reading an
issue and taking actions to address it.</p>
<p>Furthermore,
there is an appreciation to the achievements and dedication of activists that
deterred them from calling themselves activists. These people referred to their
occasional participation and the fact that Blank Noise is not the main priority
in their lives as a student or young professional despite being a cause they
are passionate about. As reflected in the opening quote, being an activist for
some participants also means deeply reflecting on their self position in terms
of class, acknowledging their privileges, and putting themselves in a position
that will enable them to imagine the experience of people who are also affected
by the issue but has a different position in the society. In other words, being
an activist is not just about <em>doing </em>but
also about critically reflecting on one’s position in relation to the issue and
how it influences the way an issue is being pushed forward. Thinking that they
are not up to these standards, these youth choose to call themselves
‘volunteers’, ‘helpers’, or ‘supporters’.</p>
<h2><em>Youth: The Activist, the Apathetic, and the Everyday</em></h2>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;" class="Normalfirstparagraph"><em>“Blank Noise is a public
and community street arts collective that is volunteer-led and attempts to
create public dialogue on the issue of street sexual violence and eve teasing.”
</em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;" class="Normalfirstparagraph"><em>(</em>Jasmeen Patheja)</p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>“... a
group of people against street sexual harassment and eve teasing.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Kunal Ashok, men, 29)</p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">“... <em>an
idea that really works.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Neha Bhat, 19)</p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">As clarified before, the
participants did not use the words ‘movement’ and very few used ‘activism’
during our conversations. Instead, the terms they used to describe Blank Noise
are represented in the quotes above: collective, community, group, project, and
even as an idea. These phrases do not carry the same political baggage that
‘movement’ or ‘activism’ would; they also do not conjure a particular
imagination that the other two terms would. These phrases are de-politicized
and informal; they imply fluidity, lack of hierarchy, and room for
manoeuvre. </p>
<p>The
implied meanings in the terms reflect the debates on the average youth and
political engagement. For the past decade, various youth scholars criticized
the dichotomy of youth as either activists or apathetic in explaining the
global trend of decreased youth participation in formal politics. The activists
are either politically active Digital Natives engaged in new forms of social
movements influenced heavily by new media or sub-cultural resistances, which
only account for a fraction of the youth population that are mostly completely
apathetic. This dichotomy ignored the ‘broad “mainstream” young people who are
neither deeply apathetic about politics on unconventionally engaged’ (Harris et
al, 2010).</p>
<p>These
mainstream young people actually are socially and politically engaged in
‘everyday activism’ (Bang, 2004; Harris et al, 2010). These are young people
who are personalizing politics by adopting causes in their daily behaviour and
lifestyle, for instance by purchasing only Fair Trade goods, or being very
involved in a short term concrete project but then stopping and moving on to
other activities. The emergence of these everyday activists are explained by
the dwindling authority of the state in the emergence of major corporations as
political powers (Castells, 2009) and youth’s decreased faith in formal
political structures which also resulted in decreased interest in collectivist,
hierarchical social movements in favour of a more individualized form of
activism (Harris et al, 2010). Internet and new media technologies are credited
as an enabling factor, being a space and a medium for young people to express
their everyday activism. </p>
<p>All
of the research participants, perhaps with the exception of Jasmeen as the only
one who has constantly been the driver Blank Noise its entire seven years, are
these everyday makers, people who were involved with the Blank Noise either on
a daily basis as a commentator, one-time project initiator and leader, or
people who were active when they are available but remain dormant at other
times. Blank Noise is a space where these individual forms of engagement could
be exercised while remaining as a collective. The facilitation is not only by
the flexibility of coming and going, but also the lack of rigid group rules and
the approach of allowing Blank Noise to be interpreted differently by
individuals. Considering that the mainstream urban youth are everyday makers
who would not find ‘old’ or ‘new’ social movements appealing, this can be the
reason why Blank Noise became so popular among youth; however, I would also
argue that the fact that Blank Noise is the first to systematically address eve
teasing is a determining cause.</p>
<p>The
implications of this finding, together with other concluding thoughts, will be
shared in the next and final post in the Beyond the Digital series.</p>
<p><em>This is the <strong>ninth</strong> post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series,</a> a research project that aims to explore
new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina
with Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge
Programme. </em></p>
<p><em>References:</em></p>
<p>Bang,
H.P. (2004) ‘Among everyday makers and expert citizens’. Accessed 21 September
2010. <a href="http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf">http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf</a></p>
<p>Castells,
M. (2009) <em>Communication Power. </em>New
York: Oxford University Press.</p>
<p>Harris,
A., Wyn, J., and Younes, S. (2010) ‘Beyond apathetic or activist youth: ‘Ordinary’
young people and contemporary forms of participaton’, <em>Young </em>Vol. 18:9, pp. 9-32</p>
<p><em>Image source:</em> <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2010/02/tweet-now-feb-17-27.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2010/02/tweet-now-feb-17-27.html</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyDigital ActivismDigital NativesBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalResearchers at Work2015-05-14T12:25:05ZBlog Entry