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Event Report: Community Discussion on Open Standards
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/event-report-community-discussion-on-open-standards
<b>This community discussion organised by HasGeek was held at the office of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India on June 20, 2019. </b>
<p> </p>
<p>Open standards are important for the growth and evolution of technology and practices for consumers and industries. They provide a range of tangible benefits, including, for instance, a reduction in cost of development for small businesses and organizations, facilitation of interoperability across different technologies in certain cases, and encouragement of competitiveness in the software and services market. Open standardization also encourages innovation, expansion in market access, transparency — along with a decrease in regulatory rigidity, as well as volatility in the market, and subsequently the surrounding economy, as well.</p>
<p>The importance of open standards is perhaps most strikingly evident when considering the ardent growth and impact the Internet — and the World Wide Web in particular — have been able to enjoy. The modern Internet has arguably been governed, at least for the most part, by the continuous development and maintenance of an array of inventive protocols and technical standards. Open standards are usually developed in a public-consultancy process, where the standards development organizations (“SDOs”) involved follow a multi-stakeholder model of decision-making. Multi-stakeholder models like this ensure equity to groups with varying interests, and also ensures that any resulting technology, protocol or standard which is developed is in accordance with the general consensus of those involved.</p>
<p>This event report highlights a community discussion on the state of open standardization in the age where immediately accessible cloud computing services are readily available to consumers — along with an imagined roadmap for the future; one which ensures steady ground for users as well as the open standards and open source software communities. Participants in the discussion focused on what they believed to be the key areas of open standardization, establishing a requirement for regulatory action in the open standards domain, while also touching upon the effects of market forces on stakeholders within the ecosystem, which ultimately guide the actions of software companies, service providers, users, and other consumers.</p>
<p>The event report can be accessed <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/open_standards-event_report_2019.pdf">here.</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/event-report-community-discussion-on-open-standards'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/event-report-community-discussion-on-open-standards</a>
</p>
No publisherKaran Saini, Prem Sylvester and Anishka VaishnavCommunitiesOpen StandardsEvent2019-08-02T06:51:00ZBlog EntryMy First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/my-first-wikipedia-training-workshop
<b>On March 8, 2013, a day-long Telugu Wikipedia training workshop was organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team at the Golden Threshold, Nampally, Hyderabad in collaboration with Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad. This blog post gives a concise account of the event.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge">CIS-A2K</a></b> had planned a day long <a class="external-link" href="http://te.wikipedia.org">Telugu Wikipedia</a> training workshop in collaboration with Telugu Wikipedians at the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.efluniversity.ac.in/">English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU)</a>, Hyderabad on March 8, 2013. The intention was to target research students at EFLU who are using Telugu material or working on topics related to Telugu and Andhra Pradesh. This event was also to be part of the Wiki Women’s month events across India. However, this event had to be cancelled in the last minute as a Research Student of EFLU committed suicide on the campus and there was major unrest. The faculty from EFLU though had informed of the possible cancellation of the event earlier, had only confirmed it on March 7, 2013. <b><a class="external-link" href="http://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A1%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%95%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%BF:%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%B9%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%AE%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A8%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%A6%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%A6%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%A8%E0%B1%8D">Rahmanuddin Shaik</a></b> (Telugu SIG, <a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India_chapter">Wikimedia India Chapter</a>) and <a class="external-link" href="http://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A1%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%95%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%BF:Rajasekhar1961"><b>Dr. Rajasekhar</b> </a>(Telugu Wikipedia Administrator) had already blocked an entire day for this training workshop. In fact a lot of background work was already done for the EFLU event.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When I got the news of cancellation of the workshop, initially I was very dejected at the thought of informing the two active Telugu Wikipedians about it, which I had to do. As my tickets were anyhow booked to Hyderabad and there was no point cancelling them, as I was already on my way to catch the flight, I decided to go ahead with my journey. I made some couple of quick calls and with some effort managed to organize a Wikipedia Training Workshop in collaboration with the <a class="external-link" href="http://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%A5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%AF%E0%B1%87%E0%B0%9F%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%8D_%E0%B0%94%E0%B0%9F%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%9A%E0%B1%8D_%E0%B0%AF%E0%B1%82%E0%B0%A8%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%9F%E0%B1%8D_%28%E0%B0%9F%E0%B0%BF.%E0%B0%93.%E0%B0%AF%E0%B1%81%29">Theatre Outreach Unit (TOU)</a>, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.uohyd.ac.in/">University of Hyderabad (UoH)</a>. I was anyhow planning on visiting them to explore an institutional collaboration. The Project Director of TOU Dr. Peddi Ramarao, though agreed to spread the word about the workshop, yet was not sure how many would turn up at such a short notice of one night.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/TOUphoto2forCIS.png" title="TOU Training photo 2" height="364" width="486" alt="null" class="image-inline" /></th> <th>
<p>Rahmanuddin and Dr. Rajasekhar giving hands-on training to edit Telugu Wikipedia at Golden Threshold, Hyderabad</p>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So on March 8, 2013 Rahmanuddin, Dr. Rajasekhar and I landed at the <a class="external-link" href="http://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%97%E0%B1%8B%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%A1%E0%B1%86%E0%B0%A8%E0%B1%8D_%E0%B0%A4%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%86%E0%B0%B7%E0%B1%8B%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%A1%E0%B1%8D">Golden Threshold</a> hoping against hope to see at least 3 or 4 participants. But alas there were only 2 people when we reached the venue by 10 a.m.. By 10.25 a.m. we had 9 participants, which excited us all. The training workshop began with an introduction of all the participants. Following this a presentation was made on the significance of Wikipedia in the digital era and how Indian language-Wikipedias are pivotal in preserving the vernacular language and culture. This session was interactive with participants asking many questions. Dr. Peddi Ramarao, later, spoke about his experience of using Wikipedia as a reference tool and how he got introduced to contributing Wikipedia. Further, the discussion went on to the poor quality of articles on Telugu Wikipedia and how the participants can take part in improving the existing articles and contribute new articles. Rahmanuddin and Rajasekhar practically demonstrated the process of editing on <a class="external-link" href="http://te.wikipedia.org">Telugu Wikipedia</a>. This was followed by a hands-on session where the participants actively participated in creating their Wikipedia User name on Telugu Wikipedia and did editing of few articles. The training programme was to officially end at Lunch time but even post lunch some of the participants were enthusiastic about learning more nuances of contributing on Telugu Wikipedia. The hands-on session thus continued until 4 p.m.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Post the Wikipedia training programme, I have had interactions with the Project Director of TOU to explore possible future collaborations. TOU, UoH agreed to offer space to host all Telugu Wikipedia meet-ups. As the Golden Threshold space was in the central part of the city, having this infrastructure accessible was a major boost for the Telugu Wikipedia community in Hyderabad. Further, in the discussions we have agreed to collaborate with TOU, UoH in hosting the first mega Telugu Wikipedia community event <i>Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013</i>.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/TOUphoto3forCIS.png" title="TOU Training photo 3" height="261" width="348" alt="null" class="image-inline" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><b>Telugu Wikipedia Orientation in progress</b></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3><b>Outcomes and Impact:</b></h3>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Out of the 9 new Users, who were trained during this workshop, 5 people have done more than 5 edits.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">One person has become a very active editor on Telugu Wikipedia with more than 1000 edits in 3 months. A detailed account of this event was put up by this user on Telugu Wikipedia here <a href="#fn*" name="fr*">[*]</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Because of CIS-A2K’s efforts, Telugu Wikipedians in Hyderabad now have a good meeting space.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The availability of this space has also encouraged the Telugu Wikipedians to meet more often than before. Since March 8, 2013 Telugu Wikipedians had a total of 6 meet-ups, and all these were held at Golden Threshold.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Golden Threshold also became a venue for hosting <i>Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013</i>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">This visit to Hyderabad triggered a discussion about organizing <i>Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam</i>, which was successfully organized in a month’s time.</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Looking back, though this event was done as a last minute measure without many expectations, yet it turned out to be a lucky break! Especially, because this was my first ever event as the CIS-A2K Programme Director. It will remain a very memorable one. More so because it was done in collaboration with two of the active Telugu Wikipedians. Even more so because it has created some positive energy for the Telugu Wikipedia community, which has since then become a home turf.</p>
<hr />
<p>[<a href="#fr*" name="fn*">*</a>]. <a class="external-link" href="http://bit.ly/17WYq7X">http://bit.ly/17WYq7X</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/my-first-wikipedia-training-workshop'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/my-first-wikipedia-training-workshop</a>
</p>
No publishervishnuDigital ActivismArtAccess to KnowledgeDigital AccessWikimediaWikipediaCyberculturesTelugu WikipediaOpen ContentCommunitiesOpennessMeetingEvent2013-08-19T06:51:16ZBlog 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 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 EntryThe Making of an Asian City
http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/finalpaper
<b>Nishant Shah attended the conference on 'Pluralism in Asia: Asserting Transnational Identities, Politics, and Perspectives' organised by the Asia Scholarship Foundation, in Bangkok, where he presented the final paper based on his work in Shanghai. The paper, titled 'The Making of an Asian City', consolidates the different case studies and stories collected in this blog, in order to make a larger analyses about questions of cultural production, political interventions and the invisible processes that are a part of the IT Cities. </b>
<p></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center;"> <strong>The
Promise of Invisibility: The Making of an Asian IT City</strong></p>
<p><strong>Abstract:</strong>
This paper understands that in emerging Asian contexts, the proliferation and adoption
of Internet technologies leads to two distinct changes in the material
(re)construction of the city:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">1. <em>Built Form of the City:</em>
The physical and material aspects of the city are restructured, redesigned and
realigned to house the infrastructure of Internet Technology economies. </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">2. <em>Governance and Administration</em>:
The technologies of governance (and also, the governance of technologies) that reconfigure
the city for better control, regulation and containment of the subjects of the
state.</p>
<p>These
changes are articulated and understood, in contemporary scholarship and discourse,
through the tropes of Access and Transparency, which propose Technology as
neutral. These studies also locate technology as outside of the changing
socio-political transformations that the city undergoes in its attempt to
emerge as an IT City. The framework, by contextualising technology differently
– in larger narratives of continuity and disruption – opens up a dialogue
between cybercultures and social sciences to look at conditions of change It
also shows how the It demonstrates how such an approach to technology studies
enables new and nuanced forms of social sciences inquiry into processes like
Dislocation and Migration, which have never addressed the technology question
as central to the phenomena.</p>
<p><strong>Context</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The 21<sup>st</sup> Century has seen accelerated
urbanisation and spatial restructuration of cities in emerging information
societies around the world. These cities are created as global hubs that shall
not only house the Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
infrastructure, but also embody the aesthetics, politics, practices and
lifestyles that the global cultural revolutions are bringing in. The
technologies are significantly involved in the production of the dominant, the
hegemonic and the coercive, all under the rubric of economic growth and development,
and have affected domains of life, labour and language (Foucault,1998) in
different contexts. It is easy to trace the ways in which lifestyle, cultural
expression (Bagga, 2005), texture of social interaction and mobilisation, and
political and administrative reorganisation (Roy, 2005) have changed in
emerging contexts like India and China.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The efforts at creating
‘global countries’ (Kalam, 2004) that can harness the powers of ICT, have lead
to three distinct forms of changes. These changes can be seen in the built form
of the city, in structures of governance and administration, and in attitudes
and Imagination of technologies as they emerge in popular discourse and
cultural production. Each of these changes is articulated and explained through
the tropes of Transparency and Access. The paper has a specific interest in
looking at sites of dislocation and migration, to illustrate the arguments it
seeks to make. The paper relies on secondary and tertiary literature (often in
translation), unstructured interviews and participant observation to make an
argument about how the aesthetics, mechanics and political <a name="_ednref1" href="#_edn1"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></span></a>
imaginaries of technology are a part of the physically changing and
transforming IT cities in Asia. In order to make the argument, however, a brief
context that explains the material signification of these three kinds of
changes, is necessary to be explicated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Beyond the Blogosphere</em></strong></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">There has been an equal amount of optimism and
scepticism when it comes to talking about the new public spheres that emerge
with the Internet. Clubbed under the short-hand ‘Blogosphere’, both the
evangelists and the critics of the blogosphere, have explored the Habermassian
notion of the engaging public that is crafted with the emergence of new
technologies of literacy, expression and participation. In many ways, the
governance structures that have been discussed earlier, also endorse the
positions taken by these interlocutors. However, much of the discourse,
understands the blogosphere as contained in the digital domains. While a
cause-and-effect model is often posited, the chief interest and focus remains
on the new public, new voices and new spaces within the virtualities of the
World Wide Web. This paper challenges such narrow definitions of the public
sphere, and in fact, goes back to Habermass to locate technologies and public
spaces within a certain historical context. In fact, this paper proposes that
the increasing need for the faith in the blogosphere and the clamour that
surrounds it is symptomatic of how the physical and built public spaces, in
most Asian IT cities, is slowly diminishing.</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">In Shanghai, it is the loss of a political public
space of socialist capital and industry that marks the beginning of this
disappearance. 20 years ago, the announcer on every passenger train entering
Shanghai would introduce the city as “the largest industrial city in China.”
When W. E. B. Du Bois, an African-American writer, visited Shanghai in 1959, he
was particularly invited to visit the balcony of Shanghai Mansion, which sits
at the mouth of the Suzhou River and was the tallest building of its time, to
catch a bird’s eye view of the new urban socialist landscape and the
innumerable factory chimneys that speared the sky (Zhang, 2002).<a name="_ednref2" href="#_edn2"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span></span></a> Indeed,
an abundant number of factories, warehouses and dockyards cropped up in the
three decades after 1950, and, together with the existing industrial
constructions, made Shanghai a “new metropolis.” Some of them were clustered in
suburban areas, more were scattered in the city area. Some were even squeezed
into <em>Longtangs</em> (the narrow alleyways
of old Shanghai). The industrial constructions include not only factory
buildings but also workers’ residential buildings in factory-concentrated
areas. The workers’ residential buildings were targeted primarily at the senior
or skilled workers among the industrial population. Life in the residential
buildings became an extension of factory life since neighbours were most
probably co-workers in the same factory. It is precisely the great number of
old and new industrial constructions and the rhythmic life going on in them
that composed the socialist industrial space of Shanghai. Needless to say, it
was the fastest growing space in the forty years after 1949.</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">However, nine out of ten such spaces have been wiped
out during the fifteen-year urban renewal project, which is perhaps embodied in
the restructuring of the Bund as a space of tourist attraction, and eventually
the building of the Pudong skyline that has now become the iconic face of the
city (Yatsko, 1996, pp 59).<a name="_ednref3" href="#_edn3"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span></span></a>
Factories—let alone warehouses—within the Inner Ring Road have either closed
down or been removed. With the closing of the factories, the workers also have
no place to work anymore. Dr. Wang XiaoMing, in his essay on the changing
public space mentions how, once the factory he worked in “had its signboard
removed in 1997, the workers have no place to work anymore. The inhabitants of
Caoyang New Village have thrown away the signboard off the gate a long time ago
and could barely remember that the place was once called the “Workers New
Village.” Large factories located on the outskirts of the city are mostly shut
down and the places are as quiet as cemeteries” (forthcoming, 2010).</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">As Americanised industrial parks sprout up in places
such as the Pudong District of Shanghai, and Kunshan and Suzhou to the north of
Shanghai, the socialist industrial space is shrinking rapidly both within and
without Shanghai. Another space that has significantly diminished is the public
political space. One of the most important requirements socialism places on
urban space is to be able to facilitate large-scale political rallies and
parades (Kewen 2006 and Liang 1959).<a name="_ednref4" href="#_edn4"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iv]</span></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Therefore, apart from industrial constructions, the
most eye-catching constructions in Shanghai’s new urban constructions from the
1950s to the 1960s were squares and large meeting halls, which include the People’s
Square, the Sino-Russian Friendship Building, the Cultural Plaza, and so on.<a name="_ednref5" href="#_edn5"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[v]</span></span></a>
Moreover, government agencies of all levels and factories endeavoured to build
conference halls of various sizes for political meetings by transforming
theatre halls or building new ones. In the past, tens of thousands of people
have paraded down the People’s Square to pay tribute to the officials perched
high above on reviewing stands. People rallying in various meeting halls,
changing slogans to express joy, and echoing the instructions from the speakers
on stage, were frequent occurrences. During the Cultural Revolution, the Rebels
staged the final resistance here; in the late 1980s, fervent university
students had swarmed into People’s Square to turn it into a place of revelry (Feuchtwang,
2004).</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">In the blink of an eye, these histories have faded
from the public memory and been completely erased from the city’s architectural
space. Sino-Russia Friendship Building is renamed Shanghai Exhibition Center,
which hosts a constant blur of Expos. After repeated segmentation, People’s
Square is now only a nominal square with a long and narrow driveway and most of
its space has been occupied by new buildings such as the majestic Shanghai
Grand Theatre, the Shanghai Museum, the sunken commercial street and a parking
lot. Cultural Plaza was first transformed into a large flower market which was
later torn down and pushed to a corner to make way for the new “Music Plaza.”
With mass meetings completely eradicated from the life of Shanghai’s residents,
the numerous assembly halls and meeting places of various sizes have naturally
been restructures for other purposes. People participate with zeal in large
assemblies such as concerts, performance competitions, and so on, which have nothing
to do with public politics. It is even possible to say that the audience’s
shrieks in the stadium symbolize the massive decrease of the public political
space in both architectural and spiritual sense (Tang, 2009, pp 327).</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Another cluster of spaces that have significantly
disappeared are the gossip centres concentrated in areas such as the mouth of
NongTang, Lao Hu Zhao <a name="_ednref6" href="#_edn6"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[vi]</span></span></a>,
variety store and lane. It is a cultural given that the Shanghainese like to
strike up a conversation with strangers and to engage in gossip; this is indeed
one of the city’s hallmarks. The Shanghainese can always spare time for gossip:
no matter how busy the atmosphere is, there are always some people who loiter
around with hands in pockets; even the working class who work from dawn to dusk
like to exchange a few words with their neighbours after work. It so happened
that the living space was very cramped for the Shanghainese after the 1950s.<a name="_ednref7" href="#_edn7"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[vii]</span></span></a> The
rich can idle away their time in places such as cinemas whereas the low-income
people can only manage to find a free space of leisure near their residences.
The first choice is the mouth of NongTang adjacent to the footpath, from which
all the comings and goings of residents and the traffics on the streets could
be perceived. There will always be a Lao Hu Zhao near the mouth of a big
NongTang, where you can sit for a whole afternoon and exchange hearsays with
neighbours coming for hot water over a cup of tea; or there is a family-run
variety store whose female boss is quite fond of trading rumours and gossip
with customers across the narrow counter. In times of local or national crises,
this is always the first place where the news is spread and gets distorted.</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Things have now changed. Lao Huo Zhaos are gone.
Variety stores are quickly replaced by different kinds of convenience stores
(Huang, 2004, pp 49-50). Although many similar or even smaller family-run
variety stores are opened at the newly-formed district bordering the city, a
stable communication space cannot form in these stores since the male or female
boss is mostly “non-native population”<a name="_ednref8" href="#_edn8"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[viii]</span></span></a>, who
not only is unable to blend in with the local residents but also may move away
at any time. Although being one of the hallmarks of old Shanghai houses, the
nongtangs have been pulled down in large numbers. Those narrow, winding streets
have been either diverted, or straightened and widened. Shabby houses on both
sides of the streets have disappeared. Also gone are the hustle and bustle, the
interfusion of public and private space, and street gossips, which have been
replaced by heavy traffic with exhaust gas and noise. With the increasingly
neat arrangement of construction space within the city, the influx of transient
population, residents increasingly accustomed to shutting doors to the world and
to their neighbours, the overwhelming clamour in the media, and the young
people’s addiction to internet and game bars, the space where rumours and
gossips are spread via mouths and pointing fingers is naturally contracted
(Yeung, 1996, pp. 78-84).</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">These old spaces of early Shanghainese modernity are
quickly replaced by three new built forms. The first are the various
above-ground, underground, and overhead expressways. Intersecting and
intertwining together, they make the whole city look as if it were trapped in a
python’s nest. The second thing that comes to the mind is commercial space.<a name="_ednref9" href="#_edn9"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ix]</span></span></a>
Shopping malls<a name="_ednref10" href="#_edn10"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[x]</span></span></a>
line both the sides of the streets in downtown Shanghai, whereas hypermarkets
cluster at the periphery of the city (Diao, 2006)<a name="_ednref11" href="#_edn11"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xi]</span></span></a>. With
the speedy expansion of space (Li, 2006)<a name="_ednref12" href="#_edn12"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xii]</span></span></a>, the
style of constructions are increasingly uniform: nearly all of them name
themselves “squares”; shopping malls are
lined with chain stores on every level; chain supermarkets create mazes of
different sizes with dense goods shelves; in office buildings, glass doors and
plastic boards partition the office into many honeycomb-like cubicles, making
the people working in them increasingly look like worker bees; the hospitality
industry is overwhelmed with chain hotels of similar facilities and styles,
even customers often forget which hotel they stay in last time (Fulong, 1999).
The accelerated standardization process in Shanghai’s space highlights a
tendency to obtain the standard outlook of the imagined “international
metropolis” and an urgency to erase the distinct features inherited from the
past.</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">Thirdly, the office space of governments and state
monopolies expands in a unique sense: although the floor area has increased
significantly<a name="_ednref13" href="#_edn13"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xiii]</span></span></a>,
it is the upgrading and the move towards luxury that marks the change. Since
the early 1990s, luxurious office buildings with halls paved with marble floor,
central air conditioning system, shiny wood floors, CEO office suite with
separate bathroom, were built first by banks, then revenue departments,
telecommunication agencies, newspapers offices, television stations, courts,
and police stations of different levels, and at last governments of municipal,
district and even lower levels.<a name="_ednref14" href="#_edn14"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xiv]</span></span></a> Not
only the connotation of “work” has been enriched, but also other business
spaces outside the office have expanded with restaurants, coffee bars, official
reception hotels, training centers and vacation centers located in the office
buildings or on the outskirts of town or other cities (Leaf, 1997, pp. 156-159).
</p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">The changes in the built form of the new IT City that
has emerged, are particularly important because they signal the ways in which
certain kinds of populations are made redundant in the city as it grows
physically more hostile to their life in it. The erasure of histories, of
public spaces, of spaces of political negotiation is symptomatic of the new
ideologies, policies and dreams that Shanghai-Pudong embody. Most of the
studies that look at these changes, concentrate only on the physical and
material aspects of it, and ignore the aesthetics, politics, and changes that
Internet technologies are bringing in, not only in the imagination of what
constitutes a city, but also in the material and lived practices of the people
in it (Appadurai, 1990). Government policies that ignore technologies, come to
dead-ends in their intervention, as they fail to recognise the new geographies
and terrains that the technology users navigate through. Interventions by the
Development Sector or the Civil Society Movements often fail to recognise the
structures of governance as informed by internet technologies, thus
perpetrating the very evils that they fight against. Dislocation and Migration,
which are complex issues, get reduced to only geography and physical places –
leading to a simplified structure of rehabilitation, largely propelled by the
vocabulary of the market and the state. Remunerations, economic rights and
livelihood are the only questions addressed. In the process Community rights,
structures of communication and networking, relationships within families and
societies, ineffable ties and bonds that keep the communities coherent – these
affective categories which are dislocated and forced to migrate because of the
presence of technologies, fail to register either in the scholarship or in the
practices in these areas. <strong><u></u></strong></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent">This is where the blogosphere needs to be located – as
not merely producing a new space of engagement, but helping in recovering the
lost spaces of public participation and community communication. The blogosphere
is not merely the invention of a technology marked digital native or the
discovery of groups seeking alternative narratives. It is recognition of the
fact that the regular mainstream public discourse, interacts with the social
transformations and politics of our time and depend on the sustenance of public
spheres for the socio-cultural categories like communities, neighbourhoods,
public space, etc. to survive. The blogosphere, in the quickly changing,
hyper-real landscape of Shanghai-Pudong’s geography is the new variety store,
the new location for the Lao Hu Zhao and the space that the labyrinthine
networks of nongtangs are mapped on.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong><em>e-Governance and its discontents</em></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The change in the
physical reorganisation of the city is not only a pragmatic decision. This disappearance of the public
space of gossip, information dissemination and distortion, of informal
conversations and deliberations tied in closely to the three levels of
government in Shanghai – district government, street office and alley office –
being able to increasingly control the leisure life of the Shanghainese through
administrative planning and organisation (Zhang, 2004). There is a clear link
between the government’s imagination of its own territory, the notion of the
citizen who is to occupy these spaces, and the material practices that happen
in these technology marked spaces (Feuchtwang, 2004). While it is an
acknowledged fact that the Chinese government does not follow the structures
and paradigms that a North-Western Democratic Liberal ideology that has
produced the category of Nation-State in most contemporary discourse, there are
still two specific forms of technology inflected governance structures which
China seems to share with other contexts which might be geo-politically different.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The e-Governance models,
which find resonances in most emerging contexts in the Global South, seem to
develop two simultaneous and often ironically related approaches towards
citizenship and administration, especially in the context of China. With its
already forked governance policies, which treat HongKong – its colonial success
story – differently from the rest of Mainland China (and the added complication
of Taiwan) the governance structures are marked by technology in significant
ways. These structures are suffused with irony, because of the tropes of
transparency and invisibility that they use to articulate their rationale and
processes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The first is the
approach of Rural Development through ICT networks, positing an access based
model of participatory citizenship (Tarlo, 2003) and continuing the Development
rhetoric of uplift and reform of the deprived citizen. This particular kind of
governance structure re-imagines the beneficiary of state/government processes
as existing in a condition of invisibility, and outside of the folds of
technology. The particular emphasis on e-government, while it is located in the
urban settings, is actually intended for reaching the citizen in the remote
parts of the country, who does not have any engagement or direct interaction
with processes of governance. Despite China’s three tiered government
structure, the imagination of e-governance hold a strong currency because it
makes visible, the people, practices and communities which otherwise exist in
the subliminal and grey areas which were hitherto not in the focus of the
government. Fuelling the rhetoric of e-government is the premium on information
dissemination and transparent administration in order to enhance the domains of
life and labour in the rural parts of the country.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This approach draws its
strength from the Development agenda of reform and uplift as it markedly
emphasises the distance between the ‘haves and the have-nots’. However, the
valourisation of transparency goes hand-in-glove with the production of the
invisible (but cognisable) citizen who needs to be reproduced within the
paradigms of technology. The peasant, who has been at the back-bone of China’s
socialist political ideology, under this new articulation of transparency,
becomes invisible – robbed of the historicity, the cultural iconoclasms and the
empowerment that such policies earlier provided. Instead, the peasant becomes a
worker who needs to be rehabilitated into the changing geographies of Pudong,
the new IT city that requires a worker equipped with new skills and lifestyles.
This approach draws its strength from the Developmental agenda of reform and
uplift as it markedly emphasises the distance between the ‘haves and the
have-nots’ (Jaswal, 2005) and offers ICT enabled development as the panacea for
the problems of unemployment, illiteracy, chronic poverty, etc. This approach is made manifest in the
establishment of Telecentre kiosks, rural BPOs, e-literacy schools and mobile
vans, setting up of mobile and internet technology centres, digitisation of the
state’s resources, digital access centres to important data-sets, initiation of
projects like ‘One Home One Computer’, the e-literacy campaigns, and the
building of special economic zones (SEZ) and IT Corridors under the aegis of
e-governance (Hawks, 2009).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second approach is
invested in the massive restructuration of the urban spaces to create
infrastructure that attracts foreign investment and ICT enabled multinational
corporations. This approach uses the language of creating a S.M.A.R.T. (Smart,
Moral, Accountable, Responsive, Transparent) State, modelling the new spaces
and politics around the new models of capital modernity (Appadurai, 1996) like
Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo and Taipei. This model is nuanced by a vocabulary of
‘global citizenship and globalised economy’ (Abbas, 1997), glorifying the new
economic opportunities, flows of foreign capital, enhancement of lifestyle, and
the promise of hypervisibility in the globalisation networks. The building up
of network-neighbourhoods (Doheny-Farina, 1996), spaces of incessant commercial
consumption, post modern digitalised aesthetics of living and housing,
(Mitchell, 1996) infrastructure for ICT augmented lifestyles, spaces for
sculpting hyperspatial bodies, and recreational zones that offer apolitical
aesthetics of living (Chua, 2000), are all a part of this restructuration.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Contemporary analyses
that deploy both these approaches are often contained within the language and
the universes created by these approaches. Studies on e-governance concentrate
on the processes of infrastructure development, the economic parameters of
efficient administration, questions of rights and transparency and impact
analyses of the public private partnership which is at the basis of most e-governance
projects in India. Urban restructuration has found critique from disciplines
that focus largely upon the promissory implementation of State policies, on the
imbalance in the urban eco-systems, the new patterns of migration in the city,
the cultural and class mobility that the new economies offer, and the emergence
of the new middle class that becomes the figurehead of the IT revolution
(Huang, 2005). Most studies look upon technology as incidental or instrumental;
a tool towards an end. The relationship between ICTs and the State, and the
kind of technosocial evolution they produce are generally zones of silence in
most discourse. Both these discourses produce a certain hyper-visual citizen
subject who is either the champion of the new Information societies or the
victim of the digital divide that has ensued.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ICTs are often posited
as neutral and transparent because they allow us to look at these two kinds of
citizenships on the opposite end of the digital spectrum. It can be argued that
the divides of ICTs are transparent and hence it offers clearly defined spaces
of intervention and uplift. The development sector around the world has
accepted this as a given and hence, along with the Governments, they have also
been urging a blanket development of infrastructure of access to technology for
a particular section of the society, in an attempt to ‘cure’ certain long
standing problems. As in the case of India, China is also fuelled by this
transparency rhetoric, which allows for the production of the power-user versus
the un-networked and has pinned its hopes on the transformative powers of
Internet Technologies. With more than two decades of ICT development in the
country, and especially in spaces like Shanghai-Pudong, behind them, China
seems to be facing a moment of crisis. On the one hand is its promotion and
adoption of internet and digital technologies, which encourages younger users
entering in “schools, colleges, universities and workforces to transform the
economic conditions” (Heng, 2006). On the other hand is the imagination of
these IT forces as transgressive, uncontrollable and in need of constant
supervision in order to retain existing government-citizenship relationships
and power structures. In the middle of this crisis, is another factor that the
obvious suspects and users of technology, who are more under the radar, are not
the people who are deploying technologies for political negotiation and using
technology platforms for political mobilisation. Despite the efforts at
green-washing its technologies and the production of the infamous Great
Fire-wall of China, there has been a sustained use of internet technologies for
resistance and subversion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The spaces for
subversion rises from the fact that with the making of the IT city, there has
been a complex phenomenon of dislocation and migration, as several communities
were made redundant in the logic of the IT City and were removed from the city.
Many people from these communities re-entered the city as the new IT workforce
after going through a ‘rehabilitation’ and ‘skill building’ to not only be a
part of the IT labour groups but also to support the IT industry in the
construction of the physical infrastructure. Moreover, there has been a steady
flow of anonymous ‘outsiders’ who have found homes in the older nontangs and
factories, and are in the subliminal zones of regulation. As the city is
re-formed to make these people invisible (Abbas, 1997), their leisure space and
time shrink and they find themselves increasingly forming the new prosumers of internet
in Shanghai. However, in the transparency discourse that unfolds, these
populations remain invisible and find spaces of resistance and political
negotiation that their invisible status provides them. The promise of
Invisibility that treats them as Wetware (the biological combination of a
network consisting of Software and Hardware), allows for hope in the otherwise
diminishing spaces of political articulation in a growing authoritarian regime
in China.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong><em>Invisibility, Transparency and the
Internet</em></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The paper ends by
re-formulating the relationship between the making of an IT City and the way in
which transparency as a rhetoric and technology-as-instrumental method fail to
account for the different kinds of changes that accompany the restructuring of these
cities. On the one hand, there is shrinkage of physical space and built form,
as new forms of technology infrastructure, global lifestyle and late
capitalistic economies expand to fill up the spaces which were earlier
available for political mobilisation, organisation and inhabitation. On the
other, there is a diminishing political landscape, where, with the integration
of the government with the market, there is a tendency to establish larger
regulation and censorship in order to retain the status quo relationship
between the government and the citizen, in the face of massive governance
transition. Both these conditions are produced by the rise and spread of
Information Technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In the process, there
are also only two kinds of citizenships that are addressed by the e-governance
structures which work on a double edge: Firstly, they make the direct access
(defined either by abundance or lack of access) citizenships hyper-visual,
robbing them of nuances and looking upon them as implicated only in the discursive
practices of Internet technologies. Second, they render invisible, the other
supporting structures in order to highlight and focus on the economic
development and growth propelled by the rise of the IT industries. In other
words, they make the citizens who are central to the discourse, invisible, by
treating them as embodiments of the new economic markets and aspirations,
removing them from their traditional contexts, histories and spaces. Moreover,
they make invisible/transparent, populations who are not marked by the aura of
the Internet technologies, in order to bring into focus, the extraordinary
changes – both in the physical built form as well as in the realms of
governance – that have been initiated and accomplished with the making of the IT
City Shanghai-Pudong.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>References:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Abbas, Ackbar. 1997. <em>Hong Kong: Culture and
the Politics of Disappearance</em>. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University press.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. "The Coming
Community." In <em>Global Culture</em>, edited by Michael Featherstone. London:
Sage.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Feuchtwang, Stephen. 2004. <em>Making Place: State Projects, Globalisation
and Local Responses in China</em>. New York: Routledge Cavendish</p>
<p>Hawks, F.L. 2009. <em>A
Short History of Shanghai: Being an account of the growth and development of
the international settlement</em>.
Beijing: China Intercontinental Press.</p>
<p>Hiibbard, Peter. 2008. The Bund Shanghai : China Faces
the West. Odyssey Books and Guides.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Huang, Tsung-yi Michelle. 2004. <em>Walking Between Slums and Skyscrapers :
Illusions of open space in HK, Tokyo and Shanghai</em>. Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Leaf, Michael. 1998. ‘Urban planning and urban
reality under Chinese economic reforms’, <em>Journal of Planning Education and
Research.</em> 18(2): 145–153.</p>
<p>Li,
Heng. 2006. “Behind the Spectacle of Commercial Real Estate,” <em>Xinmin Weekly</em>, 3rd issue (2006)</p>
<p>Mirsky, Jonathan. 2008. <em>The Britannica Guide to Modern China : A comprehensive introduction to
the world’s new economic giant</em>. London: Constable and Robinson Ltd.</p>
<p>Diao
Wenjun, “Analysis of the Present situation and Development Trend of
Hypermarkets in Shanghai,” <em>Shanghai
Articles</em>, 3rd issue (2006)</p>
<p> (STSN)
Shanghai Times Square
Newsletter. 2008. Issue No. 4. Shanghai.</p>
<p>Shu, Kewen. 2006. “the dynastic History of
Tiananmen Square”, <em>Life Week</em>, Issue 11. 27<sup>th</sup> March.</p>
<p>Sicheng, Liang. 1959. “Tiananmen Square”, <em>Architectural
Journal</em> Issue 9-10. pp. 12.</p>
<p>SSY
(<em>Shanghai Statistical Yearbook) 1986</em>,
Shanghai Statistics Bureau, (September, 1986), p18, p412.</p>
<p>SSY(a)
(shanghai Statistical Yearbook) 2005. Shanghai Statistics Bureau. China
Statistics Press. August 2005.</p>
<p>Stanat, Michael. 2005. <em>China’s Generation Y: Understanding the Future Leaders of the World’s
Next Superpower</em>. NY: Homa and Sekey Books.</p>
<p>Tang, Shih-che. 2009. ‘The club and the carrot of
China’s globalization.’ <em>Inter-Asia
Cultural Studies.</em> Volume 10, Number 2. Delhi: Routledge Journals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Wu, Fulong. 1999. ‘The global and local
dimensions of place-making: remaking Shanghai as a world city’. <em>Urban
Studies</em>, 37(8): 1359–1377.</p>
<p>Xixian, Xu and Xu JianRong. 2004.<em> A Changing Shanghai.</em> Shangai: Shanghai People’s Fine Arts
Publishing House.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Yeung, Yue-man. 1996. <em>Shanghai: Transformation and Modernization Under China's Open Policy.</em>
Shanghai: <span class="addmd">Chinese University Press.<strong></strong></span></p>
<p>Zhang,
Jishun. , “The Linong of Shanghai: the political mobilization of grass-roots
and the trend of national social integration (1950-1955),” <em>Chinese Social Sciences Today</em>, 2nd issue, 2004</p>
<p>Zhang,
Xudong. 2002. “The Construct of Shanghai: Criticism of Urban Idols,
Non-mainstream Writing and the Diminishment of Modern Myths” <em>Literary Review</em>, the 5th edition</p>
<div><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn1" href="#_ednref1"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></span></a> The project wants to emphasize that it is
not attempting a historiography of the building of the IT City of
Shanghai-Pudong. Instead, by drawing selectively, different ways in which the
technology imaginaries (technopolises, intellectual labour, globally homogenous
geographies and time-lines, bodies marked by technology in their material
practices, etc ) of the Internet, find structure and form in the emerging IT
cities in Asia.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn2" href="#_ednref2"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span></span></a> Zhang Chunqiao, Secretary
of the Culture and Education Department of the Shanghai Municipal
Committee who accompanied DuBois to
Shanghai Mansion, specially mentioned DuBois’ visit in an article entitled “To
Climb the New Summit of Victory.”.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn3" href="#_ednref3"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span></span></a> In 1994, one Shanghai
government officer stated, “the government plans to remove or close down two
thirds of the factories located within [the range of] 106 square kilometers
from the city centre, namely, within the Inner Ring Road.”.<em> </em>Due to different reasons (one of
the main reasons is the increase of transferee cost because unsolved problems,
such as the proper placement of a large number of former workers, have been
bundled with the factory buildings and factory land), some factories still
remain in their original places, although most of them have already stopped
manufacturing and the workers dismissed. The industrial life/space has
disappeared with the disappearance of the factories. Ruins of this life/space
become some sort of commodity only because the land under the ruins still has
some value.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn4" href="#_ednref4"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iv]</span></span></a> On the day (1 October
1949) of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong suggested
rebuilding Tiananmen Square and making it a “grand and magnificent square.” See
(Kewen, 2006). Liang Sicheng, who always insisted on preserving the old Beijing
and opposed massive makeover, finally realized that the makeover was never
about architecture but about politics: “As for the scale of Tiananmen Square …
apart from considering the scale of man as a biological being and the scale of
construction appropriate to the man’s physiology, we should also take into
account the scale for the great collective requested by the political men in
the new society.” Liang, 1959, pp 12).</p>
</div>
<div id="edn5">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn5" href="#_ednref5"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[v]</span></span></a> The People’s Square,
transformed in 1953 from the original racecourse (which was nationalized in
1951 by the Municipal Military Control Commission), surrounded by woods, and
paved with tiled and cemented floor, is the largest public space in Shanghai
and can accommodate over one million people. The Sino-Russian Friendship
Building, which was built in 1955 and was covering an area of 80,000 square
meters, was the city’s largest building after the liberation of Shanghai and
still ranks top in terms of its indoor space in today’s Shanghai. The Cultural
Plaza, transformed in 1952 from the Greyhound Racecourse, had 12,500 seats and
was the largest indoor hall in Shanghai.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn6">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn6" href="#_ednref6"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[vi]</span></span></a> It is a unique store that
sells boiled water in Shanghai.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn7">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn7" href="#_ednref7"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[vii]</span></span></a> Shanghai’s housing
shortage started in the early 20th century instead of the 1950s. The living
space within Shanghai city is 16,100,000 square meters in total but 3.9 square
meters per capita. During the 32 years from 1952 to 1985, 21,720,000 square
meters of housing were built within the city and the registered population
increased from 5,300,000 to 6,980,000. The housing shortage was still serious
since by 1985, the living space had only reached 5.4 square meters per capita.
(SSY, 1986). What needs to be clarified is that the statics of 1949 does not
include the shabby slum houses commonly referred to as “gun di long.” </p>
</div>
<div id="edn8">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn8" href="#_ednref8"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[viii]</span></span></a> This is an increasingly popular
new word in Shanghai over the last 20 years, which refers to the people who
come from other provinces, especially the rural areas, and live in Shanghai but
do not have permanent residence in Shanghai. According to the Shanghai
Statistics Bureau’s report on March 2006, the immigrating labor population in
Shanghai was 3,750,000. 2,840,000 of this population is in the manufacturing,
construction, retail, and catering industry and engaged in low-income manual
work. The immigrating population should be over 4 million if the large number
of people (such as those in the household service business) and their children
be taken into calculation. </p>
</div>
<div id="edn9">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn9" href="#_ednref9"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ix]</span></span></a> In Shanghai, the floor
area of shops has increased seven-fold from 4,030,000 square meters in 1990 to
2,857,000 square meters in 2004 and that of hotels has increased three-fold
from 6,580,000 square meters in 1990 to 2,204,000 square meters in 2004. The
increase of commercial space is even greater if that of commercial office
buildings is calculated as well. (SSY(a), 2005, pp. 198)</p>
</div>
<div id="edn10">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn10" href="#_ednref10"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[x]</span></span></a> Take the area around
Zhongshan Park for example, although it was one of the earliest developed
leisure areas in Shanghai, there was only one small department store in the
mid-1980s and the retail business developed slowly. However, within these ten
years, with the completion of Zhongshan Park Station along the subway line 2
and light rail line 3, five multi-story shopping malls have been built, all
within a radius of 500 meters. The newest among them is a 58-storey building
with four levels of basement and nine levels of shopping mall.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn11">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn11" href="#_ednref11"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xi]</span></span></a> By the end of 2005,
hypermarkets measuring over 5000 square meters within Shanghai have reached 97
and 28 more have chosen their locations and would be opened soon. Because of a
large number of hypermarkets and the intense competition brought about, a
considerable number of them mainly profit from land appreciation rather than
from retail. </p>
</div>
<div id="edn12">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn12" href="#_ednref12"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xii]</span></span></a> By the end of 2005, the
commercial real estate in Shanghai has reached a total of 2,900,000 square
meters with 2.6 square meters per capita, far exceeding Hong Kong’s 1.2 square
meters per capita.</p>
</div>
<div id="edn13">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn13" href="#_ednref13"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xiii]</span></span></a> Barely 6 million square
meters in 1990, the floor area of office buildings in Shanghai reached a total
of 4,012,000 square meters in 2004. See <em>Shanghai
Statistical Yearbook 2005</em>. Edited by Shanghai Statistics Bureau, published
by China Statistics Press in August 2005, p 198. The statistical material on
the increase of floor area of commercial office building cannot be found for
the present. Even if the material were obtained, it would not be enough since a
large area of commercial office building has been rented by many state-owned
monopoly agencies. However, the expansion of government office space is great
even if it take up only one tenth of the space of office buildings. </p>
</div>
<div id="edn14">
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn14" href="#_ednref14"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[xiv]</span></span></a> Such phenomenon exists
not only in Shanghai but all over the country, especially in cities and towns
of low economic level. The towering and luxurious government, bank, taxation,
and police buildings create an ironic contrast with the low and shabby
constructions close by. </p>
</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/finalpaper'>http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/finalpaper</a>
</p>
No publishernishantShanghaiCyberculturesArchitectureCensorshipCommunities2012-08-10T08:33:48ZBlog EntryCritical Point of View: Videos
http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpovvid
<b>The Second event for the Critical Point of View reader on Wikipedia was held in Amsterdam, by the Institute of Network Cultures and the Centre for Internet and Society. A wide range of scholars, academics, researchers, practitioners, artists and users came together to discuss questions on design, analytics, access, education, theory, art, history and processes of knowledge production. The videos for the full event are now available for free viewing and dissemination.</b>
<pre>These are the links to the videos of all the talks for the CPoV Conference
in Amsterdam - Enjoy!
SESSION 1
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10605801">http://vimeo.com/10605801</a> Ramon Reichert (AT)
Rethinking Wikipedia: Power, Knowledge and the Technologies of the Self
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10606220">http://vimeo.com/10606220</a> Jeanette Hofmann (DE)
Wikipedia between Emancipation and Self-Regulation
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10606547">http://vimeo.com/10606547</a> Mathieu O’Neil
(AU) The Critique of Law in Free Online Projects
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10696489">http://vimeo.com/10696489</a> Gerard Wormser(FR)
The Knowledge Bar
SESSION 2
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10607993">http://vimeo.com/10607993</a> Joseph Reagle (USA)
Wikipedia and Encyclopedic Anxiety
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10608291">http://vimeo.com/10608291</a> Charles van den Heuvel (NL)
Authoritative Annotations, Encyclopedia Universalis Mundaneum, Wikipedia
and the Stanford Encycloped
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10697853">http://vimeo.com/10697853</a> Dan O’Sullivan (UK)
An Encyclopedia for the Times: Thoughts on Wikipedia from a His- torical
Perspective
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10699949">http://vimeo.com/10699949</a> Alan Shapiro (USA/DE)
Gustave Flaubert Laughs at Wikipedia
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10607690">http://www.vimeo.com/10607690</a> Discussion session 2 Encyclopedia Histories
Moderaror: Nathaniel Tkacz
Speakers: Joseph Reagle, Charles van den Heuvel, Dan O'Sullivan, Alan Shapiro
SESSION 3
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10701587">http://www.vimeo.com/10701587</a> Hendrik-Jan Grievink (NL)
Wiki Loves Art
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10702729">http://www.vimeo.com/10702729</a> Scott Kildall (USA)
Wikipedia Art: Citation as Performative Act
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10741921">http://vimeo.com/10741921</a> Patrick Lichty (USA)
Social Media, Cultural Scaffolds, and Molecular Hegemonies. Musings on
Anarchic Media, WIKIs, and De-territorialized Art
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10607690">http://www.vimeo.com/10607690</a> Discussion session 3 Wiki Art
Moderator: Rachel Somers Miles
Speakers: Hendrik-Jan Grievink, Scott Kildall, Patrick Lichty
SESSION 4
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10747211">http://vimeo.com/10747211</a> Felipe Ortega (ES)
New Trends in the Evolution of Wikipedia
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10748335">http://vimeo.com/10748335</a> Stuart Geiger (USA)
Bot Politics: The Domination, Subversion, and Negotiation of Code in
Wikipedia
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10748727">http://vimeo.com/10748727</a> Hans Varghese Mathews (IN)
Clustering the Contributors to a Wikipedia Page
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10748888">http://vimeo.com/10748888</a> Esther Weltevrede (NL) and Erik Borra (BE/NL)
Controversy Analysis with Wikipedia
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10749027">http://www.vimeo.com/10749027</a> Discussion session 4 Wiki Analytics
Moderator: NIshant Shah
Speakers: Felipe Ortega, Stuart Geiger, Hans Varghese Mathews, Esther
Weltevrede & Erik Borra
SESSION 5
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10750350">http://vimeo.com/10750350</a> Lawrence Liang (IN)
Wikipedia and the authority of knowledge
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10750495">http://vimeo.com/10750495</a> Teemu Mikkonen (FI)
Kosovo War on Wikipedia, Tracing the Conflict and Concensus on the
Wikipedia Talk pages
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10799887">http://vimeo.com/10799887</a> Andrew Famiglietti (USA)
Negotiating the Neutral Point of View: Politics and the Moral Economy of
Wikipedia
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10772241">http://vimeo.com/10772241</a> Florian Cramer(DE/NL)
The German WikiWars and the limits of objectivism
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10799600">http://www.vimeo.com/10799600</a> Discussion session 5 Designing Debate
Moderator: Caroline Nevejan
Speakers: Lawrence Liang, Teemu Mikkonen, Andrew Famiglietti, Florian Cramer
SESSION 6
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10772313">http://vimeo.com/10772313</a> Mayo Fuster Morell (IT)
Wikimedia Governance: The Role of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Form
and Geopolitics of its Internationalization
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10800562">http://vimeo.com/10800562</a> Athina Karatzogianni (UK)
Wikipedia’s Impact on the Global Power-Knowledge Hierarchies
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10800100">http://vimeo.com/10800100</a> Maja van der Velden (NL/NO)
When Knowledges Meet: Database Design and the Performance of Knowledge
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://vimeo.com/10800206">http://vimeo.com/10800206</a> Amit Basole (IN)
Knowledge Satyagraha: Towards a People’s Knowledge Movement
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.vimeo.com/10800354">http://www.vimeo.com/10800354</a> Discussion session 6 Global Issues and Outlooks
Moderator: Johanna Niesyto
Speakers: Mayo Fuster Morell, Athina Karatzogianni, Maja van der Velden,
Amit Basole
</pre>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpovvid'>http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpovvid</a>
</p>
No publishernishantConferenceArtFeaturedCyberculturesCommunitiesCPOV2010-04-20T20:04:31ZBlog EntryIT, The City and Public Space
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/Introduction
<b>In the Introduction to the project, Pratyush Shankar at CEPT, Ahmedabad, lays out the theoretical and practice based frameworks that inform contemporary space-technology discourses in the fields of Architecture and Urban Design. The proposal articulates the concerns, the anxieties and the lack of space-technology debates in the country despite the overwhelming ways in which emergence of internet technologies has resulted in material and imagined practices of people in urbanised India. The project draws variously from disciplines of architecture, design, cultural studies and urban geography to start a dialogue about the new kinds of public spaces that inform the making of the IT City in India. You can also access his comic strip visual introduction to the project at http://www.isvsjournal.org/pratyush/internet/Dashboard.html</b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Introducion:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There has been, in the fields of design and architecture, a close link between the shape and imagination of the city spaces and the dominant technologies of the time. The study of space (Architecture, Public places and City form) can lead to very interesting insights into the expression of the society with respect to the dominant technologies. Manuels Castells argues that space is not a mere photo-copy (reflection) of the society but it is an important expression. Fredric Jameson, in his identification of the condition of post-modernity demonstrates how the transition into new technologies is perhaps first and most visibly reflected in the architecture, as physical spaces get materially reconstructed, not only to house the needs and peripheries of the emerging technologies but also to embody their aesthetics in their design and built form.Earlier technologies have led to new understandings of the notions of
the public and commons. Jurgen Habermas argues, how the emergence of print
cultures and technologies led to a structural transformation of the public
sphere by creating new and novel forms of participation and political
engagement for the print readers. Within cinema studies in India, Ashish
Rajadhyaksha and Madhav Prasad have looked at the ‘cinematic city’ - how
material conditions of the city transform to house the cinema technologies, and
how the imagination of certain cities is affected by the cinematic
representations of these spaces. Mike Davis’ formulations of an ‘Ecology of
Fear’ and Sean Cubbit’s idea of ‘The Cinema Effect’ also show the integral
relationship that technologies have with the imagination and materiality of
urban spaces.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Research Area: </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The rise of the Internet in India in last decade poses interesting
questions concerning ways of studying city spaces and its architecture. The
Internet evokes and represents space in more than one way. Communities that
represent the present urban social processes often mediate this visual and
textual reference to space on the Internet but it is also an unwitting
expression of way people choose to imagine their city, its places and its built
form. It is important and pertinent for example to understand how Internet
communities choose to abstract their own city through various direct or
indirect discourses. The following will be the key questions</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">·
It will be interesting to observe how the idea of
a city gets represented on the Internet through both intended and casual
references. For example is the City seen as a finite clarified artifact (as
many political leadership would like us to believe) or is it seen as complex set
of relationships or systems of places.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">·
How does the city get represented through the
Internet with reference to its regional physical context (both geographical and
cultural landscape)? Such an enquiry can help us in knowing how representation
of city through the Internet acknowledges, neglects or fails to read its
relationship with the local fundamental conditions<a name="_ednref1" href="#_edn1"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></span></a> (of topography, water and
culture)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The actual morphological context of the city will then become an
important precursor for such an enquiry. The structure and flows in the city
have often been compared to the Internet itself in popular discourses. This
assumption can be further analyzed through spatial study of the city as a node
in large region and as many several nodes within the city itself. The idea of
Spaces of Flow in metropolis cities and places as nodes serving the flow has
been very well articulated by Manuel Castells at a generic level. The issue of
place<a name="_ednref2" href="#_edn2"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span></span></a> and its representation
(through internet) can be another area that can offer us very interesting
insights into the relationship between the Cartesian and imagined space. The
evolution of a new graphic language on the Internet needs closer examination
from both its use of spatial symbolism as well as its impact on urban space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However the contextual issue of an Indian idea of space will becomes
the important narration as a background to such studies. This inquiry needs
examination from a more contextual point of view: from both geographical
(nature of cities) and building typology perspectives (spatial and programmatic
types)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">The
following questions will be investigated further</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">a.
How do the current Internet technology, processes
and language reflect in Architecture and urban spaces of cities?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">b.
Will the form of the City and its Architecture understood
any differently now<a name="_ednref3" href="#_edn3"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span></span></a>?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The relationship between the building skin and spatial typology of
some recent architectural and urban design project can form an interesting
narrative to understand these issues. Here the issue of urban and architectural
lighting, signage and graphics can be examined more closely and hence a study
of the building skins and typology. The other largely ignored area of study
concerns the role of the Government of India with the Internet. When was the
last time we visited the railway reservation center to get a ticket or stood in
a queue for hours to be the first on the window? Many Indians still do, but for
many an Internet based on-line tickets reservation site largely substitutes
that experience of the place (railway reservation center), people and the early
morning tea on the gate. This needs closer examination from point of view of
understanding the transformation and gentrification of some of the most
democratic public service spaces in India such as the Railway stations, Municipal
offices and banks. Apart from the material practices of the people, it is
interesting to see how the integration of technologies within various urban
governance practices affect the way in which cities morph, develop and change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Methodology: </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">The
aim is to engage with the spatial context of Indian cities while teasing out
issues of the cultural phenomenon associated with the Internet. The following
will be the key methods used in research</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">·
To identify and narrate the social structures and
processes that engage both with the intangible (meanings, symbols,
communication etc.) and the tangible (morphology, structure, geography) in
select Indian cities. This elaboration will form an important theoretical
premise specific to further understanding space in Indian Cities. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">·
To document stories of individuals and groups of
the city that demonstrates the typical changes that are taking place in various
social and economic processes as related to the Internet. The aim will be to
address both the tangible and intangible aspects while narrating the stories</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">·
To map the spatial implication (structure and
nature of spaces) of the above mentioned changes on the city</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoCommentText">·
To derive a broader narrative while weaving
through different stories, that attempts to address the issue of Internet,
society and space in Indian Cities</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The research can be largely narrated through documentation of such
representative situations but will require a clear articulation of the
theoretical premises at the onset.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A review literature chapter which specifically marks the different
contours of city-technology relationship – from IT cities which are planned to
house technologies, to SEZ’s which emerge as new forms of technologised cities,
to the gradual transformation and restructuration of city spaces and publics
would also be undertaken. Moreover it will combine the contextual based study
of cities, their public place and Architecture along with studies of the
discourses on the Internet. The project will look at different actors who play
an active, but often invisible role in the transformation of these spaces.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Dissemination and Outputs:</em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The project shall bring forth a monograph (approximately 50,000 words)
that looks at a relationship between internet technologies and the city with a
historical perspective, in order to explore the notions of public, built form,
city spaces etc. within the Indian context.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A journal paper that engages with the contemporary discourses in
Architecture and produces a new theoretical formulation of the city-technology
relationship.</p>
<p>
Part of the research
method could possibly include an elective course or workshop at CEPT University
to tap on variety of narrations through different students to strengthen both
the premise and contextual focus of the study.
<br /></p>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<p>
</p>
<div id="edn1">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn1" href="#_ednref1"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[i]</span></span></a>
This is to say that city form and its perception is very much a result of the
both the local geographical and cultural context</p>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn2" href="#_ednref2"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[ii]</span></span></a>
“Place” can be defined through both space and character of an area and where
the human experience is important. We experience places and hence understand it
as they hold different processes and meanings.</p>
</div>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a name="_edn3" href="#_ednref3"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">[iii]</span></span></a> So
does the presence of Internet in our lives impact the way we begin to
understand the Architecture of our city?</p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"> </p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><strong>Bibliography</strong></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText">Venturi, Robert. <em>Learning from Las-Vegas : the forgotten symbolism of architectural
form. </em>MIT Press, 1976</p>
<p>Castell, Manuel. <em>The Rise of the Networked
Society. </em>Oxford:<em> </em>Blackwell Publishers, 2000</p>
<p>Adorno Theoder. <em>The Culture Industrty (Routledge Classics). </em>Routledge, 2001</p>
<p>Benjamin Walter. <em>The Arcade Project.</em> Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002</p>
<p>Jameson Fredric. <em>Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capatalism.</em> Verso, 1999</p>
<p><span class="visualHighlight"></span> Davis Mike. <em>Ecology
of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster</em>. Random House, 1998</p>
<p>Ashish Rajadhayaksha. <em>Indian Cinema in the Time of Celluloid: From Bollywood to the Emergency
(South Asian Cinemas). </em></p>
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/Introduction'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/Introduction</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceCityCyberculturesArchitectureCommunities2011-08-02T06:07:02ZBlog EntryChutnefying English - Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/hinglish
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, was an institutional partner to India's first Global Conference on Hinglish - Chutnefying English, organised by Dr. Rita Kothari at the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad. A photographic report for the event is now available here.</b>
<p></p>
<p>In January of 2009, Dr. Rita Kothari, at the Mudra Institute
of Communications, Ahmedabad, organised the first global conference called “<a class="external-link" href="http://conferences.mica-india.net/">Chutneyfying
English</a>”, calling in various stakeholders from different walks of life –
academics, scholars, researchers, actors, cultural producers, authors and
consumers to critically examine the growing phenomenon of Hinglish and how it
intersects with our globalised lives. The two day conference brought together a
series of presentations, ranging from academic papers to lively round table
discussions to panels that looked at the different manifestations of Hinglish
and the political and aesthetic potential of this particular form. Scholars
like <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mica-india.net/AcademicsandResearch/Profiles/Profiles%20new/Rita.htm">Rita Kothari</a>, Harish Trivedi, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/staff/nishant-shah" class="internal-link" title="Nishant Shah">Nishant Shah</a>, Daya Thussu, Shanon Finch and
Rupert Snell were complemented by cultural producers like <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandita_Das">Nandita Das</a>, R. Raj
Rao, and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/staff/index.cfm?S=STAFF_skot005">Shuchi Kothari</a>. Literary stakeholders like <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urvashi_Butalia">Urvashi
Bhutalia</a>, <a class="external-link" href="http://pipl.com/directory/people/Bachi/Karkaria">Bachi Karkaria</a>, and Tej Bhatia rubbed shoulders with more mainstream
practitioners like Prasoon Joshi, <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahesh_Bhatt">Mahesh Bhatt</a> and Cyrus Broacha.</p>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society was an<a class="external-link" href="http://conferences.mica-india.net/sponsors.html"> institutional
partner</a> for the event, and supported the panel on New Media, which saw four
paper presentations and a discussion moderated by Nishant Shah, Director
Research at the CIS. The panel explored diverse presentations from Mattangi
Krishnamurthy, Pramod Nair and Supriya Gokarn, who looked at the diverse ways
in which the rise of Internet and digital technologies is not only changing the
ways in which people express themselves, but they are also leading to complex
ways in which new conditions of identity, consumption and politics are
manifesting themselves. Nishant Shah responded to the panel by positing the
idea of Hinglish as a paradigm, rather than a set of characteristics, which
goes beyond the questions of language and actually resides in the aesthetic
conditions of the internet technologies.</p>
<p>A photographic documentation of the event with an
introduction by Dr. Rita Kothari, the chief organiser and curator for the
conference is now available for a free download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/Hinglish/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/hinglish'>http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/hinglish</a>
</p>
No publishernishantConferenceArtCyberculturesCommunitiesDigital subjectivitiesDigital Pluralism2009-08-27T06:03:23ZBlog EntryArchives and Access: Land, Museum, Legacy
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/land-museum-legacy
<b>This blog entry is the third in a series of posts on Aparna Balachandran, Rochelle Pinto, and Abhijit Bhattacharya's Archives and Access project. The entry, by Rochelle Pinto, describes her visit to a museum of agricultural implements in Goa and touches upon some questions of land use and ownership in Goa and how this would be affected by public access to documents proving land rights.
</b>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I first heard about Victor Hugo Gomes’ museum of agricultural implements through a short <a class="external-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZuLgt38BE">youtube interview</a> conducted by the journalist Frederick Noronha. The interview revealed that Victor Gomes was trained in fine arts, but had spent a large part of the last decade collecting objects which had disappeared from Goa’s contemporary agricultural practice. Behind the museologist’s talking head, I could see a range of instruments piled up on the balcony of what was obviously an old sprawling family house in Goa.</p>
<p>When I finally visited it, I found that Victor Hugo Gomes’ museum was unlike any other museum I had seen. For one, he had built it himself, room by room, and the sprawling house had begun to look much smaller as the museum had progressed substantially. A little away from the main gate were what looked like two covered sheds--his wet waste management unit and composting plant. ‘We don’t have a septic tank’, he began to explain, and as I didn’t specifically ask or look like I wanted to hear more, he didn’t continue. That remains a mystery that I would have liked solved, but couldn’t find polite enough words to ask. But his two units are active, converting cow dung and possibly more, into compost that goes into his organic farm that lies just beyond the fence. This museum, as its creator intended, is a space continuous with the farm, the livestock and the recycling units. It is physically separated from them by a little pathway leading to an entrance sacralised with Christian and Hindu symbols as, the artist states, is appropriate for beginnings, entrances and his collection.</p>
<p>There is of course, a difference between the farm and the interior of the museum. While objects on the farm and at the composting plant are in their context of use, the objects in the museum are clearly removed from their immediate contexts. Their presence inside a house, where they are objects on view, can best be explained by seeing them as a part of Victor’s stance against change in Goa. His invitation letter to a preview of the museum, close to its opening in 2008, criticises the intrusion of modern technology, and the disappearance of a way of life.<img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/uploads/vhg3.jpg/image_preview" alt="Carriage" class="image-right" title="vhg3" /></p>
<p>
While there is much that we recognise as conventionally old, valuable, and beautiful; familiar enough criteria for something that belongs in a museum, Victor’s collection also brings other things into this category that makes us look at them anew. Ploughs, sieves, sugarcane crushers, seed sowers, and weights and measures of varying sizes, materials and kinds <img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/uploads/vhg4.jpg/image_preview" alt="Tools" class="image-right" title="vhg4" />are arranged in an order that is still not clear on first view.</p>
<p>Other <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mail-archive.com/goanet-news@lists.goanet.org/msg01190.html">sites on the web</a>, especially the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mail-archive.com/goanet-news@lists.goanet.org/msg01265.html">evocatively written piece by Savia Viegas</a>,
suggest how the arrangement of objects crowded into this converted
living space reduces the objectifying distance that a conventional
museum would produce. An art historian who recommended the museum also
mentioned how sensitively the objects had been restored. It is not
surprising, then, to find that Gomes was trained in restoration, at
INTACH in Lucknow, and returned to Goa, the place where he grew up, as
curator of the museum of Christian Art to work on another project.</p>
<p>The enormity of the numbers of objects, and labour that must have gone into retrieving each one astounds me as the nature of Gomes’ work sinks in. We are familiar enough with cooking pots and other objects that have a more active life in the worlds of rural communities appearing in our living rooms as objets d’art, and briefly one wonders whether this is an aestheticisation of rural life. But this museum seems to side-step this problem.</p>
<p>The presence of these objects, not yet fully out of use (or so it would seem) in Goa, begs the question of why they had to be museumised. It is true, for instance, that cultivation has dropped drastically within Goa for a range of reasons. In some areas, it is uneconomical when the sale of land or its conversion brings higher margins. In other areas, people have been forced off the land. In yet others, irrigation patterns have been forcefully changed. And in areas where cultivation continues, it tends to be fuelled with pesticide. Yet, one can scarcely say that fishing and cultivation do not continue, particularly where there are small landholdings, using, one would think, much the same kind of technology that Gomes has in his museum. But for certain, there are precious pieces of hand-crafted agricultural technology that are impressive here, and are not in use anymore.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/uploads/vhg1.jpg/image_preview" alt="vhg1" class="image-left" title="vhg1" /></p>
<p>The wooden sugarcane crusher bound with metal for instance, was ‘rescued’ by him from Sawantwadi and restored. The texture of wood and its areas of damage are moving, as the enormous piece bears witness to labour that has vanished. A visit to some of our protected national monuments, where cracks have been filled in with
visibly different materials of varying colours, would reveal, by comparison,
the painstaking nature of Gomes’ work over the last decade.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/uploads/vhg2.jpg/image_preview" alt="vhg2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="vhg2" /></p>
<p>When in this museum, one senses that Gomes' act of collection, and the space he has created of the museum/farm/recycling plant captures a particular sense of time. A sense of this time hovers between the living farm and waste plant outside, but is captured by the objects within. This is a time that is not yet past, not yet safely objectified in other museums, but is a world on the brink of dissolution. Appropriately enough, when Gomes speaks, it is with anger as well as with fascination for the objects and with a vehemence of purpose that has sent him travelling ‘the length and brea[d]th of our state, making [his] way to the remotest of villages’. In his own words, he has, over the last decade, made speedy dashes whenever a phone call summoned him, to buy, or receive pieces of discarded furniture, candlestands, old embroidered vestments, and the rarer of his agricultural pieces. Aside from these, there have been long stays in forested areas, ‘speaking to the village elders, capturing and documenting the ethnicity and rituals associated with every item’. But also, his collection has emerged from foraying into the attics, backyards and household dumps behind and within every home. It is from this past of disuse that Gomes has angrily summoned these implements to make them speak of a relationship to nature that is gone. The new time of his organic farm and waste plant that are demonstrations of how things can still be, is a contrast to the ironic museumised repository of objects that are not yet of the past in Goa, just the stuff of storehouses.</p>
<p>For this reason, Gomes recounts how he has been laughed at frequently enough by those who wondered at his mad dash out of the house to drag yet another damaged and disused object home. Laughter at non-conformity in Goa can be disabling, and the success of this musuem lies as much in what it has assembled, as in its location off the main road in Benaulim. Close enough to Margao, but decidedly not an urban location in Goa, this museum that traverses the fields of environmentalism, museology, art history, agricultural practice, and is an ongoing documentation in itself, refuses to be lined up with art academies, theatres, galleries and restaurants. Its steadfast existence in a village, housing what every village has lost, also offers hope for what these implements may one day be. It is Gomes’ hope that they do not slide further down the scale of time, from attics and storehouses, into memory and other kinds of museums.</p>
<p>There is another museum in Goa called ‘Ancestral Goa’, visited often by tourists, which has lifesize fibreglass figures representing rural Goans frozen in tableaux which depict, also in fibreglass, the daily life of the village. The one time I was there, accompanied by two people who spent their childhood in Goa of the 1940s and ‘50s, the ludicrousness of the exhibit was striking. Why, when most of Goa still lives in villages, was it necessary to create these distinctly badly-executed figures that were also somehow offensive, caricaturing everything that began outside the exhibit?</p>
<p>Gomes’ museum does not offend, and it was difficult to pinpoint why this was so. When I asked Victor whether he had seen Ancestral Goa, he seemed speechless with contempt for the cultural insult that it embodied, sanctioned by the state government. When I persisted in asking however, how he would explicitly define what distinguished him from Ancestral Goa, given that both claimed to represent Goan culture, he said that nothing in his museum was replicated or recreated, nothing needed to be explained anew, as though he were presenting an alien culture.</p>
<p>What makes this collection interesting to a project on internet technology and questions of archives and public access, are the last two lines of Victor’s letter of invitation to his museum, asking an unspecified ‘us’ to look at the museum communally, to suggest what journey it could take. One of these journeys is clear – there is a vast trove of information about practices relating to the land that Victor has accumulated. Even as he works at turning these into text, it is evident that it would be appropriate for someone to pick up this thread of the project that he has begun, to explore other media through which the diverse life of his museum can move. Educational curricula and other kinds of publications, both printed and online, can bring in different audiences, releasing the trove of information around each object, and making it accessible as a legacy for contemporary inhabitants of Goa. Such a development would dilute the idea of a legacy being locked within the intellectual production of a particular kind of elite in Goa’s past and could potentially tap into the knowledge base of students in non-urban locales. In fact, this museum is an explicit commitment to the children of Goa, whom Victor sees possibly growing up without any connection to what is the vital culture of their home.</p>
<p>There are other reasons why the appearance of this museum at this point in time is poignant. It is one response to a widespread feeling of malaise that there is something amiss in the way the land has changed, and the museum is an explicit diagnosis of the problem.</p>
<p>It is possible to see Victor Gomes’s museum as a single stroke against the combined perception of loss/misuse/misappropriation/misguidedness relating to the land and its resources which its people could take for granted. The fertility of the soil, the knowledge of water, the accumulated familiarity with plants, trees, festival and crop patterns are only some aspects of the many ways in which those who inhabit the land find their basic survival being wrested from them. A small part of this has to do with the voluntary sale of land in Goa – inasmuch as one can talk about the pressure of capital being a voluntary act. In retrospect, however, with an anti-outsider sentiment being voiced by different groups, it has to be acknowledged that the sale of land for profit is being retrospectively viewed with alarm as the entry of outsiders into once intact villages. While the atrocities inflicted by mining activities and SEZ regulations form one part of this, Gomes’ museum implicates Goans for their amnesiac inability to identify the loss of social cohesion as the cause for loss. His act of searching for, transporting, restoring and researching the life of each object in his museum is not only a gesture of preservation, but a stance against forgetting.</p>
<p>This is not without its complications. For the move for restoration of a way of life invariably leads to questions of ownership, possession, and rights that are moral, ethical and legal. If the museum embodies an aesthetic and historicising response to crisis, there are other manifestations of disquiet that force us to take these questions head on. The Goan Gaunkary Movement, with which Victor has sympathies, seeks to strengthen and assert what it sees as original forms of land ownership in Goa, the communidade or gaunkaria system, whereby land is communally administered by a hereditarily appointed group of male members representing groups of families from each neighbourhood of the village. The communidade is a functioning system today, a legal, social and cultural entity, but has seen its economic role much diminished over time. Its economic and legal role were most severely marginalised, however, with the handover of Goa to the Indian state and the introduction of the Panchayat system. Though those sympathetic to the movement, including Victor, would deny that this is a facet of the movement, it is justifiable, I think, to anticipate that were the movement to grow, it would bring into conflict castes that are seen to be dominant within the communidades, and those left out, old migrants to villages and newer ones, those who are seen to have always owned property, and those who recently bought it, etc.</p>
<p>A strand within this overall argument tries to emphasise the principle of natural law, embedded in Portuguese law, on which it claims the communidade system is based -- co-management rather than ownership -- for the notion of private property, according to this, is alien to natural law, which sees God as the owner of land and human beings as its caretakers. This defense, which emphasises the responsibility and duties of cultivators and gaunkars, hopes to bind all together within the notion of belonging to an original village, making agriculture a sustainable activity again, for in this lies the possibility of both a renewal of natural resources as well as a legal and political restitution of the state to a condition of self-sufficiency that the Gaunkary movement imagines is the past of Goa.</p>
<p>There may not be historical fact to back this, but that would be of little significance if the imagination of the movement did not ignore the fact of contemporary legal hierarchies and the sheer amount of litigation within Goa. To suspend oneself from the inherent idealism of Gomes’ project and the interesting but problematic phenomenon of the Goan Gaunkary Movement, one could see these ventures and others held within a matrix of documents of varying legality and weight as texts that impinge on the status of things.</p>
<p>This is predominantly an attempt to map these varying documents, their status within a world of legal battles as well as political movements that have given up on the possibilities of legality. It also inquires into what would happen at each stage, were all the documents that determine belonging, possession and ownership made publicly accessible online. What kinds of publicity does the internet make possible in relation to documents and their communities? Lastly, it maps the virtual communities of Goans, most of them diasporic, who have of late been able to tap into the concerns of contemporary Goa as far as they are represented on the internet.</p>
<p>It would seem that it is only in certain situations that having documents online would affect the nature of publicness and legality. The following posts will more closely track the life of documents relating to land, property in Goa and claims of belonging in Goa.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/land-museum-legacy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-cyborgs/land-museum-legacy</a>
</p>
No publisheraparnaCommunitiesmuseum2011-08-02T05:46:21ZBlog Entryi4D Interview: Social Networking and Internet Access
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access
<b>Nishant Shah, the Director for Research at CIS, was recently interviewed in i4D in a special section looking at Social Networking and Governance, as a lead up to the Internet Governance Forum in December, in the city of Hyderabad.</b>
<h3 align="left">Mechanism of Self-Governance Needed for Social Networks</h3>
<h3 align="left">Should social networking sites be governed, and if yes, in what way?<br /></h3>
<p align="justify"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/uploads/nishantshah1.gif/image_preview" alt="Nishant Shah" class="image-left" title="Nishant Shah" />A
call for either monitoring or censoring Social Networking Sites has
long been proved ineffectual, with the users always finding new ways of
circumventing the bans or the blocks that are put into place. However,
given the ubiquitous nature of SNS and the varied age-groups and
interests that are represented there, governance, which is
non-intrusive and actually enables a better and more
effective experience of the site, is always welcome. The presumed
notion of governance is that it will set processes and procedures in
place which will eventually crystallise into laws or regulations.
However, there is also another form of governance - governance as
provided by a safe-keeper or a guardian, somebody who creates symbols
of caution and warns us about being cautious in certain areas. In the
physical world, we constantly face these symbols and signs which remind
us of the need to be aware and safe. Creation of a vocabulary of
warnings, signs and symbols that remind us of the dangers within SNS is
a form of governance that needs to be worked out. This can be a
participatory governance where each community develops its own concerns
and addresses them. What is needed is a way of making sure that these
signs are present and garner the attention of the user.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>How do we address the concerns that some of the social networking spaces are not "child safe"?</strong> </p>
<p align="justify">The
question of child safety online has resulted in a raging debate. Several models, from the cybernanny to monitoring the child's
activities online ,have been suggested at different times and have
more or less failed. The concerns about what happens to a child online are
the same as those about what happens to a child in the physical world.
When the child goes off to school, or to the park to play, we train and
educate them about things that they should not be doing -- suggesting that they do not talk
to strangers, do not take sweets from strangers, do not tell people
where they live, don't wander off alone -- and hope that these will be
sufficient safeguards to their well being. As an added precaution, we
also sometimes supervise their activities and their media consumption. More than finding technical solutions for
safety online, it is a question of education and training and
some amount of supervision to ensure that the child is complying with
your idea of what is good for it. A call for sanitising the internet is more or less redundant, only, in fact,
adding to the dark glamour of the web and inciting younger users to go
and search for material which they would otherwise have ignored.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>What are the issues, especially around identities and profile information privacy rights of users of social networking sites?</strong> </p>
<p align="justify">The
main set of issues, as I see it, around the question of identities, is
the mapping of the digital identities to the physical selves. The
questions would be : What constitutes the authentic self? What is the
responsibility of the digital persona? Are we looking at a post-human
world where online identities are equally a part of who we are and are sometimes even more a part of who we are than our physical selves? Does the older argument of the Original
and the Primary (characteristics of Representation aesthetics) still
work when we are talking about a world of 'perfect copies' and
'interminable networks of selves' (characteristics of Simulation)? How
do we create new models of verification, trust and networking within an SNS? Sites like Facebook and Orkut, with their ability to establish
looped relationships between the users, and with the notion of inheritance (¨friend of a friend of a friend of a friend¨), or even testimonials and
open 'walls' and 'scraps' for messaging, are already approaching these
new models of trust and friendship.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>How do we strike a balance between the freedom of speech and the need to maintain law and order when it comes to monitoring social networking sites?</strong></p>
<p align="justify">I
am not sure if the 'freedom of speech and expression' and the
'maintaining of law and order' need to be posited as antithetical to each
other. Surely the whole idea of 'maintaining law and order' already
includes maintaining conditions within which freedom of speech and
expression can be practiced. Instead of monitoring social networking
sites to censor and chastise (as has happened in some of the recent
debates around Orkut, for example), it is a more fruitful exercise to
ensure that speech, as long as it is not directed offensively
towards an individual or a community, needs to be registered and heard.
Hate speech of any sort should not be tolerated but that is a fact
that is already covered by the judicial systems around the world. </p>
<p align="justify">What
perhaps, is needed online, is a mechanism of self-governance where the
community should be able to decide the kinds of actions and speech
which are valid and acceptable to them. People who enter into trollish
behaviour or hate speak, automatically get chastised and punished in
different ways by the community itself. To look at models of better
self-governance and community mobilisation might be more productive
than producing this schism between freedom of speech on the one hand
and the maintenance of law and order on the other.</p>
<p align="justify"><a class="external-link" href="http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?Title=netgov-Speak:-Lead-up-to-IGF-2008&articleid=2169&typ=Coulum">Link to original article on i4donline.net</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceDigital NativesPublic AccountabilityCyberculturesCommunitiesDigital subjectivitiesDigital Pluralism2011-09-22T12:51:57ZBlog EntryCollaborative Projects Programme
http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme
<b></b>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society recognises collaboration and
consultation as its primary mode of engaging with research and
intervention. The <strong>Collaborative Projects Programme (CPP)</strong> is CIS’
platform for partnering (intellectually, logistically, financially,
and administratively) with other organisations, individuals and
practitioners in projects which are of immediate concern to the work
that CIS is committed to.</p>
<p>The Collaborative Projects Programme also expands the scope of
research to produce a synergy between research and praxis. The
CPP is, in many ways, the in-house research that CIS undertakes, in
collaboration and consultation with other organisations, institutions
and individuals who have a stake and a say in the field of Internet
and Society. The CPP is not bound by any theme of programmatic
modalities and is envisioned more as a way for CIS to extend its
field and establish a strong network with other exciting spaces in
the Global South.</p>
<p>The Collaborative Projects Programme can include, but is not
limited to, organising of large conferences or workshops; developing
tools for better research and advocacy; data mining towards a
specific goal that complements CIS’ vision; producing original
monographs/publications/books targeted at different audiences;
experimenting with new technologies to affect policy and usage;
implementing pilot studies and instances of existing ideas;
developing schemes to integrate education and technology; public
intervention and awareness campaigns geared towards particular
outcomes; celebrating certain aspects of internet technologies;
engaging with digital natives; and creating new environments of
learning and participation online.</p>
<p>The CPP is <strong>NOT</strong> a grant making programme. However, we are
interested in partnering on new and innovative ideas and would
welcome conversations with people and organisations in the field. If
you have an interesting idea that you think fits our larger vision,
please contact us and we can begin the discussions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>List of Projects under the Collaborative Projects Programme:</strong></p>
<p>1. The Promise of Invisibility: Technology and the City - A seven month research project initiated by Nishant Shah, in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, enabled by a grant from the Asia Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok.</p>
<p>2. Disability, Learning and Digital Participation - in partnership with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.inclusiveplanet.org/">Inclusive Planet</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme'>http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceFamilyDigital NativesPublic AccountabilityObscenitye-governanceCyborgsCyberculturesProjectsNew PedagogiesCommunitiesDigital subjectivitiesDigital Pluralism2011-08-23T03:04:56ZPage