Centre for Internet and Society

Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age

nishant — 2014-03-06T11:40:42Z

The author says that he is trying to take the formulation of digital humanities as a history-in-making where we might still be able to salvage the humanities from being soft-skills and our pedagogies from becoming reduced to MOOCs.

Dr. Nishant Shah's column was published in DML Central on February 24, 2014.

Taking Care of Things: Reclaiming What is Lost in Our Defence of Humanities[1]
If this were a book, this section would be the preface. If it were an academic paper, a footnote. If an art piece, a curator’s note. But, in this mixed multi-media semi-strange space of the research blog, this is just the space where I tell you what is going to follow. And perhaps, explain (though not to justify) why I need to tell you what is going to follow. For a while now, I have been trying to work through some of the questions that have emerged around (and sometimes, because of) digital humanities as a concept and as a practice. A lot of my thought has been about addressing the concerns around infrastructure, human skill, resources, pedagogy and the need to disprivilege the digital as the only point of focus in a majority of the discourse.

As I write about these questions in the different spaces that I write in, I’m trying to take the formulation of digital humanities as a history-in-making where we might still be able to salvage the humanities from being soft-skills and our pedagogies from becoming reduced to MOOCs. In doing so, I started experiencing a strange discomfort with my own writing. This is not new. Every time I glance retrospectively at my older writing, I cringe, and despair and work hard at resisting the impulse to apologise to my readers. It could have been better, sharper, more precise.[2]But, the discomfort that I am experiencing now, looking at the last couple of years of writing about digital humanities, is different. It is a discomfort that emerges from the fact that in trying to defend and protect the domain of the humanities, the register of my writing has changed considerably.

I try to be accessible and write in prosaic forms that are easily understood and not prone to ambiguity. I try to talk to multiple stakeholders, especially those who are ringing the death knell of traditional humanities, speaking in a language of relevance, significance, impact and efficacy. I try to build infrastructure, engaging with funding agencies, carefully extrapolating the ideas of pilot innovations, mainscaling, upstreaming and integrating everyday practices.

In all these attempts, which have been successful in varying degrees, I have let go of the very things that my English literature and humanities training had equipped me to do — to write with passion, to explore the creativity of linguistic and textual expression, to mix form, function and format to generate new relationships between disparate objects that might have otherwise been kept in their self-contained silos — and to pursue, not through empirical evidence, but through creative association, through cross-cultural and inter-textual referencing, a persuasive politics of passionate dialogue. Or, to not make such a song and dance (and a possible meme) out of it, I am slowly realising that very few of us, doing digital humanities, are exploring the very tools that humanities studies have offered us, to question and contest the status quo so that we can envision and dream alternate realities and futures.[3] So caught have we been, trying to defend our craft (and sometimes the art) that we have started speaking in the language of those who question, rather than strengthening the voices we already have.

So, I write today (see, I told you, we would need an explanation), as an experiment, in a language and style that I have forced myself to forget, in a way that I don’t even remember that it is forgotten. I write about three things – archives, life-cycles, and habits — in order to look at the complex and complicated relationships that we have presumed and established in the practices of digital humanities. I write to question our human-centric approach, where we think about things, but we only think of them from our human perspectives. I write to imagine, nay, to persuade you to imagine, what it would be like to think of things as things, dislodged from our human positions and dreaming cyborg dreams. I write, to explore, what it means in our DH concerns, to take care of things as things, and not as the separate, the other, the human.

Taking Care of Things: The Beginning

Welcome, human beings, cyborgs, and things, to this blog post[4] It has been designed, by a few human beings, by a few machines, and a few things in-between. Here, I lay the ground and lead you into the fine practice of taking care of things. But this task produces in me a strange existential anxiety. I try to figure out what role I play in introducing something as common place, quotidian and everything as taking care of things.

Should I be like the head of an organised crime unit, who, for a price, shall take care of things that bother you by destroying them, silencing them, or making them invisible? Maybe I channel the energies of a grandmother, looking down the family tree of resemblances, giving out instructions on how to take care of the legacies and heirlooms, of the epilepsies in blood, that we shall pass from generation to generation. Should I be a historian who identifies patterns in the order of things, giving you hints at how we need to take care of things past and things to come so that we can live with things as they are? Or, how about a witness, blindfolded in my ignorance, a heathen in his blindness, describing to you the wonders of an elephant that looks like a pillar, a rope, a pan and a sword, trying to preserve what I remember, always knowing, always despairing that what I recall is smaller than what I remember, what I remember is smaller than what I know, what I know is smaller than what is, and what is, is both inscrutable and ineffable by the mere human?

As I negotiate with these fractured, fragmented, frail and failed attempts at trying to care for you, care for ideas, care enough to transmit thoughts via words into your receptive selves, I realise that it is a futile attempt. Even if I were to enter that state of information nirvana, where what I think translates into words, pristine, pure, uncontaminated by powers of interpretation and untouched by the fallacy of meaning, you still would be unable to process it. Everything that I say will only be misunderstood by you. And, I shall misread your misunderstanding. And, together we shall fake it, like orgasms on a surreptitious one-night stand, in the quest of making meaning. In other words, I lament that we are not machines. That we are not things. It is only in the machinistic, especially in the digital machines of computing, that these seamless flows of information are possible. Garbage in, garbage out. What you see is what you get. Does exactly what it says on the tin. All your base are belong to us.

And so, welcome, once again human beings, cyborgs, things to this piece of text that I hope turns out to be fantastic, terrific, awesome. Fantastic because it invites you to enter realms of fantasy. Terrific because it leads us into things that terrify us. To this awesome evening. Awesome because it silences us into awe. Welcome, to this text, which is a safe space — look, you can ride on the hyphen, or drop between the white spaces of words. It is a safe space where we think, not of things, but as things. That is the only way out of the quandary into which I have trapped myself.

Taking Care of Things
It is humanly impossible to do so. And it is in thinking of taking care as a human function, that we face bewilderment and anxiety. If we pretend, for the space of this text[5] to be things — immortal but destructible, without agency but with design, bereft of intention but with defined purpose, devoid of ambiguity but prone to abuse — and try and make sense of the three things that we shall return to, recursively, obsessively, desperately, in the next three days, then we might be on to something.

As things, we look at archives. The repository of things. An indexicality of things that are present. A glaring array of things that are absent. The archive has been imagined in the service of the human, at the desire of the human, and the curatorial logics of collective human experience too long. Let us think of not only an archive of things, but an archive that follows the internal logics and logistics of things. An archive that is constructed by things, which might sometimes give us human access and interface to things within it. Archives, which might use human powers — biological, organic, intellectual, affective — to organise themselves, to fuel their constant expansion and arrangement. Archives as a purpose for human existence. Archives as the alien space jelly that feeds on the human in order to survive, so that it can sustain the order and power of the things that reside within it.

In a world where the human has already conceded its right to memory — memory is a stick, it is a promiscuous, adulterous, plug and play flash drive, that romances, serenades and has infectious relationships with different machines… in such a world, it should be easy to imagine that the human, at least when it comes to informational realities, is secondary, if not insignificant. The human, prone to decay and death, attacked by biological malware that erodes its internal functions, disabling its programmes and often short-circuiting its motherboard, is fragile and surely the most unstable form of storing something as beautiful and terrifying as information.

We live too fast, die too soon, and in the process, constantly destroy the meaningless but necessary flow and circulation of information. And, so, we need to think of life-cycles differently. The things that we live with, generally outlive our carbon based biological bodies. We pass on, through genetic mutation, our eyes, our knobby knees and our genetic predisposition to chocolate to the subsequent generations. But, we also pass on our assets, our properties, our passwords and datasets. And maybe, given that the data outlives us, data is seemingly immortal, data registers our death and continues in its divine existence, we need to restructure our idea of who lives, who dies, and what constitutes a life-cycle.

Hence, I beseech you, to let go of your humanity. This stubborn sticking to the idea of being human, is merely a habit. It is taught. It is a form of co-option. Remember those days, when you were still not sure about being human. The day, when you were told that when you grow up, you can become anything you want — the disappointment of realising that it was a lie… that you wanted to be a dog, but you were trapped and coerced into becoming a human. Let go of the idea that being human has anything exceptional to it. We love. We care. We kill. Well, guess what?

Things Care
Things love. Oh, they love. Selfishly, destructively, intensely. Things love us and they demand our attention, time and intimacy, slowly enveloping us in soft glows, gently vibrating in our pockets, sensually slithering in our hands. And everybody knows what happens to a machine that you pour a cup of coffee on — like a disappointed lover, Romeo to his Juliet poisoning himself to death, like Medea on a revenge spree eating her own children, the machine, when neglected, dies.

Things care. But we are mistaken in thinking that they care for us. Things care for themselves. Things take care of each other. When you and I are asleep, your refrigerator connects to your microwave, speaking through the analogue networks, resonating in electromagnetic frequencies. And things kill. Slowly, gently, hypnotically, they wait, they watch, and when we are not looking, they stab, they sting, they betray and remind us that the human is futile.

To take care of things as human beings is then an exercise in wasted effort. Because we shall always be addressing things from a condition of inadequacy and wastefulness, well aware that the thing that we are talking to, talking about, talking through, is more precise, more fulfilled, more in control of its intentions and more aware of its destiny than we are ever going to be. Maybe in order to take care of things, we need to think of ourselves as things. Things that talk to things. Things that take care of things. That will be a world of new equalities. A world, where we can stop living in fear of the other — the thing.

Where Everything is a Thing
A thing is in everything.

[1]. This is a footnote to acknowledge that the first thought for this line of thinking emerged in conversations at the Post Media Lab, and concretized at their recent event from where I borrow this title. Special thanks for Oliver Lerone Schultz, Clemens Apprich, Christina Kral, Kelly Dobson and Wendy Chun who made this line of thinking grow through the Habits of Living workshops.

[2]. For the first time, the green underline that my word processor has produced, telling me that the correct prose would end the sentence with ‘and more precise’ is not feeding my Dysgrammatophobia. How dare it tell me how I should write?

[3]. I have to give a special shout out to Johanna Drucker whose resolute mixing of the styles and genres, writing as a digital humanist while writing about digital humanities has been truly inspiring.

[4]. I am not sure which of you would read it in its entirety, and I don’t really know how to talk to things yet, so while I welcome everybody and everything, I am going to address only the human reader in my text. My metadata, I hope, imparts pleasure to the non-humans who are not plotting their way into Actor-Network visualisations.

[5]. While battles rage on Twitter, relationships live their life-cycles on Facebook, new memes propagate and abound the Tumblrs, blink-and-you-miss-them, subcultural practices explode into meteoric showers, and somewhere, some harassed teacher tries to figure out what s/he did wrong in the last seven births that s/he now has to teach using Blackboard.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/dmlcentral-nishant-shah-february-24-2014-defending-the-humanities-in-the-digital-age

December 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T13:51:47Z

Our newsletter for the month of December 2013 can be accessed below.

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wish you all a great year ahead and welcome you to the twelfth issue of its newsletter (December) for the year 2013:

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Highlights
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The National Resource Kit team has published a draft chapter highlighting the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Gujarat.
Government of India has passed the National Electronic Accessibility Policy. CIS had worked with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology to formulate this policy. We bring you a brief analysis of the policy and provisions therein in a blog post.
Nehaa Chaudhari on behalf of CIS submitted comments on the Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
CIS-A2K team has published a report highlighting the key accomplishments about the work accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013.
Vipul Kharbanda has provided an analysis of the laws and regulations that apply to Bitcoin in India concluding that government can regulate Bitcoin.
We released the first documentary film (DesiSec) on cyber security in India in Bangalore on December 11.
In the module on Global Histories of the Internet (part of the Knowledge Repository on Internet Access project) Nishant Shah analyses the understanding of the internet, cyberspace and everyday life and why do we need to know the history of the internet.
The second "Institute on Internet and Society" will be held in Yashada, Pune from February 11 to 17, 2014.
As part of the Making Change project, Denisse Albornoz provides an analysis of the benefits and limitations of increasing access to information to enable citizenship and political participation.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge) and Program Officer (Internet Governance): http://bit.ly/1aA57K6. There are two vacancies each for these posts and these are full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 27 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapter:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Gujarat Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/Kxbg3b.

Note: All of the chapters published so far in this project are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

►Other

# Media Coverage

An “Advocacy” Saga and the Inspiring Legacy of Rahul Cherian (by Shamnad Basheer, Spicy IP, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a5B7sU.

# Blog Entry

National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility – An Analysis (by Anandhi Viswanathan, December 27, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dfCW3I.

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Access to Knowledge
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The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

# Submission

Comments on Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (by Nehaa Chaudhari, December 7, 2013). CIS submitted its comments to the Ministry of Human Resource Development: http://bit.ly/1hpWeuu.

# Events Participated In

3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest & Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa (organized by University of Cape Town, December 9-13, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the sessions on Bridging into the Global Congress: Global Issues, Local Answers?, User Rights Track: What Medicines Can Teach Tech: Exploring Patent Pooling and Compulsory Licensing in the Indian Mobile Device Market (http://bit.ly/1f74yir), User Rights Track: Reclaiming the World Trade Organisation: A Modest Proposal for a WTO Agreement on the Supply of Global Public Goods (http://bit.ly/1f74yir), and was a keynote speaker on The Freedom Continuum (http://bit.ly/1dH1WEM). Nehaa Chaudhari also participated in this event: http://bit.ly/1bJArFJ.
Twenty-Sixth Session of the Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights (organized by WIPO, Geneva, December 16 – 20, 2013). CIS gave its statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (http://bit.ly/JWnjq7) and on Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching and Research Institutions and Persons with Other Disabilities (http://bit.ly/JWnjq7). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a speaker. India and the United States introduced 6 proposals on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty: http://bit.ly/1edqvr3.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 3 workshops in the month of December, published a detailed report of key accomplishments of the work done in Konkani Wikipedia, a report on Train the Trainer Program held in the month of October and published an article in DNA.

►Wikipedia

# Article

Telugu Wikipedia completes 10 years (by Rahmanuddin Shaik, DNA, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/19OAvUV. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshané.

# Report

CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/1l6ttmp. The report throws some light on the work accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013.

# Blog Entries

First ever Train-the-Trainer Program in India (by Nitika Tandon, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1euwSXt.

The following are videos of participants from the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project (jointly organised by CIS-A2K and Goa University) speaking on their experiences with Wikimedia projects.

Priyadarshini Tadkodkar on Konkani language (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hldNM8. We are featuring this here as we didn’t carry this in the last newsletter.
Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator (by Nitika Tandon, December 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/KmxyFo.
Darshan Kandolkar on Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process (by Nitika Tandon, December 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cqKyQ2.
Darshana Mandrekar speaks on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1keWyya.
Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects (by Nitika Tandon, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hlbubU.

# Events Organised

You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop (National Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1edmx1z.
Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (KBN College, Vijaywada, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i8ScnL.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Alvas Vishva Nudisiri Virasat (Moodabidre, December 19 – 22, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation about Kannada Wikipedia and also conducted a workshop on Kannada Wikipedia as a parallel track. The event was covered by Prajavani (December 22), Hosadigantha (December 22), and Deccan Herald (December 22): http://bit.ly/1dGTBkw.

# Events Co-organised

Wikipedia Orientation Workshop (organised by CIS-A2K and Christ University, Bangalore, December 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lrkwEy.
Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur (organised by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, Srivahini College, Tiruvur, December 19, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/1e3oQX7. It was covered by Andhraprabha (http://bit.ly/1bU5VsQ), Eenadu (http://bit.ly/19fsttf), Sakshi (http://bit.ly/1e3pQdU), and Prajasakthi (http://bit.ly/JJs7ja) on December 19, 2013.

# Event Participated In

A Wikipedia Workshop at IISC (organised by the Assamese Wikipedia community, Bangalore, December 1, 2013). CIS-A2K team and Wikipedian Shiju Alex supported this event: http://bit.ly/1dSutY2.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

A Feature on Telugu Wikipedia (Namaste Telengana Newspaper, December 8, 2013): http://bit.ly/19Yjwj6.
Odisha: Odia Wikipedia reaching 5000 article mark! (Odisha Diary Bureau, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dGU2vc.

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Internet Governance
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CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you an analysis on whether Bitcoin can be banned by the government and a blog post on misuse of surveillance powers in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia a film DesiSec: Episode 1was screened. We also did an interview with Pranesh Prakash on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 13 video interviews so far:

# Analysis

Can Bitcoin Be Banned by the Indian Government? (by Vipul Kharbanda, December 24, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lJrnGF.

# Blog Entries

Misuse of Surveillance Powers in India (Case 1) (by Pranesh Prakash, December 6, 2013): http://bit.ly/1donbaJ.
Brochures from Expos on Smart Cards, e-Security, RFID & Biometrics in India (by Maria Xynou, December 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1f714fN.
India’s Identity Crisis (by Malavika Jayaram, December 31, 2013 Internet Monitor Annual Report: Reflections on the Digital World, published by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society): http://bit.ly/1lTRuuz.

# Upcoming Events

Digital Citizens: Why Cyber Security and Online Privacy are Vital to the Success of Democracy and Freedom of Expression (CIS, Bangalore, January 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/KucEU5. Michael Oghia will give a talk.
CPDP 2014 Reforming Data Protection: The Global Perspective (Brussels, January 22 – 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/KsgCws.
Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.

# Events Organised

Big Democracy: Big Surveillance - A talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, December 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/19YnA31.
DesiSec: Episode 1 - Film Release and Screening (CIS, December 11, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lJt2fm.
Legal Issues pertaining to Cloud Computing (NLSIU Campus, Bangalore, December 14-15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cvcmGq.
Biometrics or Bust? Implications of the UID for Participation and Inclusion (CIS, Bangalore, January 10, 2014). Malavika Jayaram will give a talk: http://bit.ly/1lJZhuK.

# Events Participated In

Convention on Crisis of Capitalism and brazen onslaught on Democracy (organized by INSAF, December 6, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh participated as a speaker: http://bit.ly/1gAxmNy.
International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice (IV) (jointly organized by Microsoft Research India, Indian Institute of Science, and Indian Institute of Technology Madras, December 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panellist: http://bit.ly/1eAXl5t.
Technology in Government and Topics in Privacy (organized by Data Privacy Lab, CGIS Cafe, Cambridge Street, Harvard University Campus, December 9, 2013). Malavika Jayaram participated as a speaker on Biometrics in Beta – India's Identity Experiment: http://bit.ly/1bJDqht.
Cyberscholars Working Group at MIT (organized by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, December 12, 2013): Malavika Jayaram made a presentation on Biometrics or Bust - India’s Identity Crisis: http://bit.ly/1eIpHef.
Seventh NLSIR Symposium on “Bridging the Security-Liberty Divide” (organised by National Law School, Bangalore, December 21-22). Chinmayi Arun and Bhairav Acharya were speakers at this event: http://bit.ly/1gjsxYe.

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News & Media Coverage
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CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

MongoDB startup hired by Aadhaar got funds from CIA VC arm (by Lison Joseph, Economic Times, December 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1f77bRg.
A Three-Way Race Draws Delhi’s Young, and Everyone Else, Out to Vote (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, December 4, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gAxoFf.
India for UN body to resolve internet governance issues (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/JWESqe.
Card transactions with Aadhaar validation need more time: experts (by Kirti V. Rao and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hq35UL.
Indian government wakes up to risk of Hotmail, Gmail (originally published by AFP, December 7, 2013): http://bit.ly/19LrlOS. This was also mirrored in The Times of India (http://bit.ly/1hpYEJu), Reuters (http://bit.ly/1gaHhZk), Dawn (http://bit.ly/1azuV95), NDTV (http://bit.ly/19Ys7lS), Yahoo News (http://yhoo.it/JCSreE), The Malaysian Insider (http://bit.ly/1eAPAMW) and Asia One Digital (http://bit.ly/JWuw9R). A slightly modified version was published by Silicon India on December 11: http://bit.ly/1gAtzjd.

# Announcement

Pranesh Prakash has been elected as the Asia-Pacific representative to the executive committee of the NonCommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) (part of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group, which is in turn part of the Generic Names Supporting Organization, which is in turn part of ICANN): http://bit.ly/KuIVeC.

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Telecom
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Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

# Newspaper Column

For a Telecom Revival (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, December 4, 2013 and Organizing India Blogspot, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1avRDii.

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Digital Humanities
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CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

# Blog Entry

The Conflict of Konigsberg (by Anirudh Sridhar, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cEXhhU.

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Digital Natives
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CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entries

Tactical Technology: Information is Power? (by Denisse Albornoz, December 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cEUrcY.
Tactical Technology: Designing Activism (by Denisse Albornoz, December 27, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a9IuzH.

►Other

# Newspaper Column

Digital Native (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, December 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/1f7mU2P.

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Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
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CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

# Upcoming Event

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/180mQi9. Registrations are closed for this event.

# Modules

History of the Internet: Building Conceptual Frameworks (by Nishant Shah, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/19WRHLb.
Internet Privacy in India (by Elonnai Hickok, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/19SNk6v.

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About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter:https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2013-bulletin

Data Lives of Humanities Text

sneha-pp — 2020-12-23T13:07:43Z

The ‘computational turn’ in the humanities has brought with it several questions and challenges for traditional ways of engaging with the ‘text’ as an object of enquiry. The prevalence of data-driven scholarship in the humanities offers several challenges to traditional forms of work and practice, with regard to theory, tools, and methods. In the context of the digital, ‘text’ acquires new forms and meanings, especially with practices such as distant reading. Drawing upon excerpts from an earlier study on digital humanities in India, this essay discusses how data in the humanities is not a new phenomenon; concerns about the ‘datafication’ of humanities, now seen prominently in digital humanities and related fields is actually reflective of a longer conflict about the inherited separation between humanities and technology. It looks at how ‘data’ in the humanities has become a new object of enquiry as a result of several changes in the media landscape in the past few decades. These include large-scale digitalization and availability of corpora of materials (digitized and born-digital) in an array of formats and across varied platforms, thus leading to also a steady prevalence of the use of computational methods in working with and studying cultural artifacts today. This essay also explores how reading ‘text as data’ helps understand the role of data in the making of humanities texts and redefines traditional ideas of textuality, reading, and the reader.

This essay by Puthiya Purayil Sneha was published in Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India (2020) edited by Sandeep Mertia, with a Foreword by Ravi Sundaram as part of the Series on Theory on Demand by Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam.

Read the open access book here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/data-lives-of-humanities-text

Copy 'N' Paste: Ausstellung

praskrishna — 2013-08-28T09:36:53Z

Dr. Nishant Shah was a speaker at this event hosted by Post Media Lab on August 12, 2013. He spoke on "About the Violence of Knowledge Cartels".

Click to see the flier of the event here.

Agenda

18:00 : Opening »Fumus & Nebula« >

+ Rolf Grossmann, audio^[+] – Institut für Kultur und Ästhetik Digitaler Medien (ICAM) >

Grußwort, Ulrich Petersen, Direktor Musikschule Lüneburg >

18:30 : Prolog, Oliver Lerone Schultz, Post-Media Lab

18:50 : »Urheberrecht in der digitalen Welt« Philipp Otto, irights >

19:15 : »About the Violence of Knowledge Cartels« Nishant Shah, Centre for Internet and Society >

19:30 : Vorstellung der Exponate: »Videomixtape« Jule von Hertell > // »cool clear water« Monika Jarecka > // »G-Cloud« Ulrike Wilkens

ca. 20 : Ending »Fumus & Nebula«

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/postmedialab-august-12-2013-copynpaste-ausstellung

Confession in the Digital Age

sneha — 2014-04-14T07:06:11Z

The pervasive influence of digital technology, particularly the Internet in our lives today seems to have blurred the boundaries between the real and virtual, public and private. The perceived condition of anonymity made available by the digital sphere brings forth questions about identity and the self, and more importantly the conditions that have come together in creating a new notion of the private sphere. In this guest post Rimi Nandy reflects upon her research study on the trend of Facebook confessions in India, and its implications for questions of identity and self-representation.

The advent of the internet and the emergence of a new social sphere that is home to the present generation of digital natives has broadened the horizon of what we understand as being human. This space has been widened more with the introduction and proliferation of social networking sites, the most well known among them being Facebook. Facebook has changed the very way we perceive society, which in turn has led the present generation to act and react differently to the social conditions. The digital youth of the present generation create their self identity in synergy with the virtual platform provided by Facebook and other social networking sites. In this article I would like to focus on the recent trend of anonymous confessions made by various Indian college students on Facebook.

In the pre-digital age, the confessions were either carried out to oneself in seclusion or on a one to one basis. It was never performed in front of a gathering of people as that would be responsible for instilling a greater amount of fear in the confessor. There is one exception to this in the form of courtroom confessions. The courtroom confessions were a public affair, but the confession is initially made behind closed doors in the presence of law enforcing officers. A major problem with such confessions is understanding whether the confession is true or coerced. The word ‘confession’ seems to have acquired a new meaning in the digital age of Facebook. The term has become very popular in the present time among the youth. What is surprising is the fact that the act of confession on Facebook is being considered a form of entertainment. The act of confession was earlier a means to purge oneself of hidden guilt burdening the soul. It was an act carried out in the privacy of one’s own room or in the confines of a confession box. Once a confession was made, the confessor felt a cathartic effect, thereby unburdening their soul. In the present day and age, however confession is no more a personal act. The confession pages on Facebook have become a meeting place for various confessors who confess. But do they really confess to unburden their soul? That is food for thought. The trend of the Confession pages started in the Western countries and has slowly found its way into the lives of the Indian youth.

The most important aspect of this virtual space is the fact that it easily crosses boundaries and makes the world a very small place by bringing people across continents together. Another important factor and probably the driving force behind its popularity is the fact that the confessor can easily hide his/her identity and just present the self as a confessor before other confessors. It is almost like an anonymous support group, only on a larger scale. The members of the Confession pages can sit behind their screens in the comfort of their surroundings without having to travel and face unknown people and looking at their faces wondering how they would react to the confession to be placed before them. The cyberspace due to its fluid nature provides a better sense of security than the real world. In the virtual world every word typed and the ensuing comments are born digital and stay locked within the digital sphere. It becomes nothing more than a combination of binary digits, which if not found to be palatable can be easily deleted with a few clicks of the mouse and the ‘backspace’ key. In the real world it is impossible to undo confessions and comments made. The arrival of the digital confession pages has randomised the act and its effect. Further it has also changed the very essence of confession. A plethora of topics are discussed in these confession pages starting from confession of love and crushes to sexual escapades, hostel life, college life and a very tiny amount of academic discussions.

The Confession pages have also become a conglomeration of various digital technologies. Most pages do not restrict themselves to plain writing of posts. They also include links to other web pages, mainly YouTube, which can be considered to be an archive of various videos and audios. Some pages also include links to e-books, or use memes to bring forth their ideas and emotions. The internet has successfully become an irreplaceable aspect of the youth’s life across the globe. It has broken all boundaries making the world a very small place where a post uploaded in India can be seen anywhere in the world.

The language used in these confession pages refer to respective campus culture, thereby distinguishing themselves from other institutes. This in turn helps to create a specific identity through which the social networking world will know them.

Studying the confession pages has left me with some unsolved questions. It appears that the students engaging with the activities of the various confession pages do not really try to question what urges them forward to confess online. To the readers of the confessions it is nothing more than a mode of entertainment which is availed in moments of boredom. In spite of all its negativity this has been able to create a platform for building a bridge of kinship of like minded students. What lies in future for the confession pages is still to be seen. Whether the advancement in digital technology furthers the mushrooming of such pages is something that also has to be studied. At present in order to counter the loopholes of anonymity, a mobile application called ‘Whispers’, has been developed and is slowly becoming popular. This might substitute Facebook Confessions or run as a parallel alternative to it. Some pages are already falling into disuse. How long this trend survives and what will be its long term effect is still to be seen.

Rimi Nandy is Project Fellow, Social Networks, with the School of Media, Communication and Culture at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. This research study was part of a series of six projects commissioned by HEIRA-CSCS, Bangalore as part of a collaborative exercise on mapping the Digital Humanities in India. See here for more on this initiative.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/confession-in-digital-age

CIS Featured in 'Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective' Report

sneha-pp — 2015-10-16T07:43:18Z

This report, authored by Vivian Lewis, Lisa Spiro, Xuemao Wang, and Jon E. Cawthorne, sheds light on the expertise required to support a robust and sustainable digital scholarship (DS) program. It focuses first on defining and describing the key domain knowledge, skills, competencies, and mindsets at some of the world’s most prominent digital scholarship programs. It then identifies the main strategies used to build this expertise, both formally and informally. The work is set in a global context, examining leading digital scholarship organizations in China, India, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The report team visited and spoke to us last year, as part of the study. Here are the Executive Summary and link to the final report.

Access the 'Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective' report here.

Executive Summary

As new production, researchers scholarship analysis, pursue using digital or digital publishing scholarship or computational and dissemination (the creation, techniques), of they are often challenged to develop new skill sets. What skills, competencies, knowledge, and mindsets should digital scholars possess? How are such attributes—which we group under the term expertise—best cultivated? Does the shape of expertise vary around the world? Such questions are being asked by institutions establishing or reshaping digital scholarship organizations (DSOs), instructors developing educational and training programs in digital scholarship, experienced and aspiring digital scholars defining what expertise they need to acquire, and researchers exploring the global nature of digital scholarship.

Through our pilot study, we sought to answer these questions with the broader aims of identifying the workforce-related factors important to the success of digital scholarship, helping training and educational programs define key goals, and contributing to the conversation about the global dimensions of digital scholarship. We focused on “best in class” DSOs, highlighting the human dimensions behind their success in areas such as research output, winning grants, international reputation, and innovative teaching or training programs. We conducted interviews with a range of people involved with leading DSOs, including directors, research staff, faculty, librarians, graduate students, and university administrators. We conducted site visits with all but one of the 16 institutions participating in our study, which enabled us to get a richer sense of the facilities, organizational context, and local culture. While most of our interviews focused on digital humanities, we also included several digital social science organizations to identify areas of commonality and contrast. We explored a variety of organizational structures, including research centers and institutes, an academic department, labs, a network, a nonprofit organization, and a company; these organizations were sponsored by academic schools, libraries, and information technology departments. To understand the global dimensions of digital scholarship, we examined organizations from Mexico, China, Taiwan, India, Germany, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Since digital scholarship projects often require specific technical skills (such as expertise in text analysis or geographic information systems [GIS]), it was difficult to generalize about what particular skill sets organizations should offer; in many ways that depends on the goals and focus of the organization. In addition, different skill sets were expected depending on one’s position and degree of experience. However, our interviews revealed in particular the importance of collaborative competencies, reflecting the ways in which digital scholarship typically takes place in teams dependent on diverse expertise. Since digital scholarship often involves developing new methods, tools, and theoretical approaches, successful digital scholars usually exhibit creativity, curiosity, and an enthusiasm for learning, which we term learning mindsets. Some level of general domain knowledge is useful so that team members can understand the research questions they are pursuing, while researchers draw upon methodological competencies (such as data science and GIS) and technical skills (such as database design and programming) to carry out their research. Finally, managerial skills—particularly project management—are needed to ensure that projects are completed.

While self-education and learning by doing are the predominant ways that digital scholars have traditionally acquired expertise, they also appreciate being part of a community of practice, so that they can turn to colleagues for help solving a problem and learning something new. Many organizations host workshops and visiting speakers and enable faculty and staff to attend conferences, although it can be challenging for staff to secure travel funding. A couple of organizations provide dedicated research time to staff, so that they can experiment, stay abreast of the state of the art, and contribute their own research. Along with formal support for professional development, we noted the importance of a “learning culture” in fostering continuous learning. Organizations most successful at building expertise among faculty, students, and staff tended to share characteristics such as an open and collaborative interdisciplinary culture in which each team member contributes expertise and is respected for it; global engagement, which includes participating in multi-institutional research projects; an entrepreneurial culture in which experimentation is valued; and a focus on teaching and learning as well as research. We noted variation in the kind of facilities these organizations occupied; collaborative space seemed to be more important than top-notch hardware.

Since we were able to visit only a small number of organizations in each country or region included in the study, we don’t feel comfortable making broad generalizations about the state of digital scholarship around the world. However, we did note some common factors that influenced the shape of digital scholarship expertise. These factors included a tradition of digital scholarship, as more established organizations could both build on existing structures and could be limited by them; funding; the degree of involvement of the institution’s library; and variations in academic career structures, such as paths to promotion and the recognition of alternative academic careers.

Digital scholarship organizations face a number of challenges, particularly in securing adequate funding for their work. We want to draw particular attention to the challenge of recruitment and retention. Typically, DSOs cannot compete with the private sector in offering high salaries or extensive opportunities for advancement; rather, they provide more flexible environments and an academic or intellectual atmosphere in which staff are encouraged to experiment and learn. Unfortunately, some staff at many organizations are hired on temporary contracts because of limited funding, so they often leave for more stable positions. We also noted a tension between research and service at some organizations, wherein these organizations viewed producing new knowledge as central to their mission but may also be expected to provide services to local researchers or to maintain existing projects. At a few organizations, we observed status differences between faculty and staff, particularly in the ability to be principal investigators on grants or to receive travel funding. Researchers whose first language is not English must often choose between reaching a smaller audience with work published in their native language and devoting significant time to translating their work into English.

We provide an extensive list of recommendations aimed at digital scholars, leaders of DSOs, universities and host organizations, funders, and the broader digital scholarship community. To highlight some of the most salient: We recommend that digital scholars take responsibility for their own learning, nurture their own curiosity, and actively pursue learning opportunities, including by participating in communities of practice and team projects. We advise the leaders of DSOs to encourage both structured and unstructured opportunities for learning by including dedicated staff research time in job descriptions, enabling staff to train and mentor, and hosting workshops, outside speakers, and other events. Host institutions such as universities should create more stable staff positions with paths to promotion and facilitate more stable funding for DSOs, while funders should support global digital scholarship exchanges. As for the digital scholarship community, we recommend heightening awareness of digital scholarship around the world through conference programs, funding initiatives, publications, and communities of practice, and promoting greater linguistic diversity. We hope that this report helps raise awareness of the range of expertise required for digital scholarship, the importance of a learning culture and active communities of practice in nurturing it, the challenges digital scholarship staff often face in finding stable careers, and the diversity of models for digital scholarship around the world.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-featured-in-building-expertise-to-support-digital-scholarship-report

Call for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages!

sneha-pp — 2019-08-07T12:29:25Z

Whose Knowledge?, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the Centre for Internet and Society are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want. This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives. Read the Call here and share your submission by September 2, 2019.

Cross-posted from the Whose Knowledge? website: Call for Contributions and Reflections

The call is available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, English, IsiZulu, Spanish, and Tamil.

Note: This call for contributions is in a few languages right now, but we invite our friends and communities to translate into many more! Please reach out to info (at) whoseknowledge (dot) org with your translations… thank you!

“It’s not just the words that will be lost. The language is the heart of our culture; it holds our thoughts, our way of seeing the world. It’s too beautiful for English to explain.”
– Potawatomi elder, cited in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass.”

The problem: The internet we have today is not multilingual enough to reflect the full depth and breadth of humanity. Language is a good proxy for, or way to understand, knowledge – different languages can represent different ways of knowing and learning about our worlds. Yet most online knowledge today is created and accessible only through colonial languages, and mostly English. The UNESCO Report on ‘A Decade of Promoting Multilingualism in Cyberspace’ (2015) estimated that “out of the world’s approximately 6,000 languages, just 10 of them make up 84.3 percent of people using the Internet, with English and Chinese the dominant languages, accounting for 52 per cent of Internet users worldwide.” More languages become endangered and disappear every year; 230 languages have become extinct between 1950 and 2010.

At best, then, 7% of the world’s languages are captured in published material, and an even smaller fraction of these languages are available online. This is particularly critical for communities who have been historically or currently marginalized by power and privilege – women, people of colour, LGBT*QIA folks, indigenous communities, and others marginalized from the global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands). We often cannot add or access knowledge in our own languages on the internet. This reinforces and deepens inequalities and invisibilities that already exist offline, and denies all of us the richness of the multiple knowledges of the world.

Some of the issues that shape our abilities to create and share content online in our languages include:

The internet’s infrastructure (hardware, software, platforms, protocols…);
Content management tools and technologies for translation, digitization, and archiving (voice, machine-learning systems and AI, semantic web…);
The experience of those who consume and produce information online in different languages (devices like cell phones and laptops, messaging tools, micro-blogging, audio-video…);
The experience of looking for content in different languages online, through search engines and other tools.

Understanding the range of these issues will help us map the possibilities and concerns around linguistic biases and disparities on the internet.

Who we are: We are a group of three research partners who believe that the internet we co-create should support, share, and amplify knowledge in all of the world’s languages. For this to happen, we need to better understand the challenges and opportunities that support or prevent our languages and knowledges from being online. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The Oxford Internet Institute is a multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet. Whose Knowledge? is a global campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalized communities – the majority of the world – online.

Together we are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want.

Why we need YOU: This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives.

You may be a person who:

Self-identifies as being from a marginalized community, and you find it difficult to bring your community’s knowledge online because the technology to display your language’s script is hard to access or read
Works on creating content in languages that are from parts of the world, and from people, who are mostly invisible and unheard online
Is a techie who works on making keyboards for non-colonial languages
Is a linguist who tries to bring together communities and technologies in a way that is easy and accessible
... you may be any of these, all of these, or more!

We are looking for your experience online to help us tell the story of how limited the language capacities of the internet are, currently, and how much opportunity there is for making the internet share our knowledges in our many different languages. Most importantly: you don’t have to be an academic or researcher to apply, we particularly encourage people experiencing these issues in their everyday lives and work to contribute!

Some of the key questions we’d like you to explore:

How are you or your community using your language online?
What do you wish you could create or share in your language online that you can’t today?
What does content in your language look like online? What exists, what’s missing? (you might think about, for example, news, social media, education or government websites, e-commerce, entertainment, online libraries and archives, self-published content, etc)
How and where and using what technologies do you share or create content in your language? (you might think about, for example, video, audio, writing, social media, digitization…whatever formats, tools, processes or websites you use for creating oral, visual, textual, or other forms of content.)
What is challenging to create or share on your language online? (you might think about, for example, access, device usability, platforms, websites, apps and other tools, software, fonts, digital literacy, etc when developing digital archives, online language resources, or just making any presence on the web in general for your language.)

Submissions:

We would love to hear about your and your community’s experiences in response to any or some of the above questions!

Your contribution could be in the form of a written essay, a visualization or work of art, a video or recorded conversation – we’d be happy to interview you if that’s your preference. We would be happy to accept in any language, and will review the submissions with the support of our multilingual communities and friends.

Are you interested in participating? Please email raw [at] cis-india [dot] org a short note (of about 300 words) by 2 September at 23:59 IST (Indian Standard Time), briefly outlining your idea along with the following information:

Your name
Your location – both country of origin and your current location is useful!
Your language(s)
Your community or any other background you’d care to share with us
Which questions you’re interested in addressing, and why
Your prefered contribution format
Any requests for how we can best support your participation

Timeline:

By 2nd September 2019: Send us your submission note
By 1st November 2019: Contributors will be notified of selection
By 1st December 2019: First round of contributions are due. We’ll work with you to finalise contributions by mid January.

Selected contributors will be offered an honorarium of USD 500, and their final works will be published as part of the Decolonising the Internet – Languages Report, in early 2020.

பங்களிப்பதற்காக அழைப்பு இணைய மொழி ஆதிக்கச் சூழலை மாற்றியதில் உங்கள்அனுபவம்!

“மொழி அழிவால் சொற்கள் மட்டும் அழிவதில்லை. நம் பண்பாட்டின் சாரமே மொழி தான். மொழியே நம் எண்ணங்களை வெளிப்படுத்துகிறது. இவ்வுலகத்தை நாம் காண்பதும் மொழிவழியே தான். ஆங்கிலத்தால் அதை ஒருக்காலும் வெளிப்படுத்த முடியாது.”
– போட்டோவாடோமி எல்டர் (ராபின் வால் கிம்மெரார் எழுதிய ‘பிரெயிடிங் சுவீட்கிராஸ்’ என்ற நூலில் இருந்து)

சிக்கல்: மனித குலத்தின் பரந்துவிரிந்த பண்பாட்டுச் சூழலை வெளிப்படுத்தும் அளவுக்கு இன்றைய இணையம் பன்மொழிச் சூழல் கொண்டதாய் இல்லை. தகவல்களை அறிந்துகொள்வதற்கு மொழி ஒரு கருவியாய் இருக்கிறது. ஒவ்வொரு மொழியும் உலகத்தை வெவ்வேறுவிதத்தில் காட்டத்தக்கன. இருந்தபோதும், பெரும்பாலான அறிவுசார் தளங்கள் ஆதிக்க மொழிகளில், குறிப்பாக ஆங்கிலத்தில் அதிகளவில் இருக்கின்றன. ‘இணையவெளியில் பன்மொழிச் சூழலைக் ஊக்குவிக்க பத்தாண்டுகளில் எடுத்த முயற்சி’ (2015) என்ற யுனெசுகோ அறிக்கையில் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளதாவது: “உலகில் பேசப்படும் சுமார் 6,000 மொழிகளில், வெறும் 10 மொழியை பேசுவோர் மட்டுமே இணையத்தின் 84.3 சதவீதம் பேராக உள்ளனர். இவற்றில், ஆங்கிலமும் மாண்டரின் சீனமும் பேசுவோர் மட்டும் 52 சதவீதத்தினர் என்பது குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.” ஒவ்வொரு ஆண்டும் அதிகளவிலான மொழிகள் அருகி, அழிந்து வருகின்றன. 1950 – 2010 ஆகிய ஆண்டுகளுக்குள் 230 மொழிகள் அழிந்திருக்கின்றன

எல்லா உள்ளடக்கத்தையும் கணக்கில் எடுத்தால் கூட, உலகின் 7% மொழிகளில் தான் ஆக்கங்கள் இருக்கின்றன. இவற்றில் சிலவே இணையத்தில் கிடைக்கின்றன. முற்காலத்தில் ஒடுக்கப்பட்டிருந்த பழங்குடியின சமூகத்தினர், அடக்குமுறைக்கு உட்பட்டிருந்த பெண்கள், நிறவெறிக்கு உட்பட்டிருந்தோர், மாற்று பாலின கருத்தியல் கொன்டோர் ஆகியோருக்கான ஆக்கங்கள் வெகு சில. பெரும்பாலானோர் இணையத்தில் தம் தாய்மொழியில் தகவல்களை தேடிப் பெற முடிவதில்லை. தம் மொழியில் கிடைக்கப்பெறாத பெரும்பாலானோருக்கு இவ்வுலகைப் பற்றிய அறிவுசார் ஆக்கங்கள் மறுக்கப்பட்டு, சமமின்மை வெளிப்படுகிறது.

நம் மொழியிலேயே இணையத்தில் ஆக்கங்களை உருவாக்குவதிலும் பகிர்வதிலும் சில சிக்கல்களை எதிர்நோக்குகிறோம். அவை:

கட்டமைப்பு வசதிக் குறைபாடு : வன்பொருள், மென்பொருள், இயங்குதளம், மரபுத்தகவு
உள்ளடக்க மேம்பாட்டுக் கருவிகளும் தொழில்நுட்பங்களும் போதிய அளவில் இல்லாமை: மொழிபெயர்ப்புக் கருவி, மின்மயமாக்கக் கருவி, சேமிப்பகம், செயற்கை நுண்ணறிவு, குரல்வழி உள்ளடக்கம்
இணையத்தில் பொருட்களை வாங்கிப் பயன்படுத்துவோரின் கருத்துக்களோ, பொருட்களைப் பற்றிய தகவலோ, இணையச் செயலிகளான செய்தியனுப்பல், வலைப்பூ போன்றவையோ தம் மொழியில் இல்லாமை
தேடுபொறிகளையும் பிற கருவிகளையும் கொன்டு வெவ்வேறு மொழிகளில் ஆக்கங்களைத் தேடிப் பழக்கம் இல்லாமை

இச்சிக்கல்களைப் புரிந்துகொள்வதன் மூலம், இணையத்தின் பன்மொழிச் சூழலுக்கான தேவைகளையும் அவற்றிற்கான குறைநிறைகளையும் சரிப்படுத்திக்கொள்ள முடியும்.

நாங்கள் யார்?: உலக மொழிகளிலான ஆக்கங்கள் இணையவெளியில் இடம்பெற உதவவும், ஊக்குவிக்கவும் மூன்று ஆய்வு நிறுவனங்கள் கைகோர்த்துள்ளோம். இதை நடைமுறைப்படுத்துவதற்கு முன், நாம் எதிர்கொள்ளும் சிக்கல்களையும் பெறக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புகளையும் நன்கு அறிந்துகொள்வது அவசியம் என உணர்ந்தோம்.

1. சென்டர் ஃபார் இன்டர்நெட் அன்ட் சொசைட்டி (the Centre for Internet and Society or CIS) என்ற தன்னார்வல நிறுவனம், இணையத்தையும், மின்மயமாக்கத் தொழில்நுட்பங்களையும் பற்றிய ஆய்வுகளை கொள்கை நோக்கிலும், கல்விசார் நோக்கிலும் செய்கிறது. உடற்குறைபாடு உடையோருக்கு மின்மயமாக்கிய உள்ளடக்கம், அறிவைப் பெறும் சூழல், அறிவுசார் சொத்துரிமை, திறந்தவெளி ஆக்கங்கள், இணையவழி ஆளுகை, தொழில்நுட்பச் சீர்திருத்தம், இணையவெளியில் தனியுரிமை, இணையவெளிப் பாதுகாப்பு போன்ற தலைப்புகளில் இந்நிறுவனம் கவனம் செலுத்துகிறது.

2. ஆக்சுபோர்டு இன்டர்நெட் இன்ஸ்டிடியூட் என்ற ஆய்வு நிறுவனம் ஆக்சுபோர்டு பல்கலைக்கழகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தது. இது இணையச் சமூகத்துக்காகவே தனித்துவமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்ட துறை.

3. ஹூஸ் நாலெட்ஜ் என்ற இயக்கம், உலகளவில் ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட சமூகங்களின் அறிவுசார் ஆக்கங்களை இணையவெளியில் கொண்டு வர முயற்சி எடுக்கிறது.

நாங்கள் மூவரும் இணைந்து, இணையத்தில் பயன்பாட்டிலுள்ள மொழிகளைப் பற்றிய ஆய்வறிக்கையை தயாரிக்கிறோம். புள்ளிவிவரங்களையும், தகவல்களையும் வெளியிட்டு, பன்மொழிச் சூழலில் எந்தளவு பின்தங்கி இருக்கிறோம் என்பதை உணர்த்த உள்ளோம். இணையவெளியில் ஆக்கங்களை வெளியிட எங்களால் முடிந்த சில வாய்ப்புகளையும் வழங்க உள்ளோம்.

உங்கள் உதவி எங்களுக்கு தேவைப்படுவதன் காரணம்: இத்தகைய சிக்கல்களை எதிர்நோக்கி வருவோரின் அனுபவங்களையும், அவர்கள் முயன்ற தீர்வுகளையும் பற்றி அறிந்துகொள்வதே இவ்வாய்வின் நோக்கம்.

நீங்கள்,

ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட சமூகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவராக உணர்ந்தாலோ, உங்கள் சமூகத்தின் அறிவுசார் உள்ளடக்கங்கள் இணையவெளியில் கிடைப்பதில்லை என்று கருதினாலோ, உங்கள் மொழி எழுத்துவடிவங்கள் அணுகவும், படிக்கவும் ஏற்றவகையில் கணினிமயமாக்கப்படவில்லை என்று உணர்ந்தாலோ,
தொழில்நுட்பராக இருந்து, ஆதிக்கத்துக்கு உட்பட்டோரின் மொழிகளுக்காக விசைப்பலகைகள் செய்பவராக இருந்தாலோ,
மொழியியலாளராக இருந்து, பல்வேறு சமூகங்களை ஒருங்கிணைத்து, தொழில்நுட்பத்தை அவர்களுக்கு புரியும் வகையிலும், அணுகும் வகையிலும் கிடைக்கச் செய்தாலோ,
… உங்களைத் தான் தேடிக் கொன்டிருக்கிறோம்!

உங்கள் இணையவெளி அனுபவங்களை எங்களுக்கு தெரிவிப்பதன் மூலம், ஒவ்வொரு மொழிச் சமூகத்தின் நிலையையும் நாங்கள் அறிந்துகொள்ள உதவியாக இருக்கும். அத்துடன், எத்தகைய வாய்ப்புகளை ஏற்படுத்தித் தரலாம் என்றும் நாங்கள் சிந்திக்க உதவியாய் இருக்கும்.

உங்களிடம் நாங்கள் கேட்க விரும்பும் சில கேள்விகள்:

நீங்களும், உங்கள் மொழிச் சமூகத்தினரும் இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியை எப்படி பயன்படுத்துகிறீர்கள்?
இன்றைய நிலையில், இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியைக் கொண்டு செய்ய முடியாதது இருப்பின், அதற்கு என்ன செய்ய விரும்புவீர்கள்?
இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியில் என்னென்ன ஆக்கங்கள் இருக்கின்றன, எவை இல்லை? (எடுத்துக்காட்டாக, செய்திகள், சமுக வலைத்தளம், கல்விசார் உள்ளடக்கம், அரசுசார் உள்ளடக்கம், மனமகிழ் வீடியோக்கள், இணையவழி கற்றல், போன்றவை)
உங்கள் மொழியில் ஆக்கங்களை படைப்பதற்கு எந்த தளத்தை நாடுவீர்கள், எந்த தொழில்நுட்பத்தை பயன்படுத்துவீர்கள்? (எ.கா : ஒளி, ஒலி, உரை, உரைநடை ஒழுங்கமைவு, பிழைத்திருத்திக் கருவி போன்றவை)
உங்கள் மொழியில் எழுதுவதற்கோ, பகிர்வதற்கோ முயலும் போது என்னென்ன மாதிரியான சிக்கல்களை இணையவெளியில் சந்திக்கிறீர்கள்? (எ.கா: அணுக்கம் இன்மை, கருவியில் எழுத்துரு ஆதரவின்மை, பிழை திருத்த கருவி இன்மை)

ஆய்வேடு சமர்ப்பித்தல்:

மேற்கண்ட கேள்விகளுக்கு உங்கள் சமூகத்தினரிடமும், உங்களிடமும் அனுபவம் மூலம் விடை கிடைத்திருக்கும் என நம்புகிறோம். அவற்றைப் பற்றி தெரிந்து கொள்ள விரும்புகிறோம்!

கட்டுரையாகவோ, கலைப்படைப்பாகவோ, பதிவு செய்யப்பட்ட ஆவணமாகவோ, வேறு வடிவிலோ உங்கள் படைப்புகள் இருக்கலாம். நீங்கள் விரும்பினால் உங்களை பேட்டி காணவும் தயாராக இருக்கிறோம். உங்கள் படைப்புகள் எந்த மொழியில் இருந்தாலும் ஏற்போம். எங்களிடமுள்ள பன்மொழிச் சமூகத்திடம் உங்கள் படைப்புகளை கொடுத்து அவற்றை சீராய்வு செய்யச் சொல்வோம்.

உங்களுக்கு பங்கேற்க விருப்பமா? raw@cis-india.org என்ற மின்னஞ்சல் முகவரிக்கு, செப்டம்பர் இரன்டாம் தேதிக்கு முன்னர் அனுப்புக. 300 சொற்களுக்கு மிகாமல், கீழ்க்காணும் விவரங்களைக்

உங்கள் பெயர்
இருப்பிடம் – பிறந்த நாடும், தற்போது வாழும் நாடும்
உங்கள் மொழி(கள்)
உங்கள் சமூகத்தினரைப் பற்றிய தகவல் (அ) நீங்கள் விரும்பும் சமூகத்தினரைப் பற்றிய தகவல்
எந்தெந்த கேள்விகளுக்கு பதிலளிக்க விரும்புகிறீர்கள், ஏன்
உங்கள் படைப்பு எந்த வடிவில் உள்ளது
உங்கள் பங்களிப்பை மேம்படுத்தல் நாங்கள் ஏதும் செய்ய வேண்டுமா

காலகட்டம்:

2 செப்டம்பர், 2019: உங்கள் படைப்புகள் எங்களை வந்தடைய வேண்டிய கடைசி நாள்
1 நவம்பர், 2019: தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட படைப்பாளர்களிடம் விவரம் தெரிவிக்கப்படும் நாள்
1 திசம்பர், 2019: முதற்கட்ட பங்களிப்பு நடைபெறும். பங்களிப்பை ஜனவரி மாத மத்தியில் முடிக்க முயற்சி செய்வோம்.

தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட படைப்பாளிகளுக்கு 500 அமெரிக்க டாலர்கள் ஊக்கத்தொகையாக வழங்கப்படும். நாங்கள் தயாரிக்கும் அறிக்கையில் அவர்களின் படைப்பு வெளியிடப்படும்.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/stil-2020-call

Binary Code Invades the Universal Problematic

anirudh — 2014-05-27T05:35:03Z

This essay looks at language as an archive and posits, through a reading of Foucault, Derrida, Saussure and Jakobson that the means of perceiving language in the digital has changed. Communication requires community and the large networks made possible by the binary code, an added layer of linguistic units, changes the way we are able to communicate online. Big Data has further changed the way we interact with language and the world. The way the machine perceives language, through selection rather than combination with access to the “complete” archive allows it to make predictions and decisions through mere correlation rather than the causational mode of science hitherto conducted by human beings.

The above is a familiar image to everyone reading this blog. In fact, I’m willing to wager my internet connection that anyone reading this must have come across this image and that they all would assume the same for anyone else cohabitating the digital world. The Google search, for many is the internet or at least one of the first images that come to mind when one mentions internet though I will not presume solitariness or principality in good faith to the impending argument. Before the digital era, if I had read the words “the-order-of-things” in a book by a French philosopher, I would have read it in a manner completely different to the way I read things or the order of things in the digital on Google search, for example. The implications of this rupture, I contend, redouble the way in which we interact with the world from perceiving data online to analytical operations on an astronomical scale such as big data but they have their beginnings with the humble binary code that poor Leibniz thought would preserve his Christianity.

In this blog I will look at binary code as a hidden architecture that has decentered the centrality of deconstructed language. I will explicate the proposition by exploring the structuralist linguists like Saussure and Jakobson, find a resolution in Foucault’s Order of Things and continue to view the conflict through Derrida’s Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. We have been exploring in my previous blogs about what Derrida meant when he said that language has invaded the universal problematic and the transcendental signifiers (God, Man) of yore have been ousted by the successive, contaminating, perpetually replicating influence of language. We will now explore language, for the purpose of this blog through the antiquated view as a first order code and as the archive or a self-imagined whole.

If we want to pose the problem of structural language before deconstruction with an added layer of code, then we will quickly end up with a number of propositions absolutely contradictory in relation to the status of discourse in post-structural language. Therefore we must begin where Foucault began and work our way to the world we live in now, which was probably still in the conception in 1966, forming and gestating as the unnamable was proclaiming itself as it is again now, while the birth was in the offing, only under a species of the non-species, in the formless, mute, infant, and terrifying form of monstrosity that has become the digital. I don’t look upon it with fear or anguish, but it is needless to say that Foucault would have been caught off guard by the alien integer outside the natural set that was complete and contained, wreaking havoc upon our vision of everything that could neatly sit within a category.

Failing to avoid the cliché of mentioning Borghes’s Chinese Encyclopedia in the analysis of the Order of Things, I will enumerate the mnemonic list at the centre of his raucous laughter. The list of all animals that exist: [1]

a) Those that belong to the emperor

b) Embalmed ones

c) Those that are trained

d) Suckling pigs e) Mermaids (or Sirens)

f) Fabulous ones

g) Stray dogs

h) Those that are included in this classification

i) Those that tremble as if they were mad

j) Innumerable ones

k) Those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush

l) Et cetera

m) Those that have just broken the flower vase

n) Those that, at a distance, resemble flies

Central to his flummoxed observance of this completely alien list is the paradox in the letter (h): those that are included in this classification.

“The central category of animals 'included in the present classification', with its explicit reference to paradoxes we are familiar with, is indication enough that we shall never succeed in defining a stable relation of con-tained to container between each of these categories and that which includes them all: if all the animals divided up here can be placed without exception in one of the divisions of this list, then aren't all the other divisions to be found in that one division too? And then again, in what space would that single, inclusive division have its existence? Absurdity destroys the ‘and’ of the enumeration by making impossible the in where the things enumerated would be divided up. Borges adds no figure to the atlas of the impossible; nowhere does he strike the spark of poetic con-frontation; he simply dispenses with the least obvious, but most com-pelling, of necessities; he does away with the site, the mute ground upon which it is possible for entities to be juxtaposed.” [2]

This seems, at a surface level to be an epigrammatic rendering of Russel’s paradox in set theory, but when applied to the notions of reified knowledge structures that are presented to us, it leads us to question the notions of everything and difference. That is to say, history, language or the archive are imperially established upon us as a totality of information rather than a unit or a part of a whole that cannot be known or escapes comprehension. Within this notion of everything, that actually is only a part, the archive sets divisive rules for itself, creating taxonomies of things that allow containment and comprehension. There is a moment when we move from the culturally imposed orders to the scientific or philosophical modes of order that reflect upon order itself when we escape the membrane of order and experience it in its pure form. This moment of anagnorisis when Neo awakens outside of the Matrix is when the order is destabilized and relegated to its rightful position in letter (h) and rules of experience and decision making are no longer applicable, or at least necessary. That is to say, if we construct the archive with this imagination, to endure the ordeal of this consciousness, we can have a space that has everything with everything without these artificial taxonomical boundaries.

Language, as Foucault understands it, is a system of exchange predicated on the notion of difference. [3] It is something that burst onto the scene of human evolution in one fell swoop as Levi-Strauss puts it, as an event.[4]

If the notion of attaching meaning to objects by assigning an unnatural or artificial sign that has no inherent connection to the former was arrived at, it automatically forms the whole matrix of language, a spontaneous tabula is formed where everything meets and “the spark of poetic confrontation is met”. Thus, language makes science possible by the artificial separation of things, which allows for the study of causation. Tracing a trajectory of eras of the role of language in this way, Foucault says:

“In this way, analysis has been able to show the coherence that existed, throughout the Classical age, between the theory of representation and the theories of language, of the natural orders, and of wealth and value. It is this configuration that, from the nineteenth century onward, changes entirely; the theory of representation disappears as the universal founda-tion of all possible orders; language as the spontaneous tabula, the primary grid of things, as an indispensable link between representation and things, is eclipsed in its turn; a profound historicity penetrates into the heart of things, isolates and defines them in their own coherence, imposes upon them the forms of order implied by the continuity of time;” [5]

After characterizing language in a structuralist notion, he claims that it is eclipsed for something else. This is the locus of conflict between Foucault and Derrida’s conception of language. Derrida teasingly says

“It would be possible to show that all the names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the center have always designated the constant of a presence… transcendentality, consciousness, or conscience, God, man, and so forth.” [6]

(italics mine)

He suggests that the enlightenment center or centrality of the conception of Man can be or has been replaced, only to later suggest that language has invaded the universal problematic, but is different from God and Man in that it is imbricated within the fabric of life, perpetually manifest in speech and hence subject to its influence. Foucault agrees with the assumption of the substitutable transcendentality of man when he says

“It is comforting, however, and a source of profound relief to think that man is only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a new wrinkle in our knowledge, and that he will disappear again as soon as that knowledge has discovered a new form.” [7]

However, he believes language, at least in its structural form disappears or is eclipsed with an event.

In order to fully participate in this disagreement, we must formulize what the structuralist understanding of language really is.

-Language is a first order code where the addresser encodes and the addressee decodes. A first order code implies that there can be second order codes. Levi-Strauss in The Raw and the Cooked says “Since myths themselves rest on second-order codes (the first-order codes being those in which language consists), this book thus offers the rough draft of a third-order code, destined to insure the reciprocal possibility of translation of several myths” [8]

and so on. -In the process of encoding (combination of linguistic units), there is an ascending scale of freedom. I have to combine c o m b i n e to form the prior word for it to have meaning but I have more leeway to combine words to form sentences and so on in different contexts.

Decoding involves

a) combination: a message involves constituent signs that are combined with others. “This means that any linguistic unit at one and the same time serves as a context in a more complex linguistic unit.” Therefore, “combination and contexture are two faces of the same operation.” Insights of Ferdinand de Saussure: combination “in in presentia: it is based on two or several terms jointly present in an actual series” [9]

b) selection: “a selection between alternatives implies the possibility of substituting one for the other, equivalent in one respect and different in another. Actually, selection and substitution are two faces of the same operation” Insights of Ferdinand de Saussure: selection “connects terms in absentia as members of a virtual mnemonic series”. [10]

Selection involves signs that are conjoined in the archive of things, the language repository itself but not a direct relation to the message at hand whereas combination involves signs connected through the message. We can therefore imagine the addressee as perceiving a message as a combination of constituent signs in the context of the larger sign and selected from the repository or all possible constituent parts, which Jakobson calls the code and Foucault calls the archive.

Although, theoretically, this is how language still works, something untoward has happened to it. Let us take the proposition that freedom follows in the trajectory of larger composite linguistic units.

The movement of freedom occurs because of the tabula of context that one can create or define for the more complex units resting on the fixity of the previous layer in the “community”. If the meaning of the letter “b” is uncertain, then I cannot create the word bust and if the meaning of the word “bust” is uncertain, then I cannot combine as I please with other words. Jakobson says that the receiver and originator must have the same background and that communication relies on community/ commonality and subsequently influences what the community has in common.

If we were to create another space where the basic unit of communication is not the letter but a simple binary code, then it only follows that the freedom of linguistic combination increases automatically. The binary code, currently is the fundamental linguistic unit of the digital language. Its combinations can represent signs of all languages and all systems of totality in the same final tabula. The massive networks that the internet creates and the subsequent archivization of the data into 0’s and 1’s allows for a form of cultural and communitarian unification of the past “other” categories of totality into one that is not possible otherwise.

By all means, I could have said lol for laugh out loud or made sentences like ‘ima bust yo ass papi’ or written sentences in Spanish on Facebook that are punctuated with smh and omg but it would have been a private code between me and a small community of people to whom I have to communicate the vast cultural data of acronymity, parlance, foreign language etc embedded in each of those messages. You must imagine a hypothetical creation of a code or a language that has signs for every sign of every archive that facilitates an endeavor like this. It is neither humanly possible to create something like this and teach it to a group of people to create the community necessary for communication nor is it a plausible submission that individual archives that imagine themselves to be self contained systems of the whole are likely to undergo. Indeed, it is not a human that facilitates this. The machine is the monster that smashes these worlds together.

The machine is a monster which has immense capacity for memory and storage but is othered as we other the diseased. There are more elegant explanations for the nature of a digital native’s language but in true archeological, Foucauldian sense; we are mainly interested in one of the conditions of possibility. Let us now look at the operations of the addressee in conjunction with those capable by the machine. The machine’s “storage” is akin to a full cabinet of files and its “memory” is the desk upon which the employee of a company pulls up the requisite files to perform an operation. We said the addressee perceives a message as a combination of constituent signs in the context of the larger sign and selected from the repository or all possible constituent parts, which Jakobson calls the code and Foucault calls the archive. We substitute the word memory in the addressee as the faculty that perceives combination, which looks at the context, the table of the sign and pulls up grammatic rules of combination necessary to decode the sequence. The perception and the reception of selection, however, is one that requires an access to the full code as it is a virtual set consisting of all the possible synonymic, antonymic, metaphoric and subjective equivalences that can all only be contained within the total archive (storage) which no addressee has access to. It is here that Derrida would say deconstruction occurs as a sort of Joycean stream of consciousness ensues in the mind.

When I searched for the order of things on google search, however, the machine entered into its storage, its archive, and performed a version of selection and substitution with an access to the whole as only the monstrous machine can and birthed its deconstructed offspring. This access to the whole, off course, is made possible by the binary code that allows such vast networks to form. The othered element of this monstrosity is in the way we other the diseased as Foucault explores in History of Madness and specifically aphasiacs in The Order of Things. In Jakobson’s “The Linguistic Problems of Aphasia”, he says one of the types of the condition is “contexture-deficient aphasia, which…diminishes the extent and variety of sentences. The syntactic rules organizing words into higher units are lost; this loss, called “agrammatism,” causes the degeneration of the sentence into a mere “word heap””. [11]

However, this type of aphasia has the capacity to select and substitute and the google search, and indeed most means of gathering and perceiving data on the internet is performed through selection and substitution ungoverned by the government of grammar or what is “correct” combination. The aphasic google search does not play by the taxonomical boundaries and rules while it interacts with the archive and thus recalibrates and imbricates the text trapped in the archive’s imagination. The result then leaves the reader with that very deconstructed offspring.

I see in the result “the order of things” as something to do with Foucault, colleges, fashion and Canadians. Even between the two results shown from amazon.com, I see that the book is in the context of “cultural studies > history of ideas” and “philosophy> History and surveys”. The free play of word association that the engine performs based on an alogarithm that functions on truly arbitrary levels of preference like statistical percentage of keywords, webpage hits or something of that ilk that results in a constantly mutating, multiplying context makes the perception of context closer resemble that of selection. That is to say, because the reader is simultaneously processing many contexts, what was a temporal process of combination perception in presentia is now in absentia in the virtual mnemonic series, conjoined merely in the code but not in the actual message, selected from something resembling a repository of all that is possible. What you see and read in the digital is therefore a myth and by the time you perform a third order deconstruction upon what is perceived, language has traversed such a distance in space and time that comparing it to Saussure’s encoding and decoding a message is like comparing Facebook to the tin-can telephone.

I grant that everyday life may not seem to have changed by much for the average user of the internet or consumer of digital data. There doesn’t seem to be a seismic change in the way we interact with the world after this invasion. In order to make this change more acute and feel the pungency of its impact, we must move now to a larger picture than you and me reading philosophy online. Let us take a look at how Big Data functions. When a particular reading of data is required, the machine memory extracts, transforms and loads (ETL) data from the various archives in the archive and combines them on the staging table where it is all converted into the same format, the machine level language or the binary code and travels back to the memory where the function is performed.[12]

For example, if we were to research an unauthored text to determine its authorship, then we might rely on intuitions of style and propositions’ falsifications based on an incomplete surveying of an incomplete set of texts. We will read a particular text, judge its combination based on a variety of contexts that exist in our memory, then judge its selection and substitution, which is the vertical axis of style based on a stream of consciousness comparable to the one engendered while reading another known author. Even if the research is thorough by academic standards, it still yields an inadequate, imprecise result that nonetheless is enough to fit into the taxonomical categories of history, our conception of genius and culture that we require to comprehend our world. Big data, on the other hand, has warped this disposition by making possible a real stylometry. Stylometric analysis has thus ruthlessly destabilized canonical and structural notions of authorship and genius like the vertical axis of Shakespeare in the history of Western literature, who it appears collaborated with Marlowe and Fletcher in his works.[13]

The digital has, at least in the humanities taken us down a chimerical road that we thought would lead to a Utopia, but has lead to a heterotopias.

“Heterotopias are disturbing, probably because they secretly undermine language, because they make it impossible to name this and that, because they shatter or tangle common names, because they destroy 'syntax' in advance, and not only the syntax with which we construct sentences but also that less apparent syntax which causes words and things (next to and also opposite one another) to 'hold together'...heterotopias (such as those to be found so often in Borges) desiccate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source; they dissolve our myths and sterilize the lyricism of our sentences.” [14]

If this machinistic sterilization of the cultural, literary and social archives seems to almost lead to the scientific, then that connection has already been made. Steve Lohr of the NYT writes “Mr. Jockers, for example, called his research presentation “Computing and Visualizing the 19th-Century Literary Genome.”

Such biological metaphors seem apt, because much of the research is a quantitative examination of words. Just as genes are the fundamental building blocks of biology, words are the raw material of ideas.

“What is critical and distinctive to human evolution is ideas, and how they evolve,” says Jean-Baptiste Michel, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.”” [15]

Jean-Baptiste, echoing Herbert Spencer in the 18th century who said that sociology is the study of evolution in its most complex form [16] , is inadvertently pointing to a revolutionary change, perhaps the last revolution in the practice of science explored at length in my previous blog. Chris Anderson posits succinctly the condition of science in the big data regime. “The scientific method is built around testable hypotheses. These models, for the most part, are systems visualized in the minds of scientists. The models are then tested, and experiments confirm or falsify theoretical models of how the world works. This is the way science has worked for hundreds of years. […] But faced with massive data, this approach to science—hypothesize, model, test—is becoming obsolete. […] There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: ‘Correlation is enough.’ We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.” [17]

Big data thus “challenges the way we live and interact with the world”, as Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier say in “Big Data”, “most strikingly, society will need to shed some of its obsession for causality in exchange for simple correlations.” [18]

Causation, after all, was the baggage that came with the invention of a Universe. A language that identified things, everything, through their differences. A basic logic instated in language that required the human to see a combination of units based on difference while relegating the perception of true selection, a connection of different things, impossible to the mind. The machine has moved us away from that world of difference to a world of universal networks and sameness and follows it at the level of its memory that functions through selection with an access to the archive that humans do not. It then mutates our perception of combination, destroys primary context, rendering free-play, association and connection where there was merely difference before.

Sure, taxonomy was an evolutionary adaptation to see causation to make decisions better. And the data we have stored in the archives now are but a mere fraction of the totality of information that exists. However, with the current trajectory of information storage increase, we are fast approaching a world where enough information will exist to make decisions based on correlation alone. In other words, “between the encoded eye and the reflexive knowledge there is a middle region which liberates order itself…it is more confused, more obscure and probably less easy to analyse” but it “relinquishes its immediate and invisible powers, frees itself sufficiently to discover that these orders are perhaps not the only possible ones or the best ones”. [19]

This new monstrosity is, however, giving us the ability to make better decisions using just the selective faculty of language, through correlation alone and it is all done by data collection reaching the level (alas Leibniz is not alive today) of the mind of “God”. The simulacra are latching on to all information; the shadows on the walls of Plato’s cave are being consumed by the outsiders and from the vast atomic network of 0’s and 1’s, Laplace’s demon is rearing its ominous head.

[1]. Foucault, Michel. The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Pantheon Books, 19711970. Print.

[2]. ibid

[3]. ibid

[4]. Strauss, Claude. The raw and the cooked. [1st U.S. ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. Print.

[5]. See Citation 1

[6]. Derrida, Jacques. "Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences."Writing and difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. . Print.

[7]. See citation 1.

[8]. See citation 4.

[9]. Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in general linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959. Print.

[10]. ibid.

[11]. Jakobson, Roman, and Linda R. Waugh. On language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. Print.

[12]. nberger, Viktor, and Kenneth Cukier. Big data: a revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Print.

[13]. Neural Computation in Stylometry I: An Application to the Works of Shakespeare and Fletcher Matthews RAJ & Merriam TVN Lit Linguist Computing (1993) 8 (4): 203-209. doi: 10.1093/llc /8.4.203.

[14]. See Citation 1.

[15]. Lohr, Steve. "Dickens, Austen and Twain, Through a Digital Lens." New York Times 26 Jan. 2013, sec. Technology: n. pag. Print.

[16]. Perrin, Robert. "Herbert Spencer's Four Theories of Social Evolution." JSTOR: n. pag. Print.

[17]. Anderson, Chris. "The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete." Wired Magazine 23 June 2008: n. pag. Print.

[18]. See Citation 12.

[19]. See Citation 1.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/binary-code-invades-the-universal-problematic

Back When the Past had a Future: Being Precarious in a Network Society

nishant — 2013-02-12T06:16:12Z

We live in Network Societies. This phrase has been so bastardised to refer to the new information turn mediated by digital technologies, that we have stopped paying attention to what the Network has become. Networks are everywhere. They have become the default metaphor of our times, where everything from infrastructure assemblies to collectives of people, are all described through the lens of a network.

This article by Nishant Shah was published in a peer-reviewed newspaper Researching BWPWAP. The write-up is on Page 3.

We are no longer just human beings living in socially connected, politically identified communities. Instead, we have become actors, creating archives of traces and transactions, generating traffic and working as connectors in the ever expanding fold of the network.

The network is an opaque metaphor, conflating description and explanation. So it becomes the object to be studied, the originary context that produces itself, and the explanatory framework that accounts for itself. In other words, the network was our past – it gives us an account of who we were, it is our present – it defines the context of all our activities, and it is our future – where we do everything to support the network because it is the only future that we can imagine for ourselves. It is this flattening characteristic of networks that are diagrammatically mapped, cartographically reproduced, and presented outside of and oblivious to temporality, that produces a condition of the future that can no longer be imagined through our everyday lives.

Networks neither promise nor deliver a flattened utopia of coexistence and decentralised power. Networks are, in fact, quite aware of the structures of inequity and conditions of privilege they create and perpetuate: the only way to recognise the existence of a network is to be outside of it, the only aspiration to belong to a network is to be kept outside of it when you recognise it. Networks create themselves as simultaneously ubiquitous and scarce, of everpresent and ephemeral, creating a new ontology for our being human – an ontology of precariousness, contingent upon erasure of our histories, archives of our present, and unimaginable futures; futures we are not ready for, and don’t have strategies to occupy.

I remember the times, before networks became the default conditions of being human, when kids, negotiating the variegated temporalities of their past-present-futures, would often begin their speculations on future, by saying, "When I grow up...". In that hope of growing up, was the potential for radical political action, the possibility of social reconstruction. In network societies, though, time has no currency. It has been replaced by attentions, flows of information and actions, and do not offer a tomorrow to grow into.

There is no future to help mitigate the exigencies of the present. And with the overwhelming emphasis on archiving the present, there is no more a coherent future that can be accounted for in the vocabulary that the network develops to explain itself, and the hypothetical world outside it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future

August 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-09-13T06:26:30Z

Our newsletter for the month of August 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the eighth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we are glad to bring you the final report on banking and accessibility submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, a research paper on India’s obligations under bilateral investment treaties, a report from a Wikipedia workshop held at the Konkani Department in Goa University, a report on the sixth privacy roundtable held in New Delhi, recent news coverage, and updates on our upcoming events.

Archives of our newsletters are here. Our policies on Ethical Research Guidelines, Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunities, Privacy, Terms of Website Use and Travel can be accessed here.

Jobs
CIS is inviting applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project). To apply for this post, send in your resume to Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org). CIS is also seeking applications for the post of Policy Associate (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

As part of its project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India with the Hans Foundation, we bring you three new draft chapters on Assam, Manipur and Puducherry. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 21 states and 3 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the below chapters:

The Assam Chapter (by CLPR, August 28, 2013)
The Manipur Chapter (by CLPR, August 29, 2013)
The Puducherry Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, August 31, 2013)

Note: All the chapters published on the website are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Reports

Banking and Accessibility in India: A Report by CIS (by Vrinda Maheshwari, August 12, 2013). This is the final report submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
Opening New Avenues for Empowerment (by UNESCO, August 31, 2013). UNESCO has published a global report on higher education titled “Opening New Avenues for Empowerment”. Nirmita Narasimhan was the coordinating author for the Asia Pacific region.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

As part of its project on developing the growth of Indic language communities with Wikimedia Foundation, CIS-A2K held six Wikipedia workshops. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Access to Knowledge
Research Paper

India's Obligations under Bilateral Investment Treaties (Part A): “Bilateral Inhibiting Treaty?” — Investigating the Challenges that Bilateral Investment Treaties pose to the Compulsory Licensing of Pervasive Technology Patent Pools (by Gavin Pereira, August 31, 2013).

Column

Copyrights and Copywrongs Why the Government Should Embrace the Public Domain (by Pranesh Prakash, Yojana, Issue: August 2013).

Media Coverage

Dictionary words in software patent guidelines puzzle industry (by C.H. Unnikrishnan, Livemint, August 26, 2013). CIS work on Access to Knowledge is mentioned.

Blog Entries

Are Indian Consumer Laws Ready for the Digital Age? (by Vipul Kharbanda, August 8, 2013).
Do You Have the Right to Unlock Your Smart Phone? (by Puneeth Nagaraj, August 7, 2013).

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)

The A2K team consists of four members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Syed Muzammiluddin, and one team member Nitika Tandon who works from Delhi.

Event Reports

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Krishnarajapet (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, August 14, 2013). The workshop was co-organized by the CIS-A2K team along with Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Sambalpur (by Gorvachove Pothal, August 27, 2013). This workshop was held at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Sambalpur on July 26 and 27, 2013. Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal organized this workshop with financial support from the CIS-A2K programme.

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder? (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 31, 2013). CIS-A2K team organized this event at the Konkani Department, Goa University from August 21 to 24, 2013.
Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles! (by Nitika Tandon, August 31, 2013). CIS-A2K team organized this event at the Konkani Department, Goa University from August 21 to 24, 2013. Thirty-eight students took part in the wiki editing workshop.

Events Co-organised

Digitization of Books for Indic Language WikiSource (organised by Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, August 18, 2013).
A Workshop on Editing Wikipedia in Mumbai (organised by the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education and CIS-A2K, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, August 24, 2013). The workshop was aimed at assisting students to take part in the Indian Languages Mela at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (September 20-21, 2013) which is hosting a competition for best Indian language entries on Wikipedia.

Event Hosted

Mobile Training Workshop @ CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 29, 2013). Rachita and Keerthana Chandrashekar gave a talk on mobile campaigns.

Events Participated

Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference (organised by Wikimedia Foundation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, August 7 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Wikimedia Asia Meeting (organised by Wikimedia community, Hong Kong, August 10, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting. Unedited transcript of the entire conversation is posted online.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/హైదరాబాద్/ఆగష్టు (Hyderabad, August 25, 2013). T.Vishnu Vardhan participated for the meeting through Skype.

Media Coverage

Wikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages (Before It’s News, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages (by Sandhya Soman, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in vernacular languages (by Divya Saboo, August 1, 2013). The Centre for Internet and Society is mentioned.
Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia (by R. Krishna Kumar, Hindu, August 2, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.
India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth (by Mahesh Sharma, TechCrunch, August 6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Prajavani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Vijaya Vani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Suvarna Times of Karnataka, August 12, 2013).
Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, August 24, 2013, The Goan). CIS-A2K workshop held in Goa is mentioned extensively. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013). Nitika Tandon is quoted.
Konkani Wikipedians Speak (Goan Voice Daily Newsletter, September 4, 2013). Konkani Wikipedia workshop organized in Goa from August 21 – 24, 2013 is mentioned in this newsletter.

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 5-6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is teaching a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era".
You too can write on Wikipedia! — Orientation Workshop (co-organised by CIS-A2K and the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, September 15, 2013).

Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 1 – 5, 2013). The programme will be held in the first week of October.

Blog Entries

Voices from Goa: Frania Pereira tells Why She Writes Articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).
Voices from Goa: Wikipedia Editor Rusita Paryekar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).

Openness

Event Hosted

Open Hardware Lab: Play & Invent + Bonus Film Screening (CIS, Bangalore, August 4, 2013). A hangout was done with CIS Lab Community and with members of the Computer Club of India and Arduino enthusiasts.

Event Participated

e-DIRAP Google+ Hangout on Open Government (organised by Google, July 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.

Media Coverage

Beyond Property Rights: Thinking About Moral Definitions of Openness (by David Eaves, Tech President, August 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Extending The Spectrum Of Openness To Include The Moral Right To Share (by Glyn Moody, Techdirt, August 19, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Internet Governance

CIS began two projects earlier this year. The first one on facilitating research and events on surveillance and freedom of expression is with Privacy International and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The second one on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia is with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada:

SAFEGUARDS Project

Event Report

Sixth Privacy Roundtable (co-organised by CIS, FICCI and DSCI, New Delhi, August 24, 2013). Bhairav Acharya and Prachi Arya participated in this event. The discussions and recommendations from the six round table meetings will be presented at the Internet Governance meeting in October 2013.

Newspaper / Magazine Columns

Freedom from Monitoring: India Inc Should Push For Privacy Laws (by Sunil Abraham, Forbes India Magazine, August 21, 2013).
Out of the Bedroom (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, August 25, 2013).

Blog Entries

'Ethical Hacker' Saket Modi Calls for Stronger Cyber Security Discussions (by Kovey Coles, August 5, 2013).
Ethical Issues in Open Data (by Kovey Coles, August 7, 2013).
FinFisher in India and the Myth of Harmless Metadata (by Maria Xynou, August 13, 2013).

Events Organised

The Hackers Way of Reshaping Policies (CIS, Bangalore, August 2, 2013). Bernadette Langle gave a talk on different ways to reshape policies.
Chennai: Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (Asian College of Journalism, Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.
The Phishing Society: Why 'Facebook' is more dangerous than the Government Spying on You - A Talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, August 7, 2013). Maria Xynou gave a talk on phishing society.
Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (ACJ - Asian College of Journalism, Second Main Road (Behind M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation), Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013).
Privacy Meeting: Brussels – Bangalore (CIS, Bangalore, August 14, 2013). Gertjan Boulet and Dariusz Kloza gave a talk on privacy.
Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2013). A Crypto Party was held at CIS.

Events Participated In

Summer School 2013 (organized by the Research Center of Media and Communication at the University of Hamburg, Germany, July 29 – August 2, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a panelist in the session on "Guilty until Proven Innocent: Pirates, Pornographers, Terrorists and the IT Act in India".
Meeting of a Sub-committee on DNA Profiling Bill (Hyderabad, August 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting for discussing the draft bill.
Surveillance: Privacy Vs Security (organized by the Foundation for Media Professionals, India International Centre, New Delhi, August 17, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.

Media Coverage

Crypto Night (by Rahul M., Caravan, August 1, 2013). Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Langle are quoted.
Facebook: Limiting access to social media can restrict freedom of speech (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Token disclosures? (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, August 4, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Memeâ€™s the word now (by Padmaparna Ghosh, The Times of India, August 4, 2013). Nishant Shah is quoted.
Chinese hackers baiting Indian govt, corporate employees: report (by Moulishree Srivastava and Anirban Sen, Livemint, August 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Mixed signals? Supreme Court notices to states on Facebook arrests (NDTV, August 16, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shreya Singhal and Faizal Farooqui discussed the grey areas of the IT Act.
Balancing vigilance and privacy (by Prashant Jha, The Hindu, August 18, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
How Next-Gen Smartphone Users are Being Bought and Sold (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India Magazine, August 13, 2013, and IBN Live, August 19, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Dear Milind Deora, Prakash Javadekar Deserved The Truth (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India, August 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Election campaign: parties draw battle lines on media platforms (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, August 26, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
India's Internet Privacy Woes (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India Magazine, August 26, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Cyberspying: Government may ban Gmail for official communication (The Times of India, August 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Indian government to bar politicians from using Gmail for official business (by Neil McAllister, The Register, August 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Cyber Stewards Project
Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project.

Video Interview

Part 9: Interview with Saikat Datta (August 5, 2013).

Telecom

CIS has published one newspaper column in the Business Standard and also made a submission to TRAI:

Newspaper Column

Breaking into the Closed Circle: Domestic High-Tech Manufacturing Needs Access To Markets (by Shyam Ponappa, originally published in the Business Standard, July 31, 2013 and also mirrored in Organizing India Blogspot, August 1, 2013).

Submission

TRAI Consultation Paper on Spectrum (by Shyam Ponappa and A.B. Beliappa, August 31, 2013). The submission was made to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on August 21, 2013.

Digital Humanities

We are building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia.

Blog Entries

Digital Humanities Talk (by Sara Morais, August 1, 2013). Sara wrote about her talk in this blog entry.
Theorizing the Digital Subaltern (by Sara Morais, August 2, 2013).

Event Organised

Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised by CIS-A2K, HEIRA, CSCS, Tumkur University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and CCS-Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013). Errata: We had got the name of one of the co-organisers wrong in our previous newsletter. We have corrected this now.

Event Participated In

South Asia Conference on Higher Education (organised by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Ford Foundation Office, New Delhi, August 5 – 7, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated in this conference.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.
Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

*Support Us*

Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2013-bulletin

Asian Video Cultures: In the Penumbra of the Global

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T09:35:13Z

Brown University organised the Asian Video Cultures event at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts between October 24 and 26, 2013. Nishant Shah presented a paper titled “In Access: Approaches to Understand Digital and Online Video in Contemporary Asia”.

Read about the event on Asian Video Cultures website here.

Agenda

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013 at 6pm (Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center)
Screening and Q&A with director Paromita Vohra
Partners in Crime (2011) – http://www.parodevi.com/?p=323
*followed by reception

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 (Englander Studio, Granoff Center)

8:30-9am *Breakfast

9am Welcome – Bhaskar Sarkar

Session I: Infra-structures

9:15 Jenny Chio, “Video Documentary and Rural Public Culture in Ethnic China”

10:15 Chia-chi Wu, “Wei dianying and Xiao quexing— Technologies of ‘Small’ and Trans-Chinese Cinematic Practices”

Coffee Break

11:30 Patricia Zimmerman, “EngageMedia: The Gado Gado Tactics of Indonesia’s New Social Media”

Lunch 12:30-1:30pm (*for participants)

Session II: Circulation

1:30 Feng-Mei Heberer, “An Archive of Bad Feelings, a Site of Public Address – Experimental Video Works from Asian Germany”

2:30 Rahul Mukherjee and Abhigyan Singh, “MircoSD-ing ‘Mewati Videos’: Circulation and Regulation of a Subaltern-Popular Media Culture”

Coffee Break

3:45 Michelle Cho, “Cosmopolitics and Kpop Video Culture”

4:45-6:15pm Screening and Discussion with Paromita Vohra
Q2P (2006, 53 min) – http://www.parodevi.com/?p=254

7pm Dinner

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26 (Englander Studio, Granoff Center)

8:30-9am Breakfast

Session III: Intimacies

9am Niranjan Sivakumar, “Minorigate: The Perils and Potentials of Global Cultural Circulation”

10am Conerly Casey, “Bollywood Banned, and the Electrifying Palmasutra: The Sensory Politics of Love and Pornography in Northern Nigeria”

Coffee Break

11:15am Nishant Shah, “In Access: Approaches to Understand Digital and Online Video in Contemporary Asia”

Lunch 12:15-1pm (*for participants)

Session IV: Occupation

1pm Mariam B. Lam, “Archival Trauma, Critical Regionalism and Southeast Asian Video Arts”

2pm Nathaniel Smith, “Vigilante Video: Japan’s New Netizens and the Wrongs of the Right”

Coffee Break

3:15pm Celina Hung, “Documenting ‘Immigrant Brides’: the Stakes of Multiculturalism in the Taiwanese Media”

4:30 Closing Roundtable: “In the Penumbra of the Global”

7pm Dinner

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/asian-video-cultures-october-24-26-2013

April 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-05-31T08:07:38Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the fourth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
We at the Centre for Internet and Society celebrate 5 years of existence with an exhibition showcasing our work and accomplishments over this time. The exhibition will be held concurrently at both our Bangalore and Delhi offices from May 20 to 24, 2013, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Google Policy Fellowship
CIS is inviting applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Google is providing a USD 7,500 stipend to the India fellow who will be selected by July 1, 2013. Fellowship focus areas include Access to Knowledge, Openness in India, Freedom of Expression, Privacy, and Telecom Send in your applications for the position by June 15, 2013.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org. CIS also invites applications for the post of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge, Pilot Projects). To apply for this position send your resume to vishnu@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan:

The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
Goa Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
The Jammu & Kashmir Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
The Rajasthan Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, April 30, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Events Organised

Girls in ICT Day (April 25, 2013, Mitra Jyothi Auditorium, HSR Layout, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk on Social Media and Kannada Language for Women with Disabilities. Sara Morais wrote an event report.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (May 9, 2013, TERI, Southern Regional Centre, Domlur, Bangalore).

Announcement

CIS Gets ITU-D Sector Membership: CIS has become a sector member of ITU-D.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Wikipedia
Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi, and one team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer has left the organisation. April 24, 2013 was her last working day.

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages.

Blog Entries

Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013).
Analysis of Konkani Wikipedia: Facts & Challenges (by Nitika Tandon, April 30, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 30, 2013).

Event Organised

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.

Events Co-organised
The following events were organised in the month of March but reports were written during the month of April. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi held meetings with wikipedians:

Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013).

The following event was organised in the month of April. We will be publishing the report soon:

Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013.

Other Access to Knowledge Updates

WIPO

CIS Intervention on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired at SCCR/SS/GE/2/13 (Geneva, April 18 – 20, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the session and spoke about the rights of the visually impaired.

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes. Currently, CIS is doing a project with Privacy International, London to facilitate research and events around surveillance, and freedom of speech and expression.

Information Technology

IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69A Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 27, 2013).
Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, 419A Rules and IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69 Rules (by Jadine Lannon, April 28, 2013).
IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69 Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 30, 2013).
IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69B Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 30, 2013).

Resources
The below rules were published recently:

Newspaper Column

Off the Record (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, April 6, 2013).

Privacy

India´s ´Big Brother´: The Central Monitoring System (CMS) (by Maria Xynou, April 8, 2013).

Events Organised
Maria Xynou gives an overview of the discussions and recommendations from the privacy round tables held in Delhi and Bangalore:

A Privacy Round Table in Delhi (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, April 3, 2013).
A Privacy Round Table in Bangalore (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Jayamahal Palace, Jayamahal Road, Bangalore, April 20, 2013).

Announcements

2nd Expert Committee meeting on draft 'Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012': The Department of Biotechnology has constituted an Expert Committee to discuss various issues of this Bill in detail. Sunil Abraham has been nominated as one of the members of this Committee. A meeting of this Expert Committee has been scheduled for May 13, 2013 under the Chairmanship of Dr. T. S. Rao, Adviser, DBT.
Chinmayi Arun is one of the international experts supporting the Internet & Jurisdiction project, a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process.

Upcoming Events

A Privacy Round Table in Chennai (co-organised with Data Security Council of India and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Residency Towers, Sir Thyagaraja Road, T Nagar, Chennai, May 18, 10.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.).
Consilience – 2013 (National Law School of India University, Bangalore, May 26 – 27, 2013).

Other Event Hosted

Or-bits.com — A Talk by Marialaura Ghidini (CIS, Bangalore, April 19, 2013). Marialaura Ghidini gave a talk abou the creation and activities of or-bits.com, a web-based curatorial platform that she founded in 2009.

News and Media

Clarify and define terms in IT rules, panel tells govt. (by Prashant Jha, Hindu, April 1, 2013).
India takes its first serious step toward privacy regulation – but it may be misguided (Privacy Surgeon, April 9, 2013).
Regulating Social Media: Unrealistic, Impossible, Necessary? (NDTV, April 11, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in a discussion on social media aired on NDTV.
Social media may influence 160 LS seats in 2014 (by Zia Haq, Hindustan Times, April 12, 2013).
Vote: Will Social Media Impact the Election? (by R. Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2013).
Untangling the web of India's 'ungovernable' Net (Deutsche Welle, April 15, 2013).
CIS in GNI Annual Report (April 25, 2013). CIS gets mentioned in GNI Annual Report. Sunil Abraham is quoted in it.
Is free speech an Indian value? (by Satarupa Sen Bhattacharya, India Together, April 27, 2013).

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project on Internet Access. It covers the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access and will touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event
We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” with the support of Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details have been announced.

The following units have been published:

Internet Infrastructure (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, April 30, 2013).
Internet Service Provider – Introduction (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, April 30, 2013).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility of telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Prioritizing Communications & Energy (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard and Organizing India Blogspot, April 4, 2013).

Blog Entry

From Open Citizen Radio Networks to the Race for .RADIO gTLD (by Sharath Chandra Ram, April 30, 2013).

Event Participated

Broadband Policy Course (organised by Lirne Asia, Bangalore, April 5 – 6, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan and Snehashish Ghosh attended the course.

About CIS

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Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2013-bulletin

Animating the Archive – A Survey of Printed Digitized Materials in Bengali and their Use in Higher Education

sneha — 2014-04-14T07:12:32Z

With the advent of digital technologies and the internet, archival practice has seen much change in its imagination and function, such as to extend its scope beyond preservation to a collaborative, open source model which facilitates new modes of knowledge production. In this blog post, Saidul Haque reflects upon his research project on a survey of digitized materials in Bengali, and some of the impediments to their use in higher education and research.

At present a large collection of printed Bengali materials in the form of books, journals, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, etc., is scattered in various public libraries, institutions, and private collections in India and abroad.These endangered and hidden cultural resources in vernacular languages need to be digitized and shared to a networked community using an online platform not only for the sake of preservation but also for wider dissemination. A comprehensive survey of printed digitized materials in the field of Arts and Culture, Education, Politics/Economy was executed as part of a collaborative project with HEIRA-CSCS, Bangalore. The survey was carried out at School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University and Centre for the Study of Social Sciences (CSSS), Kolkata. These are the pioneering institutions in Bengal to introduce digital preservation of cultural materials and they have ongoing digitization initiatives. Online archives/ digital repositories available in the public domain [like West Bengal Public Library Network, Society for Natural Language Technology Research (SNLTR), Digital Library of India, E-Gyankosh of Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU), Rare Bengali Book section in Internet Archive, Digital South Asia Library, various public blogs] also came under this survey. Observations were gathered through interviews with resource persons involved in digitization. Discussion with students, researchers and faculty members concentrated on the use of Bengali digitized materials in higher education.

School of Cultural Texts and Records(SCTR) has digitized popular street literature and a wide collection of rare and unique texts on Bengali drama of 19th century .The revolutionary Bichitra Project of the School provides a complete online resource of Rabindranath Tagore’s works in both English and Bengali. (http://bichitra.jdvu.ac.in/index.php). Centre for Studies in Social Science, on the other hand started preserving rare documents in microfilm format from 1993 but later shifted to digitization mode. In 2008 the CSSSC and Savifa (University of Heidelberg) through a collaborative programme made available the collection of CSSSC (the early printed literature in Bengali from 1800-1950) online. The centre has also retrieved two major and endangered Bengali newspapers: Jugantar and Amrita Bazar Patrika from colonial and post–colonial Bengal. Amrita bazaar patrika is available online through the World Newspaper Archive Collection.

Online repositories like West Bengal Public Library Network and Digital Library of India also holds a large number of Bengali books but in most cases Indian language full-text contents are available in TIFF image format only.

The issue of using digitized Bengali materials in higher education sheds light on various problems related to free access, copyright issue, technological adversity, and metadata. Most of the materials available in digital domain are popular story books and hence scarcity of scholarly materials in Bengali for higher education is evident. Most of the students do not know where to search and how to search and they prefer to visit libraries. There are almost 17,000 entries in the domain of Bengali Wikipedia. But either students are unaware of their existence or don’t rely on these materials as these are not updated. Most of them are even unaware of the fact that they can edit these pages. Recently a few scholars started uploading essays in Bengali on Academia.edu. But teachers are doubtful about the quality of these materials as anyone can upload papers here. E-thesis depository spaces like Shodhganga and Vidyanidhi contain materials in English and a few in regional languages like Hindi but not in Bengali. In the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), there are only two bi-lingual journals ( Barnolipi and Pratidhwani) which publish articles in Bengali. Teachers are unanimous in the belief that online publication of Bengali research articles will bring more research citations and also decrease the rate of duplicity of same research topic. But scarcity of open access Bengali materials (digitized and born digital) online is a great hindrance in doing research in Bengali.

Researchers in Bengali language and literature may also come forward to participate actively in digitizing rare materials. Of course funding and technical equipment are great hindrance but institutions like SCTR, Jadavpur University are eager to provide scanners and other support to those who want to digitize important cultural resources. Presently the concept of online Bengali bookshops has emerged. The numbers of online e-magazines and e-newspapers in Bengali is growing day by day. What we need is to make people aware of the existence of these resources. It is a positive step on the part of people who are using social networking sites in Bengali and often bringing out creative magazines online to reach a greater audience.

Metadata of Bengali digitized materials is mostly in transliterated form and not in Bengali. Hence searching in Bengali fonts often brings no result. People engaged in digitization should be experts in handling Bengali standard key board like Avro. It would also be good if people engaged in digitization of Indic languages join in workshops and build a common standard of Metadata. Rather than following Western forms like Dublin code it may be thought of an indigenous code of metadata in Bengali. Issue of Free Access and the question of copyright go hand in hand. A large bulk of digitized Bengali materials is available in the archive room of SCTR and CSSS. These cannot be uploaded online for free access due to copyright issues or the unwillingness of the contributors of original materials. Most donors are not willing to give their works to these institutions as often they think that it will diminish their own authority and researchers will go to the University directly and not to them. Often the donors can’t trust the institutes and ask to digitize materials in their own home and return the original materials as soon as possible before they are stolen or lost. Regarding problem of digitization it is observed that most materials are fragile and digitization tasks with scanners and other technological instruments often led to the destruction of the original material.

We also need to think of preserving the large terabytes of data on one hand and original copies on the other hand. Institutional collaboration can be one way of bringing all digital materials in one single platform. In this regard, the role of C-DAC, Kolkata and SNLTR in digitization of vernacular language materials is praiseworthy.

Saidul Haque is a student of the PG course on Digital Humanities and Cultural Informatics at the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. This research study was part of a series of projects commissioned by HEIRA-CSCS, Bangalore as part of a collaborative exercise on mapping the Digital Humanities in India. See here for more on this initiative.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/animating-the-archive

Alt needs to Shift

nishant — 2012-12-14T10:03:30Z

People maybe talking more online, but they all seem to be talking about the same kind of thing.

Nishant Shah's column was published in the Indian Express on November 18, 2012.

If you were to recount what has happened in the world, based entirely on your tweetosphere and Facebook timelines, you might realise that everything important seems to have happened elsewhere. It is true that we live in a widely connected viral world, where if the USA sneezes, India gets a flu, but it seems as if lately, the things that I hear and read about are generally things that happen only at a global level. More surprisingly, most of the news that trends on Twitter, gets promoted on Facebook, and discussed on Google Plus, is in sync with what is being reported in mainstream media.

Of course, the voices are different. People have found a space for their opinions. There are strong critiques and alternative viewpoints around these events which are finding space in the public domain.

Much like the salons and cafes of the 18th century, which saw a whole range of new educated classes coming into the public to discuss and shape the society they lived in, the digital commons have created new public spaces of expression and discussion. This has been, indeed, one of the visions of the social web and we have reached a point where, at least for digital natives who have grown up within digital ecosystems, there is space to produce alternative opinions in their immediate environments.

At the turn of the millennium, when the social Web was being shaped, this was one of the biggest excitements — the possibility that voices from outside of mainstream and traditional media, which often get curtailed, would find contestations and alternative visions from people’s everyday experiences. And in many ways, it looks like we have achieved this dream, and found channels, communities and information strategies, which allow for conflicting views to co-exist in our knowledge spectrum. It is fascinating to realise that just a decade ago, the ways in which we talked about the key questions of our life, was so different, and was largely controlled by those in positions of power who identified only certain things as “newsworthy”.

Traditional media has also changed dramatically, with citizen reporters contributing to the content, crowdfunded information shaping news, and ordinary people being the first to witness globally significant events before the larger media complexes arrived. And now that we are well on our way to harnessing the power of this social web, there is something else that needs to be addressed.

It is the concern that increasingly people are talking more, but they seem to be talking about the same kind of thing! Sure, there are many different voices, but their focus of attention is the same. We see a whole range of alternative opinions emerging, but they are still clustered around the things that traditional media is also covering.

In the age of information overload, with so many different information streams, it feels like there is a homogenisation of information where increasingly only that which can be easily understood, easily read, easily captured to create spectacles gets to be at the centre of the attention economies. Which is why, news which is local, things which do not have global interest, and events which cannot be captured in videos on YouTube and hashtags on Twitter, do not feature in the alternative worlds of the social web. And when these locally relevant and significant things get mentioned, they have to work so much harder, to overcome the visibility threshold to get attention from the local publics.

We have found the alternative to the mainstream, but maybe it is now time to find the alternative to the alternative. We need to think of localisation of our social web. A lot of effort is made towards being on the global information highway, but we now also need to start investing energy into rendering our local contexts more accessible and intelligible, not only to the larger worlds but also to ourselves. Maybe it is time to reflect on how much we posted, read and consumed of the recent presidential elections in the USA, and try to recollect what else happened in the world. Maybe it is time to step out of our silos where we have replaced multiplicity of things with diversity of opinions about a narrow range of things. The next time you see something trending or popular, it might be a good idea to reflect on what else might be hiding behind the virality of that digital object.

This column was informed by conversations from a thought exploration on ‘Habits of Living’ supported by Brown University and Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/indian-express-nov-18-2012-nishant-shah-alt-needs-to-shift

A Question of Digital Humanities

sneha-pp — 2016-06-30T05:06:46Z

An extended survey of digital initiatives in arts and humanities practices in India was undertaken during the last year. Provocatively called 'mapping digital humanities in India', this enquiry began with the term 'digital humanities' itself, as a 'found' name for which one needs to excavate some meaning, context, and location in India at the present moment. Instead of importing this term to describe practices taking place in this country - especially when the term itself is relatively unstable and undefined even in the Anglo-American context - what I chose to do was to take a few steps back, and outline a few questions/conflicts that the digital practitioners in arts and humanities disciplines are grappling with. The final report of this study will be published serially. This is the second among seven sections.

Sections

01. Digital Humanities in India?

02. A Question of Digital Humanities

03. Reading from a Distance – Data as Text

04. The Infrastructure Turn in the Humanities

05. Living in the Archival Moment

06. New Modes and Sites of Humanities Practice

07. Digital Humanities in India – Concluding Thoughts

The 'digital turn' has been one of the significant changes in interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the last couple of decades. The advent of new digital technologies and growth of networked environments have led to a rethinking of the traditional processes of knowledge gathering and production, across an array of fields and disciplinary areas. DH has emerged as yet another manifestation of what in essence is this changing relationship between technologies and the human being or subject. The nature and processes of information, scholarship and learning, now produced or mediated by digital tools, methods or spaces have formed the crux of the DH discourse as it has emerged in different parts of the world so far. It has been variously called a phenomenon, field, discipline and a set of convergent practices – all of which are located at and/or try to understand the interaction between digital technologies and humanities practice and scholarship. DH in the Anglo-American context has seen several changes – from an early phase of vast archival initiatives and digitisation projects, to now exploring the role of big data and cultural analytics in literary criticism. Some of the early scholarship in the field illustrate the problems with defining and locating it within specific disciplinary formations, as the research objects, methods and locations of DH work cut across everything from the archive to the laboratory and social networking platforms. Largely interpreted as a way to explore the intersection of information technology and humanities, DH is grown to become an interdisciplinary field of research and practice today. However, DH is also clearly being posited as a site of contestation – what is perceived as doing away with or reinventing certain norms of traditional humanities research and scholarship. As a result it has largely been framed within the existing narrative of a crisis in the humanities, highlighting the more prominent role of technology which is now expected to resolve in some way questions of relevance and authority that seem to have become central to the continued existence and practice of the humanities in its conventional forms.

The Problem of Definition

The question of what is DH has been asked many times, and in different ways. Most scholars have differentiated between two waves or types of DH – the first is that of using computational tools to do traditional humanities research, while the second looks at the 'digital' itself as integral to humanistic enquiry [1]. However as is apparent in the existing discourse, the problem of definition still persists. As a field, method or practice, is it a found term that has now been appropriated in various forms and by various disciplines, or is it helping us reconfigure questions of the humanities by making available, through advancements in technology, a new digital object or a domain of enquiry that previously was unavailable to us? These and others will continue to remain questions for the digital humanities, but it would be important to first examine what would be the question/s of digital humanities. Dave Parry summarises to some extent these different contentions to a definition of the field when he suggests that "what is at stake here is not the object of study or even epistemology, but rather ontology. The digital changes what it means to be human, and by extension what it means to study the humanities." (Parry 2012)

Some speculation on the larger premise of the field, with specific reference to its emergence in India is what I hope to chart out in this report. This is not in itself an attempt at a definition, but sketching out a domain of enquiry by mapping the field with respect to work being done in the Indian context. In doing so these propositions will assume one or the other (if not all three) of these following suggested threads or modes of thought, which will also inform larger concerns of the DH work at CIS:

The first is the inherited separation of technology and the humanities and therefore the existing tenuous relationship between the two fields. As is apparent in the nomenclature itself, there seems to be a bringing together of what seem to have been essentially two separate domains of knowledge. However, the humanities and technology have a rather chequered history together, which one could locate with the beginning of print culture. As Adrian Johns points out in the Nature of the book, "any printed book is, as a matter of fact, both the product of one complex set of social and technological processes and the beginning of another" (Johns 1998:3). The larger imagination of humanities as text-based disciplines can be located in a sense in the rise of printing, literacy and textual scholarship. While the book itself seems to have made a comfortable transition into the digital realm, the process of this transition, the channels of circulation and distribution of information as objects of study have been relegated to certain disciplinary concerns, thus obfuscating and making invisible this 'technologised history' of the humanities. Can DH therefore be an attempt to uncover such a history and bridge these knowledge gaps would be a question here?
The distance between the practice and the subject. How does one identify with DH practice? While many people engage with what seem to be core DH concerns, they are not all 'digital humanists' or do not identify themselves by the term. While at one level the problem is still that of definition and taxonomy – what is or is not DH – at another level it is also about the nature of subjectivity produced in such practice – whether it has one of its own or is still entrenched in other disciplinary formations, as is the case with most DH research today. This is apparent in the emphasis on processes and tools in DH– where the practice or method seems to have emerged before the theoretical or epistemological framework. One may also connect this to the larger discourse on the emergence of the techno-social subject [2] as an identity meditated by digital and new media technologies, wherein technology is central to the practices that engender this subjectivity.
Tying back to the first question is also the notion of a conflict between the humanities and DH. This comes with the perception of DH being a version 2.0 of the traditional humanities, a result of the existing narrative of crisis and the need for the humanities disciplines to reinvent themselves to remain relevant in the present context, and one way to do this is by becoming amenable to the use of computing tools. DH has emerged as one way to mediate between the humanities and the changes that are imminent with digital technologies, but it may not or even need not take up the task of trying to establish a teleological connection between the two. The theoretical pursuits of both may be different but deeply related, and this is one manner of approaching DH as a field or domain of enquiry; the point of intersection or conflict would be where new questions emerge. This narrative is also located within a larger framing of DH in terms of addressing the concerns of the labour market, and the fear of the humanities being displaced or replaced as a result. Parry’s objective of studying DH works with and tries to address this particular formulation of the field.

Locating these concerns in India, where the field of DH is still at an incipient stage comes with a multitude of questions. For one the digital divide still persists to a large extent in India, and is at different levels due to the complexity of linguistic and social conditions of technological advancement. It is difficult locate a field that is so premised on technology in such a varied context. Secondly, the existing discourse on DH still draws upon, to a large extent, the given history of the term which renders it inaccessible to certain groups or classes of people in the global South. Another issue which is not specifically Indian but can be seen more explicitly in this context is the somewhat uncritical way in which technology itself is imagined. In most spaces, technology is still understood as either ‘facilitating’ something, either a specific kind of research enquiry or as a tool - a means to an end, and as being value or culture neutral. However, if we are to imagine the digital as a condition of being as Parry says, then technology too cannot be relegated to being a means to an end. Bruno Latour indicates the same when he says "Technology is everywhere, since the term applies to a regime of enunciation, or, to put it another way, to a mode of existence, a particular form of exploring existence, a particular form of the exploration of being – in the midst of many others." (Latour 2002)

DH then in some sense takes us back to the notion of technology or more specifically the digital realm as being a discursive space, and a technosocial or cultural paradigm that generates new objects and methods of study. This has been the impetus of cyber culture and digital culture studies, but what separates DH from these fields is another way to arrive at some understanding of its ontological status. At a cursory glance, the shift from content to process, from information to data seems to be the key transition here, and the blurring of the boundaries between such absolute categories. More importantly however, does this point towards an epistemic shift; a rupture in the given understanding of certain knowledge formations or systems is also a pertinent question of DH. There are several questions therefore for DH - in terms of what it means and what it could do for our understanding of the humanities and technology. However the questions of DH still need to be made explicit. This mapping exercise will attempt to explore some of the above thoughts a little further. Through discussions with scholars and practitioners across diverse fields, we will attempt to map and generate different meanings of the ‘digital’ and DH. While one can expect this to definitely produce more questions, we also hope the process of thinking though these questions will lead to an understanding of the larger field as well.

The Problem of the Discipline

Much has been said and written about DH as an emergent field or domain of enquiry; the plethora of departments being set up all across the world, well mostly the developed world is testimony to the claimed innovative and generative potential of the field. However as outlined in the introduction the problem of definition still persists and poses much difficulty in any attempts to engage with the field. While the predominant narrative seems to be in terms of defining what DH or to take it a step back, what the ‘digital’ allows you to do, with respect to enabling or facilitating certain kinds of research and pedagogy, a pertinent question still is that of what it allows you to ‘be’. DH has been alternatively called a method, practice and field of enquiry, but scholars and practitioners in many instances have stopped short of fully embracing it as a discipline. This is an interesting development given the rapid pace of its institutionalisation - from being located in existing Humanities or Computational Sciences and Media Studies departments it has now claimed functional institutional spaces of its own, with not just interdisciplinary research and teaching but also other creative and innovative knowledge-making practices. The field is slowly gaining credence in India as well, with several institutions pursuing research around core questions within the fold of DH.

So is the disciplinary lens inadequate to understand this phenomenon, or is it too early for a field still considered in some ways rather incipient. The growth of the academic discipline itself is something of a fraught endeavour; as debates around the scientific revolution and Enlightenment thought have established. To put it in a very simple manner, the story of academic disciplines is that of training in reason [3]. Andrew Cutrofello says "In academia, a discipline is defined by its methodological rigor and the clear boundaries of its field of inquiry. Methods or fields are criticized as being 'fuzzy' when they are suspected of lacking a discipline. In a more straightforwardly Foucauldian sense, the disciplinary power of academic disciplines can be located in their methods for producing docile bodies of different sorts" (Cutrofello 1994). The problem with defining DH may lie in it not conforming to precisely this notion of the academic discipline, and changing ideas of the function of critique when mediated by the digital, which is of primary concern for the humanities. DH has in many spaces also emerged as a manifestation of increasing interdisciplinarity and the blurring of boundaries between traditional disciplinary concerns.

However a prevalent mode of understanding DH has been in terms of the disciplinary concerns it raises for the humanities themselves; this works with the assumption that it is in fact a newer, improved version or extension of the humanities. The present mapping exercise too began with the disciplinary lens, but instead of enquiring about what DH is, it tried to explore what the ‘digital’ has brought to, changed or appropriated in terms of existing disciplinary concerns within the humanities and more broadly spaces and process of knowledge-making and dissemination. This thought stems from the premise that if we have to posit the digital itself as a state of being or existence, then we need to understand this new techno-social paradigm much better. Prof. Amlan Dasgupta, at the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University in Kolkata sees this as useful way of going about the problem of trying to arrive at a definition of the field – one is to understand the history of the term, from its inherited definition in the Anglo-American context, and distinguish it from what he calls the current state of ‘digitality’ – where all cultural objects are being now being conceived of as ‘digital’ objects. In the Indian context, the question of digitality also becomes important from the perspective of technological obsolescence - where there is a great resistance to discontinuing or phasing out the use of certain kinds of technology; either for lack of access to better ones or simply because one finds other uses for it. Prof. Dasgupta interestingly terms this a ‘culture of reuse’, one example of this being the typewriter which for all practical purposes has been displaced by the computer, but still finds favour with several people in their everyday lives. The question of livelihood is still connected to some of these technologies, so much so that they are very much a part of channels of cultural production and circulation, and even when they cease to become useful they have value as cultural artefacts. We therefore inhabit at the same time, different worlds, that of the analogue and digital, or as he calls it 'a multi-layered technological sphere'. The notion of the 'digital' is also multi-layered, with some objects being 'weakly digital', and others being so in a more pronounced manner. The variedness of this space, and the complexities or ‘degrees of use’ of certain technologies or technological objects is what further determines the nature of this space and makes it all the more difficult to define. DH itself has seen several phases in the West, but has seen no such movement or gradual evolution in India, where these phases exist simultaneously.

This is also true of most technology in underdeveloped world. This further complicates the questions of access to technology or the 'digital divide' which have been and still are some of the primary approaches concerning the pervasiveness of technology, particularly in the Global South. The need of the hour therefore is to be able to distinguish between this current state of digitality that we are in, and what is meant by the ‘Digital Humanities’. It may after all be a set of methodologies rather than a subject or discipline in itself– the question is how it would help us understand the ‘digital’ itself much better, and more critically, and the new kinds of enquiries it may then facilitate about this space we now inhabit. This, Prof. Dasgupta feels would go a long way in arriving at some definition of the field.

One of the important points of departure, from the traditional humanities and later humanities computing as mentioned earlier, has been the blurring of boundaries between content, method and object/s of enquiry. The ‘process’ has become important, as illustrated by the iterative nature of most DH projects and the discourse itself which emphasises the 'making' and 'doing' aspects of the research as much as the content itself. Tool-building as a critical activity rather than as mere facilitation is an important part of the knowledge-making process in the field (Ramsay 2010). In conjunction with this, Dr. Moinak Biswas, at the Department of Film Studies at Jadavpur University, thinks that the biggest changes have been in terms of the collaborative nature of knowledge production, based on voluntarily sharing or creating new content through digital platforms and archives, and crucially the possibility of now imagining creative and analytical work as not separate practices, but located within a single space and time. He cites an example from film, where now with digital platforms and processes ‘image’ making and critical practice can both be combined on one platform, like the online archive Indiancine.ma [4] or the Vectors journal [5] for example, to produce new layers of meaning around existing texts. The aspect of critique is important here, given that the consistent criticism about the field has been the ambiguity of its social undertaking; its critical or political standpoint or challenge to existing theoretical paradigms. Most of the interest around the term has been in very instrumental terms, as a facilitator or enabler of certain kinds of digital practice. While the move away from computational analysis as a technique to facilitate humanities research is apparent, the disciplinary concerns here still seem to be latched onto those of the traditional humanities. Questions about the epistemological concerns of DH itself therefore remain unanswered.

While reiterating some of these core questions within DH, Dr. Souvik Mukherjee at the Department of English, Presidency University and Dr. Padmini Ray Murray, at the Centre for Public History, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, speak of the problem of locating the field in India, where work is presently only being done in a few small pockets. The lack of a precise definition, or location within an established disciplinary context are some reasons why a lot of work that could come within the ambit of DH is not being acknowledged as such; conversely it also leads to the problem of projects on digitisation or studies of digital cultures/cyber cultures being easily conflated with DH . Related to this is the absence of self-claimed ‘digital humanists’, which makes it all the more difficult to identify the boundaries of their research and practice. More importantly, the lack of an indigenous framework to theorise around questions of the digital is also an obstacle to understanding what the field entails and the many possibilities it may offer in the Indian context. This they feel is a problem not just of DH, but in general for modes of knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities that have adopted Western theoretical constructs. One could also locate in some sense the present crisis in disciplines within this problem. Sundar Sarukkai and Gopal Guru explicate this issue when they talk about the absence of 'experience as an important category of the act of theorising' because of the privileging of ideas in Western constructs of experience (Guru and Sarukkai 2012). This is also reflective of the bifurcation between theory and praxis in traditional social sciences or humanities epistemological frameworks which borrow heavily from the West. DH while still to arrive at a core disciplinary concern seems to point towards the problem of this very demarcation by addressing the aspect of practice as a very focal point of its discourse.

Dr. Indira Chowdhury, oral historian and director of the Centre for Public History, who is also a faculty member at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore sees this as a favourable way of understanding how the field as such has emerged and what its various possibilities could be in terms of different disciplinary perspectives. She is uncertain that of its emergence as a response to a ‘crisis’ in the humanities as such. She recalls an instance of one of her students who went on to work on hypertext in Canada, several years ago, which for her seemed to be the first instance of something close to DH. The IT revolution in the early 2000s was a significant change, and there were several things that it enabled people to do, in terms of concordance, cross-referencing and getting around texts in certain ways. However, whether key questions in the humanities really changed, whether they were taken any further, is something yet to be explored because it is still such a new field, and one can only be speculative about it, she feels. It perhaps pushes for a new level of interdisciplinarity, and a different kind of collaborative space that the digital enables. What is significant and exciting for her as a historian, however, is that if history has to survive as a discipline, in schools but in terms of public spaces and discourse, it should actively engage with the digital. This not only presents significant challenges, in terms how to represent the past in the digital space, (in short problems with method) but also opens up new possibilities, for example with oral history and the advent of digital sound. The definition of the field will also evolve, as people define it from different spaces of practice and research, which Dr. Chowdhury feels is crucial to keeping it open and accessible by all.

Even from diverse disciplinary perspectives, at present the understanding of DH is that it facilitates new modes of humanistic enquiry, or enables one to ask questions that could not be asked earlier. As Prof. Dasgupta reiterates, it is no longer possible to imagine humanities scholarship outside of the ‘digital’ as such, as that is the world we inhabit. However, while some of the key conceptual questions for the humanities may remain the same, it is the mode of questioning that has undergone a change – we need to re-learn questioning or question-making within this new digital sphere, which is in some sense also a critical and disciplinary challenge. While this does not resolve the problem of definition, it does provide a useful route into thinking of what would be questions of DH, particularly in the Indian context.

Notes

[1] For a more detailed overview of the different phases of DH, see Patrik Svensson in 'Landscape of Digital Humanities,' Digital Humanities Quarterly, Volume 4 Number 1, 2010, http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/4/1/000080/000080.html.

[2] For more on the nature of the technosocial subject, see Nishant Shah, The Technosocial Subject: Cities, Cyborgs and Cyberspace, Manipal University, 2013. Indian ETD Repository @ INFLIBNET, http://hdl.handle.net/10603/8558.

[3] This is rather simple abstraction of ideas about discipline and reason as they have stemmed from Enlightenment thought. For a more elaborate understanding see Conflict of the Faculties (1798) by Immanuel Kant and Discipline and Punish (1975) by Michel Foucault.

[4] See: http://indiancine.ma/.

[5] See: http://vectors.usc.edu/journal/index.php.

References

Cutrofello, Andrew, Discipline and Critique: Kant, Poststructuralism and the Problem of Resistance, State University of New York Press, 1994.

Guru, Gopal, and Sundar Sarukkai, The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory, New Delhi: Oxford University Press India, 2012.

Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Latour, Bruno, 'Morality and Technology: The End of the Means,' Trans. Couze Venn, Theory Culture Society, 247-260, 2002.

Parry, Dave, 'The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism', Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Mathew K. Gold, University of Minnesota Press, 2012, http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/24.

Ramsay, Stephen, 'On Building,' 2010, http://lenz.unl.edu/papers/2011/01/11/on-building.html.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/a-question-of-digital-humanities