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Talking 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 EntryWhat's in a Name? Or Why Clicktivism May Not Be Ruining Left Activism in India, At Least For Now
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/whats-in-a-name-or-why-clicktivism-may-not-be-ruining-left-activism-in-india-at-least-for-now
<b>In a recent piece in the Guardian titled “Clicktivism Is Ruining Leftist Activism”, Micah White expressed severe concern that, in drawing on tactics of advertising and marketing research, digital activism is undermining “the passionate, ideological and total critique of consumer society”. His concerns are certainly shared by some in India: White's piece has been circulating on activist email lists where people noted with concern that e-activism may be replacing “the real thing” even in this country. But is the situation in India really this dire?</b>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Among those
who consider themselves activists in a more traditional fashion,
critical debates on what it means to be an activist certainly remain
alive and well. Among India's social movements, perhaps most
prominent, over the past decade, have been those that protest against
large-scale “development” projects and the displacement they tend
to cause – projects of which especially India's tribal people, or
<em>adivasis</em>,
often are the victims. In these circles, arguments against the use
of the Internet for activism often focus on the elitist character of
this tool: in a country where Internet penetration rates continue to
hover around a meagre five percent, frequently neither the people
affected nor the wider groups that need to be mobilised have access
to this resource. Clearly then, organising online is never
sufficient and, perhaps not surprisingly, debates about what is
called “armchair activism” consequently are both common and
intense. In a recent <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTnncO8kc-Y">video</a>
posted on YouTube, for example, the respected Himanshu Kumar – who
everyone will recognise as a grassroots activist –
called on the nation to support the <em>adivasis</em>
and their causes. In the same video, he also explicitly requested
people to get off the Internet: </p>
<blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">
<em>Is
me jo shehero me rehne wale log hai, mujhe unse khas tor se kehna hai
ki aap sheher me baithe rahenge, net par thoda sa likh denge – usse
sarkar ko koi farak padne wala nahi hai. Na janta Internet padthi
hai na sarkar Internet padthi hai. Hum jo activist hai wohi aapas
mein Internet par pad lethe hai. Usse sarkar ki koi policiyan nahi
badal payenge, sarkar par pressure nahi create kar payenge. Jab tak
ham aam janta ke beech mein nahi jayenge, na to hame desh ki problems
pata challenge, na ham desh ke logon ko jaga payenge. </em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">
[To
the people in the cities, I want to especially say that, you keep
sitting in the cities, you write something on the Internet - it
doesn't make any difference to the government. Neither do people read
the Internet, nor does the government read the Internet. Only
activists like you and me read on the Internet. Through that, we
cannot change the policies of the government, we cannot create
pressure on the government. As long as we don't go among/approach
the common people, neither will we come to know the country's
problems, nor will we be able to awaken the people]. </p>
</blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Not
everybody I spoke to would have agreed with Kumar's argument. The
importance of mass mobilisation and the need to be in touch with
grassroots realities are recognised by all movement activists, as is
consequently the requirement to get active offline as much as online.
But whether mass mobilisation at the grassroots is the <em>only</em>
way forward is not something that everyone is convinced of. In the
context of the <a href="http://www.binayaksen.net/">Free Binayak Sen
campaign</a>, for example, there is considerable recognition that the
website was a vital complement to a well-organised offline campaign
to free Dr. Binayak Sen from jail, which kicked off in the spring of
2008. Sen is a community health doctor and civil liberties activist
who had worked for more than twenty five years among the <em>adivasis</em>
of Chhattisgarh, the heart of the current Maoist conflict, when he
was arrested on the basis of what many considered completely
baseless, yet non-bailable charges of being a Maoist himself, and
left to languish in jail for two years. A regularly updated website,
and related Facebook group and email list, soon became the focal
point for a massive outpouring of support for Sen from different
parts of the world, including in the form of a letter from twenty
Nobel Prize winners, as well as an important source of information on
the campaign for activists within the country. In May 2009, the
Indian Supreme Court finally released granted bail to Dr. Binayak
Sen. The Doctor's trial is currently ongoing.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">In
this context of critical debates, how do those who do see themselves
as activists, yet draw on the Internet as a significant tool to
publicise struggles, justify themselves? If the Internet can play a
role in changing matters at the grassroots, and has proven to do so
in the past, does it become possible to intensely use this tool and
still be recognised as an activist in a more traditional reading of
this word? The fact that most middle-class English speaking cadres
of movements are online, despite their protestations against online
activism for being elitist, may well play in the favour of advocates
of online protest: it does open up a space to argue for the relevance
of this medium, even if for a limited group, and for the importance
of its responsible use. Indeed, it may well be for this reason that
it is possible to watch on YouTube a number of videos in which
Himanshu Kumar shares his experiences at the grassroots, his own
discomfort with the medium notwithstanding. But it is not this
ambiguity that is at the heart of the claims to credibility of
advocates of online activism. Rather, as has always been the case,
it is their continued connectedness to the grassroots. How much you
are in the know of what happens at the grassroots; whether you have
physically joined struggles; to what extent you get your hands dirty
offline and show up for meetings, rallies, poster pasting, rather
than limiting your engagement to the online route – these are the
kind of elements that determine whether you are an online <em>activist</em>.
What you do offline remains as important as ever. To only
work online is not sufficient. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Importantly,
such readings are frequently mirrored by those who do not have such
connections to the grassroots. In my research, I have more than once
come across “online activists” who started their conversation
with me by stating that they were not, in fact, activists at all.
Interestingly, Maesy Angelina has observed a similar reluctance to
identify as an activist among participants in the <a href="http://www.blanknoise.org/">Blank
Noise</a> project (personal communication and Angelina, forthcoming),
a campaign to combat street sexual harassment and, with its extensive
use of online tools over the seven years of its existence, one of the
paragons of online activism in India. While Maesy herself will blog
more about how Blank Noise participants understand activism later on
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/research/dn">here,</a> (earlier
posts are available as well) at least in my research, the reason why
people refused the “activist” label was generally not because
they disapproved of what it might stand for. Rather, they saw a
clear difference between their own contribution and that of the
full-time activists who ceaselessly mobilise and organise people on
the ground, those who in many cases draw on a distinct and
easily-recognisable language of protest that infuses everything from
the shape protests take to activists' dressing sense in the process –
the “jholawallahs”, as
one person I follow on Twitter calls them, after the trademark cotton
bag that they often carry around. Those who refused the namecard of
an “activist” were clear that they would never have chosen such a
full-time activist's life; what new technology allowed them to do,
however, was to nevertheless make a contribution, even if often on a
smaller scale, of their own. As one person put it quite movingly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">
I believe that, I think that ordinary people, and I am <em>convinced</em>,
that they can do, can use this medium to actually make a difference,
you know or bring about change, to change the world. You know, these
dreams that you have sometimes, “I want to change the world in some
way” [laughs]. You know? I do believe that... it's possible. And
you don't have to be an activist or working in an NGO. You can be
working anywhere, you can be doing anything as your day job, you
know, or your regular job. But, you can contribute.</p>
</blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Clearly,
then, critical readings of what it means to be an activist are common
not only among those who are activists in a more traditional sense,
but among those who focus on exploring the use of new tools for
social change as well: the kind of credibility, based on offline
experience, that attaches to more traditional activists is not
something they claim for themselves. But what they understand is
that new technologies have facilitated a qualitatively new kind of
engagement with movements, with activism, with social change. And
what such “not-activists” do claim is that this has made it
possible for ordinary people to now also make a difference, even
though small that difference often may be. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">In
many ways this type of involvement is actually not new, as
contributions of non-activists have always played an important role
in the survival and evolutions of movements, especially at times of
great urgency: doctors who are ready to treat patients for free;
lawyers who supply legal advice without expecting anything in return;
people with comfortable jobs in the private sector who one knows one
can rely on for donations when required (most movements in India
survive financially by relying solely or mostly on donations by
private persons). What is new with the introduction of the Internet
is that the possibility of contributions by people who are not
activists are now extended into new areas, as it has become much
easier to contribute to publicising and building community around
issues that are close to movements' heart as well.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">So
how to evaluate White's claim that clicktivism is ruining Left
activism in the Indian context then? For one thing, it is important
to remember that we simply do not – or not yet at least – have
platforms such as <a href="http://moveon.org/">MoveOn</a> or <a href="http://avaaz.org/">Avaaz</a>,
that draw, as White explains, on market ideology to conveniently
break down a seemingly endless number of political campaigns into
little bites for easy individual consumption with the click of a
mouse button. Left activism in India, even online, remains firmly
embedded in <em>communities</em>
of engagement. Surely e-petitions, for example, are popular here as
much as elsewhere. But the point to remember is that they rarely
circulate in isolation. Instead, they emerge from the email lists,
from the postings and repostings as well as conversations on
Facebook, from the blogs around which much Left activism online
revolves. And crucial to these uses of the Internet as a tool for
social change is not clicking, but engagement and conversation.
Perhaps it is for this reason that even a landmark campaign such as
Free Binayak Sen has hardly received any attention in the
international online activists' arena: campaigns such as this do not
revolve around the number of clicks they get, nor around flash-points
or events shaped to satisfy the hunger of the international media,
valuable as some may argue these can be; rather, they are intended
for the long haul, as they attempt to build on existing collectives
to extend the communities of solidarity around issues that move and
drive the Left in this neoliberal age. Even online, the politics can
and does infuse the method, at least for now. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">This,
then, gives something to ponder over. It is true that working among
people, offline, remains of crucial importance if Left movements in
the country are to achieve their goals. But perhaps it is worth
considering more seriously the value and role of this pool of people
willing and available to help building such communities in a more or
less sustained fashion online (I am not talking about the accidental
activist here), without necessarily wanting to take on a core
“activist”'s role. Yes, perhaps their work does not amount to
activism as we know it. But nevertheless, it may well be that in
many cases the efforts of these committed individuals do not amount
to distractions, but to gravy: extras that help ensuring that more
and more people start to care as the message of social movements is
amplified to a much larger audience than might have otherwise been
the case, perhaps even getting many more people involved, while also
acutely aware of their own limitations when it comes to achieving
fundamental, lasting social change. In fact, perhaps the Left would
also do well to wonder whether it can afford to lose this valuable
support: as I will document in a future blog post, with the rise of
the Internet in India, online initiatives have also emerged that take
neither of the stances described above, but that instead explicitly,
and at times aggressively, seek to present themselves as a
forward-looking <em>alternative</em> to the existing progressive
politics in this country. A lack of engagement on the part of the
Left with supporters online would effectively entail a ceding of the
space to such challengers. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">The
point to remember for now, however, is that many of those active in
online campaigns are acutely aware themselves not only of the
potential of their work, but also of its limitations. What we do
need to do, however, is to keep firmly alive this tension and debate
surrounding what it means to be an activist, as well as to remain
vigilant that the dazzling charms of the tools do not, in the long
term, blind us to our politics. At the moment, it seems to be the
continuing vibrancy of the Left in India that makes it difficult for
anyone who wants to get seriously involved with movement politics to
consider online activism a sufficient replacement. It is the
endurance of these attitudes of continuous critical inquiry that will
ensure that, clicktivism or not, Left activism will remain firmly
alive in this country in the future as well – in the hearts and
minds of activists and non-activists alike. <br /></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><br /></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><em>With
thanks to Prasad Krishna for assistance with the translation.</em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><strong>References</strong></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Angelina,
M. (forthcoming). 'Beyond the Digital: Understanding Contemporary
Youth Activism in Urban India' (working title). MA thesis. The Hague,
International Institute of Social Studies – Erasmus University of
Rotterdam.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/whats-in-a-name-or-why-clicktivism-may-not-be-ruining-left-activism-in-india-at-least-for-now'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/whats-in-a-name-or-why-clicktivism-may-not-be-ruining-left-activism-in-india-at-least-for-now</a>
</p>
No publisheranjahistories of internet in IndiaDigital ActivismmovementsResearch2011-08-02T09:25:39ZBlog EntryLocating Gender Politics in the New Techno-Industrial Complex: A Lecture by Dr. Lisa McLaughlin
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/locating-gender-politics
<b>The Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), IT for Change and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are hosting a lecture by Dr. Lisa McLaughlin, Associate Professor in Media Studies and Women's Studies, Miami University, Ohio, USA at CIS, Bangalore on 23 July, 2010.</b>
<p><img class="image-inline" src="../research/lisa/image_preview" alt="Lisa McLaughlin" /></p>
<p>Dr. McLaughlin will address the gendered ties that bind the 'new global governance' to the 'new information economy', with a focus on women, work, and information and communication technology.</p>
<p>Dr. McLaughlin is spending two months in India (June and July) to work on a joint research project with IT for Change titled, “Women’s Enterprise and Information Technology”. The study explores ICT policies and practices that seek to integrate women entrepreneurs, especially from the informal and small business sectors, into formal and global markets. She is also part of the Advisory Group of the research program “Gender and Citizenship in the Information Society”, coordinated by IT for Change. This initiative aims to explore the the concept of citizenship, and use citizenship as a framework to understand gender issues implicit in the 'Information Society'.</p>
<h3>About Dr. Lisa McLaughlin</h3>
<p>Dr. McLaughlin is an Associate Professor in Media Studies and Women's Studies at Miami University-Ohio, USA. She teaches undergraduate courses in media and society, global media, and gender and media. She also teaches graduate seminars in feminist media theory, global media, technology and culture, and media governance. Her research has been published in scholarly journals including as Media, Culture and Society, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Critical Studies in Media Communications, and Sociological Review. She is the author of two forthcoming books, one titled Global Communications and the Public Sphere and the other titled Keywords in International Communications. She also has worked as an academic journal editor and is founding editor, and current co-editor, of an international journal titled Feminist Media Studies. Her research interests include feminist studies, critical theory, gender and information work in the knowledge economy, and global communications governance.</p>
<strong>Video</strong>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLR5EAA.html" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLR5EAA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/locating-gender-politics'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/locating-gender-politics</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-10-21T08:44:37ZEventNext CPOV Conference in Leipzig
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/CPOV-conference-Leipzig
<b>Two CPOV conferences have been held so far. The first one in Bangalore and the second one in Amsterdam, the third is to be held in Leipzig.</b>
<p>The Critical Point of View (CPOV), a Wikipedia research initiative organized in partnership with the Centre of Internet and Society (Bangalore, India), has so far successfully produced two conferences: One in Bangalore in January 2010 and one in Amsterdam in March of the same year. Reports, videos, the mailing list and further resources can be accessed at the <a class="external-link" href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/">CPOV website</a>.</p>
<p>A reader based on the conferences is currently being produced and is planned to be released by January 2011 as a part of the INC reader series.</p>
<p>A next conference is foreseen to take place in Leipzig (Germany) 25-26 September 2010 and will be a German speaking CPOV event. For news and updates check the <a class="external-link" href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/leipzig/">project’s website</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/CPOV-conference-Leipzig'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/CPOV-conference-Leipzig</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-04-02T11:27:16ZNews ItemCIS featured in the Report on Research and Funding Landscape within the Arts and Humanities in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/research-and-funding
<b>Centre for Internet and Society has been listed as an area of excellence and innovative research in this report.</b>
<p>Research Councils UK had undertaken a mapping exercise to gain a better understanding of the research and funding landscape within the arts and humanities in India. The India Foundation for the Arts won the tender to undertake the exercise.</p>
<p>The report highlights:</p>
<ul><li>The challenges of definition with the term ‘arts and humanities’ and ‘social science’ in India and subsequently how this affects funding for research in these areas </li><li>The strengths, current themes and challenges of arts and humanities (and in some cases social science) research in India </li><li>The challenge of creating an accurate arts and humanities archive in India </li><li>An overview of the Indian funding and research structures </li><li>The challenge of funding fine and performing arts separately from traditional arts research disciplines </li><li>A discussion on significant shifts in theory and approaches in some of the disciplines and this impact on the current research landscape </li><li>A list of centres of excellence in arts and humanities research in India </li><li>A list of centres with potential or those which are working in innovative research areas </li><li>An outline of government, non-government and foreign funders</li></ul>
<p>Click here for the<a class="external-link" href="http://www.india.rcuk.ac.uk/reslandscape/default.htm"> Report</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/research-and-funding'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/research-and-funding</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-04-02T11:27:38ZNews ItemFrom Archive to Application (and Back): A Workshop with Pad.ma
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/pad.ma-workshop
<b>The first workshop Open House and Participation will be held on Friday, 16th July at 6.30 p.m at 1, Shanti Road, Bangalore. This will be followed by weekend workshops at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore on 17 and 18 July, 2010.</b>
<p>For about two years now, Pad.ma has been running as an online archive of digital video with text annotations. During this period, the focus has been on gathering materials, annotating densely, and building an archive. At present, <a class="external-link" href="http://pad.ma/">pad.m</a>a has over 400 hours of footage, in over 600 "events". Almost all of this material is fully transcribed and is often mapped to physical locations. Essays have been written over videos, and narratives created across different clips in the archive. The focus has been on pulling material into the archive.</p>
<p>What are ways to start thinking about pulling material out of pad.ma? From the onset, pad.ma has had an <a class="external-link" href="http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/API">API</a>, a programming interface that allows you to pull out videos, perform searches, seek to exact time-codes in any video, fetch transcript and map data, and display all this however you please. Also <a class="external-link" href="http://pad.ma/license">Pad.ma's General Public License</a> is designed specifically for the reuse of the material on pad.ma. Through the experience of running the archive, there have been various imaginations of multiple and layered forms of time-based annotation over video, including for: pedagogical tools for learning and discussion; presentation tools that combine text and video in new ways, essays and other writing formats enabled by rich and context-specific media.</p>
<p>At this workshop, we hope to explore some of these ideas for video on the web, and video's new qualities as a result of online practices. We invite video-makers, coders, writers, artists, students, and other enthusiasts to participate. Considering the term "application" in a broad sense, we invite video material, texts or software that, combined with existing materials and tools in pad.ma, can become innovative kinds of "output", or new forms. These would also then feedback into the archive, and how we imagine its future.</p>
<p>After a hands-on introduction to pad.ma and its possibilities and tools, the workshop will break up into streams for content and code. On day two, these streams come back together.</p>
<p>In the content stream, participants could:</p>
<ul><li>bring in their own footage, clips from popular or unpopular cinema, science or lab videos, ads or news, artworks or documentary films, to assemble into new forms, using pad.ma's tools.</li><li>bring together shots, scenes or sounds from fiction or non-fiction films, and make a new 'movie' or create a 'running commentary' alongside. </li><li>write over video in pad.ma critically or creatively: theorise or contextualise footage, write collaborativey, or weave fiction and/or poetry with moving images. </li><li>create teaching units or illustrated lectures using pad.ma</li><li>begin a research project or map a phenomenon through video and text.</li></ul>
<p>In the code stream, participants could:</p>
<p>devise new ways in which video and text can speak to each other, and to an online audience</p>
<p>For developers, this 2-day workshop is an opportunity to experiment with the newest web-video technologies. Concretely, we will cover some background and history of HTML 5 <video>, understand how the pad.ma website works with time-based annotations, server-side seeking of video, etc. and finally work on hacking on applications / prototypes using the pad.ma <a class="external-link" href="http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/API">API</a>. The developer track of this 2-day workshop is open to all, but knowledge of HTML, CSS and / or javascript would be useful.</p>
<p>By end of day 1, we hope to have interesting content and application projects that could be developed (individually or in groups) through the night and following day. Planning ahead will help, so: <strong>video-makers</strong>, <strong>artists</strong>, <strong>writers</strong>, <strong>researchers </strong>and <strong>coders</strong>, may write to pad.ma with a one-line bio and project idea, and a confirmation of your participation at pad.ma@pad.ma.</p>
<p>For more information, visit the following links:</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://pad.ma/newsletter/2010-05-26.html">http://pad.ma/newsletter/2010-05-26.html</a></p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://pad.ma/texts/10_Theses_on_the_Archive.html">http://pad.ma/texts/10_Theses_on_the_Archive.html</a></p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://files.pad.ma/beirut/Archive_Reader/">http://files.pad.ma/beirut/Archive_Reader/</a></p>
<p>How to use pad.ma guide: <a class="external-link" href="http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/HowTo">http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/HowTo</a></p>
<p>Pad.ma API : <a class="external-link" href="http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/API">http://wiki.pad.ma/wiki/API</a></p>
<h3>About <a class="external-link" href="http://pad.ma/">Pad.ma</a></h3>
<p>Pad.ma is an interpretative web-based video archive, which works primarily with footage and not finished films. Pad.ma creates access to material which is easily lost in editing processes, in the filmmaking economy, and in changes of scale brought about by digital technology. Unlike Youtube and similar video sites, the focus here is on annotation, cross-linking, downloading and the reuse of video material for research, pedagogy and reference.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/pad.ma-workshop'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/pad.ma-workshop</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-04-05T04:08:36ZEventRick van Amersfoort to give a public lecture on his work at CIS on May 15
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/rick-van-amersfoort
<b>Rick van Amersfoort, researcher based in Amsterdam will describe his work at Buro Jansen & Janssen, in the Netherlands and Europe.</b>
<p>Reading, digging in archives, procedures under the freedom of Information Act, supporting people for access to their police and intelligence service records, describing mechanisms the state uses to monitor, control and discipline civilians, but also means to overcome eavesdropping, surveillance, arrest or jail is the daily practice of Jansen. Since 25 years it has been active on the edge of legality and illegality. No scientists, nor journalists, but active civilians in a constant battle with the state and its services. Not only the state is evaluated. ‘City of Discipline’ is a project that tries to explain the lack of public outrage against far-reaching laws, although the crime rate is going down and the effectiveness of more security is doubtful.</p>
<p>Buro Jansen & Janssen hosts a variety of websites, some of these are:</p>
<ul><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.burojansen.nl/">www.burojansen.nl</a> </li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.openbaarheid.nl/">www.openbaarheid.nl</a></li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.openheid.nl/">www.openheid.nl</a></li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.burojansen.nl/afluisteren/index.html">www.burojansen.nl/afluisteren/index.html</a></li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.euronet.nl/~rembert/echelon/muren/index.html">www.euronet.nl/~rembert/echelon/muren/index.html</a></li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.preventieffouilleren.nl/">www.preventieffouilleren.nl</a></li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.burojansen.nl/traa/index.htm">www.burojansen.nl/traa/index.htm</a></li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.identificatieplicht.nl/">www.identificatieplicht.nl/</a></li></ul>
<p>The NTRO (National Technical Research Organization) eavesdropping scandal with so-called IMSI-catchers; According to the magazin Outlook the Mata Hari (the Dutch woman Margaretha Geertruida) of India, Madhuri Gupta; Possible police and state operations against protesting farmers in for example Devanahalli and Doddaballapur; Threats from the Indian government towards people and organizations who have contacts with the CPI or other Maoist groups; The 26 November 2008 Mumbai attacker verdict of five death sentences; Destroyed archives on the 1971 war between India and Pakistan are just some news items from the last week that describe the work/research/ activities which Buro Jansen & Janssen is conducting in the Netherlands, Europe and abroad. Van Amersfoort will shed light on the work of Jansen & Janssen in the Netherlands and Europe in relation to the above mentioned news items in India.</p>
<h3 align="left">About Rick van Amersfoort</h3>
<p>The past 10 years Rick van Amersfoort (1964 NL) has been researcher at <a class="external-link" href="http://www.burojansen.nl/">Buro Janssen & Jansen</a>, an organisation that critically investigates police, justice, secret services and home affairs in Holland and the European Union. Buro Jansen and Janssen publish online the <em>Observant</em>, a bimonthly mailing informing subscribers of the latest governmental infringements and political lobbies within the Netherlands. Other websites include <a class="external-link" href="http://www.openheid.nl/">http://www.openheid.nl/</a> that gives legal advise for public access to people’s records held by police and security services, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.preventieffouilleren.nl/">http://www.preventieffouilleren.nl/</a>, deals with stop and search operations by police and http://www.identificatieplicht.nl that addresses mandatory identification regulation. In 2006 Amersfoort co-authored (Wil van der Schans) Under Pressure, antiterrorism in the Netherlands. Buro Jansen & Janssen regularly appear in the media, local and national newspapers, radio and internet interviews. Current projects include ‘City of Discipline’, a project that tries to explain the lack of public outrage against far-reaching laws, although the crime rate is going down and the effectiveness of more security is doubtful. Van Amersfoort is presently designing a website for public access in connection with the Freedom of Information Act. <a class="external-link" href="http://openbaarheid.nl/">http://openbaarheid.nl </a></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/rick-van-amersfoort'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/rick-van-amersfoort</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-04-05T04:07:10ZEventCIS – Internet is neither good nor bad
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/Internet-not-good-not-bad
<b>This post is also available in: French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil)</b>
<p>The Center for Internet and Society is a non-profit based in Bangalore, India, created by Sunil Abraham, founder of Mahiti. The aim is to understand and shape the internet and its relation with society and politics using research, intervention and collaboration.<br /><br />The internet is often demonized or mythified and generally misunderstood. It is a good initiative to try to understand it through methodical research and to produce a pedagogical framework that allows us to see as it is.<br /><br />The CIS is collaborating with researchers in other fields. In fact, studying the internet implies to study its interactions with politics, society, economy… Maybe it is a good way of understanding not only the internet, but also the general current social change of which internet is a symptom. Interactivity, communities, networking, collaboration, collective knowledge, increase of connections, ability to speak out and be heard as an individual… are many changes that our society are living and of which internet is the symptom.<br /><br />Internet is neither good nor bad. It is just a new tool that has a potential in helping development, increase transparency and social change. The internet is neutral, it is the way we use it which is bad, good, or silly, like any other innovation (see our article on innovation). It is our duty to be conscious of this and to try to push forward the internet in the right direction.</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://socialter.fr/en/cis-internet-is-neither-good-nor-bad/">Link to the original article</a></p>
video <embed height="100%" width="100%" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="never" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/hJtRgdqTTgI%2Em4v" wmode="transparent"></embed><img src="http://stats.vodpod.com/stats/view/5503730/625132/5327/pod.gif" alt="" height="1" width="1" />
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/Internet-not-good-not-bad'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/Internet-not-good-not-bad</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-04-02T12:09:52ZNews ItemCritical Point of View: WikiWars II
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars-amsterdam
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore), in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam) is hosting the second Critical Point of View (WikiWars) conference in Amsterdam on March 26 and 27, 2010. In this two day event that seeks to engage with different aspects of Wikipedia across different disciplines and practices, we invite students, researchers, Wikipedians and interested stakeholders to come and join us at WikiWars.</b>
<p>WikiWars brings together more than forty scholars, students, practitioners, artists and experts who have been critically reflecting upon the emergence of Wikipedia in various contexts of education, politics, resistance, art theory and practice, knowledge production, learning, pedagogy and new and alternative forms of interaction and community building.</p>
<p><strong>Dates:</strong> 26th, 27th March, 2010.</p>
<p><strong>Venue:</strong> Public Library Amsterdam</p>
<p><span class="txtnormal"><strong>Programme</strong> for the event has International and National delegates presenting in panels on
Wiki-Theory, Encyclopedia Histories, Wiki Art, Wikipedia Analytics, Designing Debates and Global Issues and Outlooks.</span></p>
<p><span class="txtnormal"><br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars-amsterdam'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars-amsterdam</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearch2011-04-05T04:12:17ZEventCPOV : Wikipedia Research Initiative
http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov
<b>The Second event, towards building the Critical Point of View Reader on Wikipedia, brings a range of scholars, practitioners, theorists and activists to critically reflect on the state of Wikipedia in our contemporary Information Societies. Organised in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by the Institute of Network Cultures, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, the event builds on the debates and discussions initiated at the WikiWars that launched off the knowledge network in Bangalore in January 2010. Follow the Live Tweets at #CPOV</b>
<p>Second international conference of the <em>CPOV Wikipedia Research
Initiative</em> :: March 26-27, 2010 :: OBA (Public Library Amsterdam,
next to Amsterdam central station), Oosterdokskade 143, Amsterdam.</p>
<p>Wikipedia is at the brink of becoming the de facto global reference
of dynamic knowledge. The heated debates over its accuracy, anonymity,
trust, vandalism and expertise only seem to fuel further growth of
Wikipedia and its user base. Apart from leaving its modern counterparts
Britannica and Encarta in the dust, such scale and breadth places
Wikipedia on par with such historical milestones as Pliny the Elder’s
Naturalis Historia, the Ming Dynasty’s Wen-hsien ta- ch’ eng, and the
key work of French Enlightenment, the Encyclopedie. <span id="more-10604"></span>The multilingual Wikipedia as digital
collaborative and fluid knowledge production platform might be said to
be the most visible and successful example of the migration of FLOSS
(Free/ Libre/ Open Source Software) principles into mainstream culture.
However, such celebration should contain critical insights, informed by
the changing realities of the Internet at large and the Wikipedia
project in particular.</p>
<p>The CPOV Research Initiative was founded from the urge to stimulate
critical Wikipedia research: quantitative and qualitative research that
could benefit both the wide user-base and the active Wikipedia community
itself. On top of this, Wikipedia offers critical insights into the
contemporary status of knowledge, its organizing principles, function,
and impact; its production styles, mechanisms for conflict resolution
and power (re-)constitution. The overarching research agenda is at once a
philosophical, epistemological and theoretical investigation of
knowledge artifacts, cultural production and social relations, and an
empirical investigation of the specific phenomenon of the Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Conference Themes: Wiki Theory, Encyclopedia Histories, Wiki Art,
Wikipedia Analytics, Designing Debate and Global Issues and Outlooks.</p>
<p>Follow the live tweets on http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23CPOV</p>
<p>Confirmed speakers: Florian Cramer (DE/NL), Andrew Famiglietti (UK),
Stuart Geiger (USA), Hendrik-Jan Grievink (NL), Charles van den Heuvel
(NL), Jeanette Hofmann (DE), Athina Karatzogianni (UK), Scott Kildall
(USA), Patrick Lichty (USA), Hans Varghese Mathews (IN), Teemu Mikkonen
(FI), Mayo Fuster Morell (IT), Mathieu O’Neil (AU), Felipe Ortega (ES),
Dan O’Sullivan (UK), Joseph Reagle (USA), Ramón Reichert (AU), Richard
Rogers (USA/NL), Alan Shapiro (USA/DE), Maja van der Velden (NL/NO),
Gérard Wormser (FR).</p>
<p>Editorial team: Sabine Niederer and Geert Lovink (Amsterdam), Nishant
Shah and Sunil Abraham (Bangalore), Johanna Niesyto (Siegen), Nathaniel
Tkacz (Melbourne). Project manager CPOV Amsterdam: Margreet Riphagen.
Research intern: Juliana Brunello. Production intern: Serena Westra.</p>
<p>The CPOV conference in Amsterdam will be the second conference of the
CPOV Wikipedia Research Initiative. The launch of the initiative took
place in Bangalore India, with the conference WikiWars in January 2010.
After the first two events, the CPOV organization will work on
producing a reader, to be launched early 2011. For more information or
submitting a <a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/reader">reader</a>
contribution.</p>
<p>Buy your ticket <a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/cpov/practical-info/tickets/">online</a>
(with iDeal), or register by sending an email to: info (at)
networkcultures.org. One day ticket: €25, students and OBA members:
€12,50. Full conference pass (2 days): €40, students and OBA members:
25.</p>
<p>Organized by the Institute of Network Cultures Amsterdam, in
cooperation with the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore,
India.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov'>http://editors.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov</a>
</p>
No publishernishantConferenceOpen StandardsDigital ActivismDigital GovernanceDigital AccessPublic AccountabilityResearchFeatured2011-08-23T02:52:25ZBlog EntryInquilab 2.0? Reflections on Online Activism in India*
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop
<b>Research and activism on the Internet in India remain fledgling in spite the media hype, says Anja Kovacs in her blog post that charts online activism in India as it has emerged. </b>
<p>Since the late 1990s when protesters against the WTO in Seattle used a variety of new technologies to revolutionize their ways of protesting so as to further their old goals in the information age, much has been made of the possibilities that new technologies seem to offer social movements. The emergence of Web 2.0 seems to have only multiplied the possibilities of building on the Internet's democratising potentials, so widely heralded since the rise of the commercial Internet in the 1990s, and since then, the use of social media for social change has received widespread media attention worldwide. From Spain to Mexico, activists used the Internet as a central tool in their efforts to organise and mobilise – be it to express their stand against a war in Iraq, against a Costa Rican Free Trade Agreement with the United States, to mobilise support for the Zapatistas of Chiapas, or more recently, to push for a change of guard in Iran.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 2009, when Nisha Susan launched the Pink Chaddi campaign, the 'ICT for Revolution' buzz finally seemed to have reached India as well. Phenomenally successful in terms of the attention it generated for the issue it sought to address, the campaign sought to protest in a humorous fashion against attacks on women pub-goers in Karnataka by Hindu right wing elements. In only a matter of weeks, Facebook associated with the campaign – 'The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women', which gathered tens of thousands of members. It was ultimately killed off when Susan's Facebook account was cracked by rivals. The campaign was perhaps the singular most successful account of ‘digital activism’ in India so far, and an impressive one by all measures.</p>
<p>The creativity of the campaign should not come as a surprise to those familiar with the long and rich history of activism for social change in India. Organised social actors have been critical influences in the emergence of new social identities as well as on critical policy junctures from colonial times onwards, developing a fascinating and unmistakably Indian language of protest in the process (see Kumar 1997 and Zubaan 2006 for examples from feminist movement).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As Raka Ray and Mary Faizod Katzenstein (2006) have pointed out, in the post-independence period, such organised activism for long was connected by at least verbal – if not actual – commitment to the common master frame of poverty alleviation and the ending of inequality and injustice, and this irrespective of the particular issues groups were working on. Since the late 1980s, however, a number of far-reaching changes have taken place in India. This period has been marked by the definite demise of secular democratic socialism as the dominant script of the Indian state and its simultaneous replacement by neo-liberalism. Moreover, in the same period, Hindu nationalism as an ideology too has gone from strength to strength, with only in the last five years a slowdown in its ascendancy. While for many traditional social movements of the Left the commitment to social justice remains, in this context a space has undeniably been created for groups with a very different agenda. The considerable popularity of organisations such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, both Hindu nationalist organisations, are prime indications of these transformations. However, the fragmentation of the activist space did not only benefit reactionary elements of society. The final emergence into visibility of a well-articulated middle class queer politics, for example, too, may well in many ways have been facilitated by the evolutions of the past 20 years. Although this point has been mostly elaborated in the context of the US (Hennessey 2000), in India, too, this seems to ring true at least in some senses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The general shape-shifting of activism in India since the 1990s is not the only contextual factor that deserves obvious consideration in a study like this. In addition, since independence a close link has been forged in policy and people's imagination alike between science and technology on the one hand and development paradigms in India on the other. Not everyone agrees on the benefits of this association: all too frequently, the struggles of grassroots social movements are directed precisely against the outcomes or consequences of a supposedly 'scientifically' inspired development policy. The neo-liberal era is no exception to this: as Carol Upadhya (2004) has shown quite convincingly, the economic reform policies that are at the heart of neo-liberalism have been inspired first and foremost by the information technology sector in India, which has also in turn been their first beneficiary. And today as earlier, Asha Achuthan (2009) has pointed out, in the resistance to these policies, the subaltern who is the agent of grassroots social movements is frequently associated with a pre-technological purity that needs to be maintained in order to resist discourses and material consequences of technological change themselves. In popular discourses, at least, attitudes towards technology inevitably come in a binary mode.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Seeing the context in which digital activism in India has emerged, a number of pressing questions regarding the new forms that even progressive activism takes as it adopts new tools and methods, then, immediately offer themselves. Leaving aside the activities of right wing groups in India, who are the actors that occupy this space for activism and what are their relationship with offline activists groups? Which are the issues online activism seeks to address, and what are its master narratives, goals and audiences? Where does it locate problems in today's society, and what kind of solutions does it propose? How does it posit its relation to the global/international and to the offline-local; to dominant understandings of science and technology, development, or desirable social change? How are these understandings reflected in online activism, including in the choice and use of technologies but also in the discourses that are deployed and the audiences that are targeted? What are its methods, its strategies, its ways of organising? What role is played by organisations, collectives, networks, individuals? In what ways is the field marked by the conjuncture at which it emerged? Do those who first occupy (most of) it also set the parameters? Or do its tools fashion online activism's very conditions of existence?</p>
<p>The value of greater insight into these issues is not immediately apparent to all. For one thing, some would argue that, as connectivity in the emerging IT superpower remains limited, the importance of these questions to those concerned with social justice in India is really marginal. It is true that while commercial Internet services have been available in the country since 1995, for long the number of connections remained abysmally low. Even today, the number of subscriptions has only just crossed the 14 million mark, and barely half of these are broadband subscriptions, severely limiting the usefulness of a wide range of potential online activism tools (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India 2009 – figures are for the second quarter of 2009). According to I-Cube 2008 report (IMRB and Internet and Mobile Association of India 2008), there were an estimated 57 million claimed urban Internet users in the country in September 2008 and an estimated 42 million active urban Internet users. Corresponding figures for Internet users in rural areas in March 2008 were 5.5 million and 3.3 million respectively. Almost 88 million Indians were believed to be computer-literate at the time. Clearly, then, online activists are a tiny section of an already fairly small, privileged group, and at least in a direct sense, the availability of new tools is thus indeed unlikely to affect all activists or activism in the country.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some of my own starting points while embarking on this study may seem to further give fuel to arguments against the value of this research. The idea of investigating online activism in India as it emerges followed from my observation – and a troubling one at that for me – that so far, and despite all the hype internationally, more traditional grassroots movements in India seem to have been slow to embrace the Internet as an integral part of their awareness raising and mobilisation strategies. Although they may attract the largest numbers of activists offline, the many so-called 'new' social movements that have emerged since the 1970s and that remain important actors pushing for social change seem most conspicuous by their relative absence online. This is especially true of those critical of current development paradigms and practices: movements fighting against dams, special economic zones or land acquisitions for “development” purposes seem visible only in relatively fragmented and generally marginal ways. Instead, middle-class actors addressing middle class audiences on middle class issues seem to be the flag bearers of Internet activism in India – the Pink Chaddi campaign or VoteReport India, a “collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections” (see votereport.in/blog/about) perhaps among the most well-known illustrations of this argument.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Both points are valid, and yet, while inquilab it may not be, to conclude from this that the study of online activism automatically is of only very limited value would be short-sighted. Indeed, even if the hypothesis that Internet activism is dominated by middle class actors who address middle class concerns is validated (note that in any case considerable segments of the leadership and cadre of grassroots movements, too, tend to come from middle class backgrounds), this is likely to affect all those interested in affecting social change, even if perhaps in varying degrees. For one thing, it would mean that as the public sphere is reshaped, important new quarters of its landscape are inhabited only be the elite, contradicting the still widely popular and even cherished belief (at least among those who are familiar with the Internet) that the Internet is a democratising force. Instead, the proportional visibility in the public sphere of dissenting viewpoints on development, science, neo-liberalism, progress, the state will only decrease. In addition, then, it may also indicate a further refracting of the activism landscape and its master narratives and methods, where different segments of activists increasingly need to vie with each other for recognition and validation of their respective understandings of political processes and of appropriate forms of engaging with these. As such battles intensify it is not too risky to make a prognosis on who will be the main losers. If, in an era in which the old activist master narrative of justice for all remains under strident attack, civil society has come to occupy at the expense of political society (a useful distinction first made by Parth Chatterjee in Chatterjee 2004) a whole arena of activism, this would indeed need to be a cause of concern for all. In order to gauge its ramifications, it is however, crucial to first of all understand in which ways and to what extent this statement rings true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The current study may well not be able to fully develop all the above and other theoretical strands as they emerge in the course of this research. But what it does promise to do is to outline the breaks and continuities that mark the make-up, strategies, audiences and goals of those who embrace the new possibilities that the Internet provides at the same time as the information age so fundamentally reconstitutes our society. As a starting point for the analysis, this research will therefore, attempt to map the online activism that has taken place in India so far, focusing more specifically on the forms of activism that leave a public record on the Internet (a more extensive debate of various definitional issues is in order – I will take this up in a separate blog post, to follow later, however). At the core of the research will be the construction of a database pertaining to online activism in India with links to email lists, blogs, Facebook groups, popular hash tags and the like. Although much of the activism I will be looking at will be centred around what has come to be known as 'social media', my focus is thus broader than that, as older tools such as e-petitions, discussion boards and list servs, too, will be included in this study. The aim is to be as comprehensive as possible, although for the database to ever be complete will, of course, be an impossibility. Moreover, since only data available in the English language will be collected, the database will automatically have its limitations. The database will be further complemented by interviews with activists who have been involved in key online campaigns and, where appropriate, case studies. It is the data thus gathered that will form the basis of our analysis.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>While the scope of the study is thus admittedly ambitious, the fact that online activism in India is a fairly recent affair – little happened before 2002, and it has only really taken off in the past three years or so – makes this venture not an impossible one. The contribution I hope to make through this research is not simply to work on the Indian context, however. Despite the media hype surrounding the possibilities of the Internet for social change, research on the Internet and activism more generally remains limited so far. The paucity is perhaps particularly acute where activism and social media are concerned (Postill 2009). Moreover, the work that does exist, I argue, tends to look mostly at activists' use of one particular tool, for example YouTube, or Facebook. Sight is thus generally lost of the larger cyberecology of communication in which this use must be located, preventing an opportunity for genuine insight into the ways in which activism is reconfigured from materialising. By using a much wider lens, this research hopes to make a beginning to correcting this lacuna. It is in this way that the importance of the changes that are underway in the Indian activist landscape as elsewhere can be appropriately assessed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><em><strong>*
Inquilab means revolution</strong></em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><strong>References</strong></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Achuthan, Asha (2009).
Re-Wiring Bodies. Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring/review">http://www.cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/rewiring/review</a>,
last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Chatterjee, Partha
(2004). <em>The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular
Politics in Most of the World</em>. Delhi: Permanent Black.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Hennessy, Rosemary
(2000). <em>Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism</em>.
London: Routledge.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">IMRB and Internet and
Mobile Association of India (2008). I-Cube 2008: Facilitating Citins,
Altins, Fortins (Faster, Higher, Stronger) Internet in India. IMRB
and Internet and Mobile Association of India, Mumbai. <a href="http://www.iamai.in/">www.iamai.in/</a>,
last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Kumar, Radha (1997). <em>The
History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's
Rights and Feminism in India 1800-1990</em>. New Delhi: Zubaan.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Postill, John (2009).
Thoughts on Anthropology and Social Media Activism.
<em>Media/Anthropology</em>,
<a href="http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/">http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/</a><a href="http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/">,
</a>last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Ray, Raka and Mary
Fainsod Katzenstein (2006). Introduction: In the Beginning, There Was
the Nehruvian State. In Raka Ray and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
(eds.). <em>Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics.</em>
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (2009). The Indian Telecom Services Performance
Indicators, April-June 2009. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,
New Delhi. <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/">www.trai.gov.in</a><a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/">,
</a>last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Upadhya, Carol (2004). A
New Transnational Capitalist Class: Capital Flows, Business Networks
and Entrepreneurs in the Indian Software Industry. <em>Economic and
Political Weekly</em>, 39(48): 5141-5151.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Zubaan (2006). <em>Poster
Women: A Visual History of the Women's Movement in India</em>. New
Delhi: Zubaan.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop</a>
</p>
No publishernishanthistories of internet in IndiaSocial mediaDigital ActivismCyberspaceAccess to Medicineinternet and societyResearchCybercultures2011-08-02T09:25:30ZBlog EntryArt and Social Media
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/art-and-social-media
<b>Art Resources and Teaching Trust in collaboration with The Centre for Internet and Society, is organizing a workshop titled "Art and Social Media" on January 16th-17th 2010, to be conducted by Anita Garimella. </b>
<p>Art, Resources and Teaching Trust (A.R.T.) Bangalore and The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore invites you to a two days workshop, “Art and Social Media” by Anita Garimella.</p>
<p>Anita Garimella (http://www.linkedin.com/in/anitagarimella) is an internet and software product management and marketing consultant. After graduating from Stanford University’s Human Computer Interaction Program in 2000, she has worked on several projects in the industry including the creation and design of applications for Wallop, Facebook and Bebo.</p>
<p>The schedule of the workshop is as follows:</p>
<p>Day 1<br />Social Media, Web 1.0 and 2.0, and Art 11.00 AM - 1.00 PM <br />• What is Social Media – and how does it connect with Web 2.0?<br />• How is Social Media measured?<br />• Virality, and the dangers of this new yardstick<br />• Brief overview of Art & Social Media</p>
<p>Lunch 1.00 PM - 2.00 PM</p>
<p>Deep Dive – Case Studies of Art and Social Media 2.00 PM - 4.30 PM<br />• Art blogs & discourse<br />• Facebook & art<br />• Art-making<br />• Art marketing<br />• Art pedagogy</p>
<p>Day 2<br />Opportunities & Challenges for Art using Social Media 11.00 AM - 1.00 PM<br />• What is art in this context?<br />• What are good ways to use social media for art?<br />• Importance of defining goals in social media usage<br />• Copyrights and public domain<br />• Democratization of art – is that really possible?</p>
<p>Lunch 1.00 PM - 2.00 PM</p>
<p>Future of the Internet and technology and their impact on Art 2.00 PM - 3.30 PM<br />• Web 3.0: Surf to Search to Subscribe<br />• How to penetrate in an increasingly aggregated world<br />• New technologies</p>
<p>Find attached a <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/advocacy/Art%20and%20Social%20Media%20workshop_reg.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Art and Social Media">registration form</a>. You can also download the registration form from www.artscapeindia.org. Interested participants can complete the registration form and send it along with a DD of Rs.1800/- (per participant and includes lunch and handout material) to the address given in the form.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/artandsocialmedia.jpg/image_preview" alt="Art and Social Media" class="image-inline" title="Art and Social Media" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/art-and-social-media'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/art-and-social-media</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaResearch2011-04-05T04:17:50ZEventCritical Point of View: WikiWars
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore), in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam), brings together an international range of scholars, researchers, practitioners, artists and users, to critically think through the emergence and spread of Wikipedia in the last few years. In this two day event that seeks to engage with different aspects of Wikipedia across different disciplines and practices, we invite students, researchers, Wikipedians and interested stakeholders to come and join us at WikiWars</b>
<p>WikiWars brings together more than forty scholars, students, practitioners, artists and experts who have been critically reflecting upon the emergence of Wikipedia in various contexts of education, politics, resistance, art theory and practice, knowledge production, learning, pedagogy and new and alternative forms of interaction and community building.</p>
<p><strong>Dates:</strong> 12th, 13th January, 2010.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Venue</strong>: <a class="external-link" href="http://maps.google.co.in/maps/place?cid=17507081838254113859&q=teri%2Bbangalore">The Bangalore International Centre</a>, The Energy and Resources Institute, <span class="txtnormal">4th Main, Domlur II Stage, Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka <br /></span></p>
<p><span class="txtnormal"><strong>Programme</strong> for the event has 40 International and National delegates presenting in panels on Wiki-Theory, Global Politics of Exclusion, Critique of Free and Open, Wikipedia and Education, Wikipedia and the Place of Resistance, Wikipedia and Western Knowledge Production, and Wikipedia and Art.<br /></span></p>
<p><span class="txtnormal"><strong>Registration</strong> opens on <strong>5th January 2010</strong> and ends on <strong>10th January 2010</strong>. Registration is free but limited and available on a first come first served basis. <br />http://www.cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wikwarsreg <br /></span></p>
<p><span class="txtnormal">For more information on WikiWars, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikiwars" class="internal-link" title="Call for participation: Conference @ Bangalore - 'WikiWars'">click here</a></span></p>
<p><span class="txtnormal"><br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikiwars</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearch2011-04-05T04:18:33ZEventPreserving Digital Memories: A Patrimonial Approach
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/preserving-digital-memories-a-patrimonial-approach
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society and The Centre for Contemporary Studies, Bangalore cordially invite you to a public lecture and discussion by Dr. Bruno Bachimont, on Preserving Digital Memories: A Patrimonial Approach, on 10th December, 2009 from 4pm to 6pm.
</b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Bachimont is visiting India as a part of the “Bonjour French Science” framework constructed by the Embassy of France in India. He comes from a well-known technology university in France and has a background in computer science and philosophy. He is a researcher in the fields of Cognitive Science and Knowledge Engineering and has been very active in instrumenting connections between Philosophy, Science and Technology in the French Higher Education environment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Sponsored by<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/events/www.cis-india.org" class="external-link">The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore </a><br />The Centre for Contemporary Studies, Bangalore <br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/preserving-digital-memories-a-patrimonial-approach'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/preserving-digital-memories-a-patrimonial-approach</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaResearch2011-04-05T04:19:32ZEventExperimental Economy Camp
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/experimental-economy-camp-1
<b>Experimental Economy Camp continued at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore on Nov 22nd, '09 from 10.30am to 5.30pm.</b>
<p></p>
<p>Experimental Economy Camp continued at CIS (http://www.cis-india.org/) which will combine a hackathon, inviting more local people to get <br />involved, with a 'camp' of presentations, live and via Skype (maybe you?), which discuss and brainstorm the Open Call, former a greater, <br />more discursive context. (without giving away any answers and not including people's proposals).</p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/events/shadow-search" class="external-link">Shadow Search</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/experimental-economy-camp-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/experimental-economy-camp-1</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaResearch2011-04-05T04:27:19ZEvent