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A street poll on the definition of eve teasing in Calcutta
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/eveteasing.jpg
<b></b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/eveteasing.jpg'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/eveteasing.jpg</a>
</p>
No publishermaesy2010-10-27T22:33:08ZImageReflecting from the Beyond
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond
<b>After going ‘beyond the digital’ with Blank Noise through the last nine posts, the final post in the series reflects on the understanding gained so far about youth digital activism and questions one needs to carry in moving forward on researching, working with, and understanding digital natives. </b>
<p></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">Throughout
the series, I have argued the following points. <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause" class="external-link">Firstly</a>, the 21<sup>st</sup>
century society is changing into a network society and that youth movements are
changing accordingly. I have outlined the gaps in the current perspectives used
in understanding the current form and proposed to approach the topic by going
beyond the digital: from a youth standpoint, exploring all the elements of
social movement, and based on a case study in the Global South – the uber cool
Blank Noise community who have embraced the research with open arms. The
methodology has allowed me to identify the newness in <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">youth’s approach to
social change</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within" class="external-link">ways of organizing</a>. Although I do not mean to generalize,
there are some points where the case study resonates with the broader youth
movement of today. In this concluding post, I will reflect on how the research
journey has led me to rethink several points about youth, social change, and
activism.</p>
<p>While
social movements are commonly imagined to aim for concrete structural change,
many youth movements today aim for social and cultural change at the intangible
attitudinal level. Consequently, they articulate the issue with an intangible
opponent (the mindset) and less-measurable goals. Their objective is to raise
public awareness, but their approach to social change is through creating
personal change at the individual level through engagement with the movement.
Hence, ‘success’ is materialized in having as many people as possible involved
in the movement. This is enabled by several factors.</p>
<p>The
first is the Internet and new media/social technologies, which is used as a
site for community building, support group, campaigns, and a basis to allow
people spread all over the globe to remain involved in the collective in the
absence of a physical office. However, the cyber is not just a tool; it is also
a public space that is equally important with the physical space. Despite acknowledging
the diversity of the public engaged in these spaces, youth today do not
completely regard them as two separate spheres. Engaging in virtual community
has a real impact on everyday lives; the virtual is a part of real life for
many youth (Shirky, 2010). However, it is not a smooth ‘space of flows’
(Castells, 2009) either. Youth actors in the Global South do recognize that
their ease in navigating both spheres is the ability of the elite in their
societies, where the digital divide is paramount. The disconnect stems from
their <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question" class="external-link">acknowledgement</a> that social change must be multi-class and an expression
of their reflexivity in facing the challenge.</p>
<p>The
second enabling factor is its highly individualized approach. The movement
enables people to personalize their involvement, both in terms of frequency and
ways of engagement as well as in meaning-making. It is an echo of the age of
individualism that youth are growing up in, shaped by the liberal economic and
political ideologies in the 1990s India
and elsewhere (France,
2007). Individualism has become a new social structure, in which personal decisions
and meaning-making is deemed as the key to solve structural issues in late
modernity (<em>Ibid).</em></p>
<p>In this era, young
people’s lives consist of a combination of a range of activities rather than
being focused only in one particular activity (<em>Ibid). </em>This is also the case in their social and political
engagement. Very few young people worldwide are full-time activists or
completely apathetic, the mainstream are actually involved in ‘everyday
activism’ (Bang, 2004; Harris et al, 2010). These are young people who are
personalizing politics by adopting causes in their daily behaviour and
lifestyle, for instance by purchasing only Fair Trade goods, or being very involved
in a short term concrete project but then stopping and moving on to other activities.
The emergence of these everyday activists are explained by the dwindling authority
of the state in the emergence of major corporations as political powers
(Castells, 2009) and youth’s decreased faith in formal political structures
which also resulted in decreased interest in collectivist, hierarchical social
movements in favour of a more individualized form of activism made easier with
Web 2.0 (Harris et al, 2010).</p>
<p>A collective of
everyday activists means that there are many forms of participation that one
can fluidly navigate in, but it requires a committed leadership core recognized
through presence and engagement. As Clay Shirky (2010: 90) said, the main
cultural and ethical norm in these groups is to ‘give credit where credit is
due’. Since these youth are used to producing and sharing content rather than
only consuming, the aforementioned success of the movement lies on the leaders’
ability to facilitate this process. The power to direct the movement is not
centralized in the leaders; it is dispersed to members who want to use the
opportunity.</p>
<p>This form of
movement defies the way social movements have been theorized before, where
individuals commit to a tangible goal and the group engagement directed under a
defined leadership. The contemporary youth movement could only exist by staying
with the intangible articulation and goal to accommodate the variety of
personalized meaning-making and allow both personal satisfaction and still
create a wider impact; it will be severely challenged by a concrete goal like
advocating for a specific regulation. Not all youth there are ‘activist’ in the
common full-time sense, for most everyday activists their engagement might not
be a form of activism at all but a productive and pleasurable way to use their
free time<span class="MsoFootnoteReference">
</span> - or, in Clay Shirky’s term, cognitive surplus
(2010).</p>
<p>Revisiting my
initial intent to put the term activism under scrutiny, I acknowledge this as a
call for scholars to re-examine the concepts of activism and social movements
through a process of de-framing and re-framing to deal with how youth today are
shaping the form of movements. Although the limitations of this paper do not
allow me to directly address the challenge, I offer my own learning from this
process for the quest of future researchers.</p>
<p>The way young
people today are reimagining social change and movements reiterate that
political and social engagement should be conceived in the plural. Instead of
“Activism” there should be “activisms” in various forms; there is not a new
form replacing the older, but all co-existing and having the potential to
complement each other. Allowing people to cope with street sexual harassment
and create a buzz around the issue should complement, not replace, efforts made
by established movements to propose a legislation or service provision from the
state. This is also a response I offer to the proponents of the aforementioned
“doubt” narrative.</p>
<p>I share the more
optimistic viewpoint about how these new forms are presenting more avenues to
engage the usually apathetic youth into taking action for a social cause.
However, I also acknowledge that the tools that have facilitated the emergence
of this new form of movement have existed for less than a decade; thus, we
still have to see how it evolves through the years.</p>
<p>Hence, I also find
the following questions to be relevant for proponents of the “hope” narrative.
Social change needs to cater to the most marginalized in the society, but as
elaborated before, the methods of engagement both on the physical and virtual
spaces are still contextual to the middle class. Therefore, how can the
emerging youth movements evolve to reach other groups in the society? Since
most of these movements are divorced from existing movements, how can they
synergize with existing movements to propel concrete change? These are open questions
that perhaps will be answered with time, but my experience with Blank Noise has
shown that these actors have the reflexivity required to start exploring
solutions to the challenges.</p>
<p>The research
started from a long-term personal interest and curiosity. In this journey, I
have found some answers but ended up with more questions that will also stay
with me in the long term. As a parting note before, I would like to share a
quote that will accompany my ongoing reflection on these questions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>My advice to
other young activists of the world: study and respect history... but ultimately
break the mould. There have never been social media tools like this before. We
are the first generation to test them out: to make the mistakes but also the
breakthrough.</em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Tammy
Tibbetts, 2010)</p>
<p class="Heading1notchapter"> </p>
<p><em>This is the </em><strong><em>tenth and final</em></strong><em> post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond
the Digital </strong>series,</a> a research project that aims to explore
new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina
with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>References:</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Bang, H.P. (2004) ‘Among everyday makers and expert citizens’. Accessed
21 September 2010. <a href="http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf">http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Castells, M. (2009) <em>Communication
Power. </em>New York: Oxford University
Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>France, A. (2007) <em>Understanding Youth in Late Modernity</em>. Berkshire:
Open University Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Harris, A., Wyn, J., and Younes, S. (2010) ‘Beyond apathetic or
activist youth: ‘Ordinary’ young people and contemporary forms of
participaton’, <em>Young </em>Vol. 18:9, pp.
9-32</p>
<p>Shirky, C. (2010) <em>Cognitive Surplus:
Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. </em>London: Penguin Press</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Image source:</em></p>
<p><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/08/street-signs.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/08/street-signs.html</a></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectCyberculturesBeyond the DigitalYouthResearchers at Work2015-05-14T12:21:29ZBlog EntryActivism: Unraveling the Term
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term
<b>After discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about how they relate with the very term of activism.</b>
<p></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph"><strong><em>Youth's Popular Imagination of Activism</em></strong></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">As a start, I need to clarify
that ‘activism’ is not a concept that the participants are generally concerned
with. For a majority of them, the conversation we had was the first time they
thought of what the term means and reflect whether their engagement with Blank
Noise is activism. Regardless of whether one identifies Blank Noise as a form
of activism or not, all participants share a popular idea of what activism is.</p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph"> Generally speaking, at an abstract level all
participants saw activism as passionately caring about an injustice and taking
action to create social change. At a more tangible level, all participants
mentioned three elements as popular ideas about <em>doing </em>activism. The first is the existence of a concrete demands as
a solution to the identified problem, such as asking for service provision or
state regulations. Since these demands are structural, activism is also seen
dealing with formal authority figures in the traditional sense of politics, the
state. The second is the intensity and commitment required to be an activist,
for many participants being an activist means having prolonged engagement,
taking risks, and making the struggle a priority in one’s life. In other words,
being an activist means “<em>... being
neck-deep, spending most if not all of your time, energy, and resources for the
cause” </em>(Dev Sukumar, male, 34). The third element relates to the methods,
called by some as ‘old school’: shouting slogans, holding placards, and doing
marches on the streets – all enacted in the physical public space. This popular
imagination of activism becomes the orientation for participants in deciding whether
Blank Noise is a form of activism and whether they are activists for being
involved in it.</p>
<p><strong><em>Activism
as the Intention and Action</em></strong></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>“I have an idea of what activism is but not what it exactly
looks like.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Apurva Mathad, male,
28).<em> </em></p>
<p>For
those who think that Blank Noise <em>is </em>a
form of activism, there was a differentiation between the idea at the abstract
level and how it is manifested at a more tangible level. The definition of
activism is the abstract one, while the popular ideas of doing activism do not
define the concept but present the most common out many possible courses of
actions. Blank Noise is fulfils all the elements in the abstract definition: a
passion about an injustice, having an aim for social change, and acting to
achieve the aim. Hence, Blank Noise is activism, but the way it manifests
itself does not adhere to the popular imagination of doing activism. The
distinction between Blank Noise’s methods with popular ones was emphasized,
along with the difference in articulating goals.</p>
<p>Interestingly,
not all participants who share this line of thinking called themselves as
activists for being involved in an activism. Again, it must be reiterated that
no participants ever really thought of giving a name to their engagement prior
to the interview. Instead of saying ‘I am an activist’, they said ‘I guess I
could be called an activist’ for the fact that they are sharing the passion and
being actively involved in a form of activism, albeit in an unconventional
manner.</p>
<p>Those
who would categorize Blank Noise as activism but not call themselves activists
related with a particular element on the popular idea of <em>doing </em>activism, which is getting “neck-deep”. They were helpers,
volunteers, idea spreaders, but not an activist because their lives are not dedicated
for the cause or their involvements were based on availability. On the other
hand, these participants all said that Jasmeen is an activist for being
completely dedicated to Blank Noise from its inception until today.</p>
<p><strong><em>Activism as Particular Ways of Doing and Being<br /></em></strong></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>“What are the repercussions if activism is so fluidly
defined? It can mean not questioning </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>privilege... not seeing the class divisions and still call
yourself activist.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Hemangini Gupta,
female, 29).<em> </em></p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">Most participants did not consider
Blank Noise as an activism. Generally, this can be explained by the
discrepancies between Blank Noise and the popular imagination on the tangible
ways of <em>doing </em>activism. Blank Noise
does not propose a concrete solution or make concrete demands to an established
formal structure nor did it march on the streets and make slogans. However, the
underlying attitude to this point of view is not of a younger generation
finding the ‘old’ ways of doing activism obsolete. Rather, there was an
acknowledgement that the issue itself causes the different ways of reading an
issue and taking actions to address it.</p>
<p>Furthermore,
there is an appreciation to the achievements and dedication of activists that
deterred them from calling themselves activists. These people referred to their
occasional participation and the fact that Blank Noise is not the main priority
in their lives as a student or young professional despite being a cause they
are passionate about. As reflected in the opening quote, being an activist for
some participants also means deeply reflecting on their self position in terms
of class, acknowledging their privileges, and putting themselves in a position
that will enable them to imagine the experience of people who are also affected
by the issue but has a different position in the society. In other words, being
an activist is not just about <em>doing </em>but
also about critically reflecting on one’s position in relation to the issue and
how it influences the way an issue is being pushed forward. Thinking that they
are not up to these standards, these youth choose to call themselves
‘volunteers’, ‘helpers’, or ‘supporters’.</p>
<h2><em>Youth: The Activist, the Apathetic, and the Everyday</em></h2>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;" class="Normalfirstparagraph"><em>“Blank Noise is a public
and community street arts collective that is volunteer-led and attempts to
create public dialogue on the issue of street sexual violence and eve teasing.”
</em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;" class="Normalfirstparagraph"><em>(</em>Jasmeen Patheja)</p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;"><em>“... a
group of people against street sexual harassment and eve teasing.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Kunal Ashok, men, 29)</p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">“... <em>an
idea that really works.” </em></p>
<p align="right" style="text-align: right;">(Neha Bhat, 19)</p>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">As clarified before, the
participants did not use the words ‘movement’ and very few used ‘activism’
during our conversations. Instead, the terms they used to describe Blank Noise
are represented in the quotes above: collective, community, group, project, and
even as an idea. These phrases do not carry the same political baggage that
‘movement’ or ‘activism’ would; they also do not conjure a particular
imagination that the other two terms would. These phrases are de-politicized
and informal; they imply fluidity, lack of hierarchy, and room for
manoeuvre. </p>
<p>The
implied meanings in the terms reflect the debates on the average youth and
political engagement. For the past decade, various youth scholars criticized
the dichotomy of youth as either activists or apathetic in explaining the
global trend of decreased youth participation in formal politics. The activists
are either politically active Digital Natives engaged in new forms of social
movements influenced heavily by new media or sub-cultural resistances, which
only account for a fraction of the youth population that are mostly completely
apathetic. This dichotomy ignored the ‘broad “mainstream” young people who are
neither deeply apathetic about politics on unconventionally engaged’ (Harris et
al, 2010).</p>
<p>These
mainstream young people actually are socially and politically engaged in
‘everyday activism’ (Bang, 2004; Harris et al, 2010). These are young people
who are personalizing politics by adopting causes in their daily behaviour and
lifestyle, for instance by purchasing only Fair Trade goods, or being very
involved in a short term concrete project but then stopping and moving on to
other activities. The emergence of these everyday activists are explained by
the dwindling authority of the state in the emergence of major corporations as
political powers (Castells, 2009) and youth’s decreased faith in formal
political structures which also resulted in decreased interest in collectivist,
hierarchical social movements in favour of a more individualized form of
activism (Harris et al, 2010). Internet and new media technologies are credited
as an enabling factor, being a space and a medium for young people to express
their everyday activism. </p>
<p>All
of the research participants, perhaps with the exception of Jasmeen as the only
one who has constantly been the driver Blank Noise its entire seven years, are
these everyday makers, people who were involved with the Blank Noise either on
a daily basis as a commentator, one-time project initiator and leader, or
people who were active when they are available but remain dormant at other
times. Blank Noise is a space where these individual forms of engagement could
be exercised while remaining as a collective. The facilitation is not only by
the flexibility of coming and going, but also the lack of rigid group rules and
the approach of allowing Blank Noise to be interpreted differently by
individuals. Considering that the mainstream urban youth are everyday makers
who would not find ‘old’ or ‘new’ social movements appealing, this can be the
reason why Blank Noise became so popular among youth; however, I would also
argue that the fact that Blank Noise is the first to systematically address eve
teasing is a determining cause.</p>
<p>The
implications of this finding, together with other concluding thoughts, will be
shared in the next and final post in the Beyond the Digital series.</p>
<p><em>This is the <strong>ninth</strong> post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series,</a> a research project that aims to explore
new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina
with Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge
Programme. </em></p>
<p><em>References:</em></p>
<p>Bang,
H.P. (2004) ‘Among everyday makers and expert citizens’. Accessed 21 September
2010. <a href="http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf">http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/ksspa/papers/bang.pdf</a></p>
<p>Castells,
M. (2009) <em>Communication Power. </em>New
York: Oxford University Press.</p>
<p>Harris,
A., Wyn, J., and Younes, S. (2010) ‘Beyond apathetic or activist youth: ‘Ordinary’
young people and contemporary forms of participaton’, <em>Young </em>Vol. 18:9, pp. 9-32</p>
<p><em>Image source:</em> <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2010/02/tweet-now-feb-17-27.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2010/02/tweet-now-feb-17-27.html</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyDigital ActivismDigital NativesBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalResearchers at Work2015-05-14T12:25:05ZBlog EntryThe Many Faces Within
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within
<b>Blank Noise, as many other digital native collectives, may seem to be complete horizontal at first glance. But, a closer look reveals the many different possibilities for involvement and a unique way the collective organize itself. </b>
<p></p>
<p>One day, during
an afternoon stroll to the M.C. Escher museum in The Hague, I stumbled upon a
painting called ‘Fish and Scales’. On the first glance, I saw two big
black-and-white fishes and some smaller ones, but on a closer look I found
hundreds of fishes, heading to different directions and merging seamlessly into
the bigger fishes as their scales. Upon this discovery, I exclaimed out loud,
“This is just like Blank Noise!”</p>
<p> No, I do not mean to imply in any
way that the Blank Noise Project is like a fish, although it is definitely as
fascinating as the painting. Rather, I found that this painting from the master
of optical illusion is a great analogy to the structures of Blank Noise.</p>
<p>In
the words of Kunal Ashok, one of the male volunteers, the collective consists
not only of “people who volunteer or come to meetings, but anyone that have
contributed in any way they can and identified with the issue.” In this sense,
Blank Noise today consists of over 2,000 people who signed up to their e-group
as volunteers.</p>
<p> How does a collective with that many
people work? Firstly, although these people are called ‘volunteers’ for
registering in the e-group, I would argue that a majority of them are actually
what I call casual participants – those who comment on Blank Noise
interventions, re-Tweet their call for action, promote Blank Noise to their
friends through word of mouth, or simply lurk and follow their activities
online. In the offline sense, they are the passers-by who participate in their
street interventions or become intrigued to think about the issue afterwards.
These people, including those who do the same activities without formally
signing up as volunteers, are acknowledged to be a part of Blank Noise as much
as those who really do volunteer.</p>
<p>Blank
Noise is open to all who shares its concern and values, but its volunteers must
go beyond articulating an opinion and commit to collective action. However, Blank
Noise applies very little requirement for people to identify themselves with
the collective. The main bond that unites them is their shared concern with
street sexual harassment. Blank Noise’s analysis of the issue is sharp, but it
also accommodates diverse perspectives by exploring the fine lines of street sexual
harassment and not prescribing any concrete solution, while the latter is
rarely found in existing social movements. The absence of indoctrination or
concrete agenda reiterated through the public dialogue approach gives room for
people to share different opinions and still respect others in the collective.</p>
<p>Other
than these requirements, they are able to decide exactly how and when they want
to be involved. They can join existing activities or initiate new ones; they
can continuously participate or have on-and-off periods. This is reflected in
the variety of volunteers’ motivations, activities, and the meaning they give
to their involvement. For some people, helping Blank Noise’s street interventions
is exciting because they like street art and engaging with other young people. Many
are involved in online campaigns because they are not physically based in any
of the cities where Blank Noise is present. Some others prefer to do one-off
volunteering by proposing a project to a coordinator and then implementing it. There
are people who started volunteering by initiating Blank Noise chapters in other
cities and the gradually have a more prominent role. Some stay for the long
term, some are active only for several times before going back to become
supporters that spread Blank Noise through words of mouth. The ability to
personalize volunteerism is also what makes Blank Noise appealing, compared to
the stricter templates for volunteering in other social movements.</p>
<p> Any kind of movement requires a
committed group of individuals among the many members to manage it. The same
applies to Blank Noise, who relies on a group of people who dedicate time and
resources to facilitate volunteers and think of the collective’s future: the
Core Team. Members of the Core Team, about ten people, are credited in Blank
Noise’s Frequently Asked Question page and are part of a separate e-group than
the volunteers. In its seven years, the Core Team only went for a retreat once
and mostly connected through the e-group. In this space, they raise questions,
ideas, and debates around Blank Noise’s interventions, posters, and blog posts.
Consequently, for them the issue is not only street sexual harassment but also
related to masculinities, citizenship, class, stereotyping, gender, and public
space. However, there are also layers in the intensity of the Team members’
engagement.</p>
<p>The
most intense is Jasmeen, the founder and the only one who has been with Blank
Noise since its inception until today. Jasmeen is an artist and considers Blank
Noise to be a part of her practice; she has received funds to work for Blank
Noise as an artist. Thus, she is the only one who dedicates herself to BN full
time and becomes the most visible among the volunteers and the public eye. According
to Jasmeen, she is not alone in managing the whole process within Blank Noise.
Since Hemangini Gupta came on board in 2006, she has slowly become the other
main facilitator. “It is a fact that every discussion goes through her. I may
be the face of it, but I see Hemangini and me working together. We rely on each
other for Blank Noise work,<em>” </em>Jasmeen
said.</p>
<p>Hemangini,
a former journalist who is now pursuing a PhD in the U.S., explains her lack of
visibility. “Blank Noise<em> </em>could never
be my number one priority because it doesn’t pay my bills, so I can only do it
when I have free time and my other work is done.” The same is true for others
in the Core Team: students, journalists, writers, artists. Unlike Hemangini who
still managed to be intensively involved, they have dormant and active periods
like the volunteers. </p>
<p>The
Core Team’s functions as coordinators that facilitate the volunteers’
involvement in Blank Noise and ensure that the interventions stay with the
values Blank Noise upholds: confronting the issue but not aggravating the
people, creating public dialogue instead of one-way preaching. This role
emerged in 2006 when the volunteer applications mounted as the result of the
aforementioned blogathon. They have also initiated or made Blank Noise chapters
in other cities grew. Although some of them have also moved to another city due
to work, they remain active touch through online means. Together, the Core Team
forms the de-facto leadership in Blank Noise.</p>
<p> I am tempted to describe Blank Noise
as having a de-facto hierarchy in its internal organization. The form would be
a pyramid, with Jasmeen on top, followed by the coordinators, long-term
project-based volunteers, one-off-project-initiator volunteers, and then the
casual participants. After all, it was clear from my conversations with the
many types of volunteers within Blank Noise that they acknowledge that some
people are involved more intensely and carry more responsibilities than others
in the collective, that there is an implicit leadership roles. This is also
shown by the reluctance of many volunteers to call themselves as an ‘activist’,
claiming that the title is only suitable for people within those leadership
roles and preferring to call themselves ‘supporters’, ‘part of the group’, or ‘volunteers’ instead.
</p>
<p>However,
doing this will be a mistake in interpreting the internal dynamics within Blank
Noise. Firstly, the line between the types of participation is not as clear-cut
as it appears to be. With the exception of Jasmeen, everyone from the
coordinators to the one-off volunteers has active and dormant periods depending
on what happens in their personal lives; they can shift roles quite easily. Some
of Blank Noise coordinators, for instance, are now pursuing higher education
abroad and could only be very active when the return to India during the
holidays or when the school schedule is not as demanding. During momentary
dormant periods, they turn into casual participants because those are the only
roles they are able to take. Secondly, a hierarchy implies that casual
participants are not important for the collective, whereas they turn out to be
the main “target group” and the reason why Blank Noise has grown internally and
in the public eye. </p>
<p> This is again a reason why I was so
taken by Escher’s painting. There are definitely “big fish” leadership figures,
but their scales are actually smaller
fishes in different forms, symbolizing how the roles of a person in the
collective could shift from “big” to “small” and vice versa depending on your
perspective. The many fishes are not depicted horizontally, but also not in a
clear hierarchy. Instead, they are interconnected with each other. The type of
connection is not very clear and the fishes seem to be swimming in different
directions, but they make a cohesive unity. This is the beauty of both Escher’s
creation and Blank Noise.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the eighth post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS
Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>The photo of M.C. Escher’s painting
‘Fish and Scales’ is borrowed from:</em></p>
<p>http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/escher/big.asp?IMAGE=fish_and_scales</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:41:53ZBlog EntryThe Class Question
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question
<b>Blank Noise aims to be as inclusive as possible and therefore does not identify any specific target groups. Yet, the spaces and the methods they occupy do attract certain kinds of volunteers and public. This raises the class question: what are the dilemmas around class on digital interventions? Are they any different from the dilemmas on street interventions? </b>
<p class="Normalfirstparagraph">My first click to Blank Noise’s main blog was a
surprise. Having read so many media coverage about them, I expected to see a
professional, minimalist looking website like other women’s organizations<a name="_ftnref1" href="#_ftn1"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></a> where
the menu is immediately visible. Instead, I have arrived at the most common and
basic form of blogging: the personal blog.</p>
<p>I
was greeted by entries on their latest thoughts and activities with photos and
text with red font against a black background. I scrolled down a long list of
permanent links on the right side of the site and arrived only at its
Frequently Asked Questions link on the 28<sup>th</sup> item while it would be
one of the easiest to spot in other websites. For me, this discovery said, “we
would like to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are
an established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of
professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the
space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted to it.</p>
<p>Reflecting
on my own position, my familiarity with the space is due to my background as a
young, urban, educated, English-speaking woman for whom the Internet is a key
part of life. My ‘peers’ who are also attracted to this place apparently share
the same background with me. The main demography of Blank Noise’s volunteers,
almost equally men and women, are those between 16-35 years, urban, and English
speaking (Patheja, 2010). My interviewees were all at least university
educated, some in the U.S. Ivy league, and are proficient users of social
media, most of them being bloggers or Twitter and Facebook users.</p>
<p>This dominant
base reflects the discourse on the ‘youth of India’, which represents only a
fragment of India’s vast population of young people. The two narratives on the
youth of India are described by Sinha-Kerkhoff (2005) as ‘the haves’ and
‘have-nots’, a reflection on the broader discourse on the deep social economic
inequities in India. ‘The have-nots’ are the majority of Indian youth who are
struggling with the basic issues of livelihood, health, and education, while
‘the haves’ are painted as the children of liberalization: the mostly urban,
middle class, technologically savvy, and highly educated students and young professionals
up who maintain a youthful lifestyle up to their 30s.</p>
<p>Although
‘the haves’ only consist 10% of the total youth population, they are the ones
identified as <em>the </em>youth of India by
popular discourses. Lukose (2008) explained this by stating that youth as a
social category in India is linked to the larger sense of India’s
transformation into an emerging global economic powerhouse together with
Brazil, Russia, and China (popular as BRIC) after its liberal economic reform
in the 1990s. India’s information and technology industry is spearheading this
transformation, thus it feeds into the discourse of youth as Digital Natives.</p>
<p>Although
there are exceptions to this dominant demography, they are far fewer. Does this
then mean that Blank Noise is ‘contextually empowering’ (Gajjala, 2004), given
that it reaches only ‘the haves’ due to the digital divide and their sites of
participation? </p>
<p>The classed
nature of the virtual public space is something Blank Noise fully acknowledges.
Some interviewees stated that this is why street interventions are so
important; they reach people who may not be Internet users. However, people who
have been involved in Blank Noise for more than two years acknowledged that
class issues are also present in the physical public space.</p>
<p>Dev
Sukumar, one of Blank Noise’s male volunteers, explained to me that the British
colonial legacy still shape the way public spaces in Bangalore are organized.
The commercial areas in the city centre where Blank Noise interventions were
initially organized, such as M.G. Road and Brigade Road, are dominantly inhabited
by English speaking people, but in other parts of the city there are many who
can only speak the local language, Kannada. After recognizing this, Blank Noise
organized street interventions in such places, like the Majestic bus stand, and
making flyers and stencils in Kannada. In order to do this, Blank Noise
specifically called for volunteers who knew the local language.</p>
<p>The
interventions might be in a non-elite space, but the main actors remain those
from the middle class. Hemangini articulated the class issue in Blank Noise,
saying “Like it or not, a lot of the people in Blank Noise are from the middle
class and a lot of the people we have been talking to on the streets are of a
certain class. What is the ethics in a middle class woman asking ‘why are you
looking at me?’ to lower class men? It is if we already assumed that most
perpetrators are lower class men while it is definitely not true.”</p>
<p>The
reflexivity Hemangini shows led me to rethink the assumptions around digital
activism. It is often dismissed as catering only to the middle class,
privileging only one side of the digital divide. But then again, the class
issue is also present in the physical sphere. If middle class youth mostly
attracts their peers in their digital activism, is it problematic by default or
is it only problematic when there is no accompanying reflection on the
political implications of such engagement? How is it more problematic than the
ethical dilemma of middle class people addressing their ‘Others’ in street
interventions? Is the problem related to the sphere of activism (virtual versus
physical), or is it more about the methods of engagement and the reflexivity
required for it?</p>
<p>Hemangini
told me that her dilemma is being shared and discussed with other members in
Blank Noise’s core group, consisting of those who dedicate some time to reflect
on the growth and development of the collective. They have no answer just yet,
but they intend to continue reflecting on it. I have no idea what their future
reflection looks like, but I do know that the class implications of the cyber
sphere will be resolved with more than simply taking interventions to the
streets. Considering that the actors of youth digital activism are, like it or
not, urban, middle class, educated digital natives, Blank Noise’s reflection
will indeed be relevant for all who is interested in this issue. And if you
have your own thoughts on the strategies to resolve this dilemma, why don’t you
drop a comment and reflect together with us? </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the seventh post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>References:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gajjala, R.
(2004) <em>Cyber selves: Feminist
Ethnographies of South Asian Women. </em>Walnut Creek: Almitra Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">Lukose, R. (2008) ‘The Children of Liberalization: Youth
Agency and Globalization</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">in India’, in Dolby, N. and Rizvi, F. (eds.) <em>Youth Moves: Identities and Education in a
Global Perspective, </em>pp. 133-150.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Patheja, J.
(2010) <em>Case Study: Blank Noise. </em>Accessed
7 November 2010 <http://www.indiasocial.in/case-study-blank-noise/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sinha-Kerkhoff,
K. (2006) ‘Youth Activism in India’, in Sherrod, L.R., Flanagan, C.A.</p>
<p>and Kassimir,
R. (eds.) <em>Youth Activism: An
International Encyclopedia, </em>pp. 340-348. London: Greenwood Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Source for
picture: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?fbid=73473166363&set=o.2703755288&pid=2095143&id=687356363"><em>http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?fbid=73473166363&set=o.2703755288&pid=2095143&id=687356363</em></a></p>
<div><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a name="_ftn1" href="#_ftnref1"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></a> For
example: <a href="http://www.jagori.org/">http://www.jagori.org/</a> , one of
the most established women organizations in India.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2011-09-22T12:45:35ZBlog EntryDiving Into the Digital
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/diving-into-the-digital
<b>Previous posts in the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series have discussed the non-virtual aspects and presence of Blank Noise. However, to understand the activism of digital natives also require a look into their online presence and activities. This post explores how Blank Noise’s engagement with the public in their digital realm. </b>
<p>Through
interviews and web-observations, I identified three ways in which Blank Noise
and the virtual public engage with each other.</p>
<p>The first is by
responding to the content provided by Blank Noise, such as commenting in posts
or participating in polls or Facebook campaigns. There are cases where the
comments turned the post into a space for intense discussion that raises
interesting issues around street sexual harassment that are as significant for BN
as it is for the viewers, such as Jasmeen’s <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point" class="external-link">aforementioned post</a> of a harasser’s
picture.</p>
<p>Yet, in other
cases the comments ended up as a one-way communication that ignores the
possibility of turning into a public conversation. An example for this is Blank
Noise’s ‘What does it take to be an Action Hero?’ event that I participated in.
The event was hosted on Facebook from 25 June to 31 July 2010 and asked people
to contribute a definition or a characteristic of an Action Hero, a woman who
faces threat and experiences fear on the streets of her city, but can devise
unique ways to confront it. Blank Noise raised a potential conversation by
asking questions for statements that tread on grey lines. A person who
contributed ‘anyone who acts/protests against any form of behaviour which tends
to outrage his/her sense of modesty’ was questioned on what modesty is and why
it becomes a parameter, but it was not further responded. Furthermore, none of
the other contributors attempted to raise or engage in such conversation.</p>
<p>I wondered what
kind of meaning one could create from this limited way of participation and received
several answers. It is a way to stay in touch and contribute to Blank Noise
when one is not able to engage physically, as is the case for Laura Neuhaus
after she left to continue her studies in the U.S. For others, it is a way to
familiarize herself with the collective before deciding whether she wants to
engage further. For the coordinators, it is to keep the momentum alive in
between major interventions when they are committed to other priorities.</p>
<p>The second type
of engagement is by actively producing content, like Rhea Daniel’s, a
Mumbai-based design consultant, feisty poster contribution for the
aforementioned online campaign or by sharing testimonials for the community
blogs. Nandita Chaudury, a 29 year old researcher, wrote a story on her
experience with street sexual harassment for Blank Noise Action Heroes community
blog to show her support for BN but, more importantly, also to share
experiences she wouldn’t share with anyone in real life. <em> </em></p>
<p>Nandita said, “No one would want t share
their most traumatic stories in public. I wouldn’t do it on my own blog,
because I don’t want to come out yet, but I appreciate the space Blank Noise
provides. After commenting in the posts and see how the discussion goes, I felt
that it is a supportive space. Online contribution allowed me to stay anonymous
while sharing my story to a wider public, so I felt confident in doing that.”</p>
<p>She further
explained to me that reading others’ stories and receiving comments for hers
made her feel less isolated and helped her healing process. Blank Noise’s cyber
presence functions as a virtual support group for women affected by street
sexual harassment, who relish a space where it is considered as a real issue
and found more freedom to share given the anonymity granted by the Internet. Through
their public testimonials, women demonstrate their agency in resisting harassments
and undergo the transformation from victims into Action Heroes. Kelly Oliver
(in Mitra-Kahn, unpublished: 17<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/grants/DN/diving-into-the-digital#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></a>)
argued that writing experiences of a trauma, in this case street sexual
harassment, helps the self heal by using speech and text to counter their
emotions and exercise their agency; the process of empowerment that occurs
hence establishes Blank Noise as a (cyber)feminist praxis. This is also a form
of culture jamming: breaking the existing silence on street sexual harassment
in the virtual public space.</p>
<p>Being a part of
the virtual group helped Nandita to better cope with street sexual harassment
in the physical public space, a sign that the virtual and the physical spheres
mesh as reality for many of youth today. Nevertheless, this not the case for
every youth. “Without real world activism, I would not have been able to deal
with street sexual harassment in any real way,<em>” </em>said Annie, who found BN through the blogathon and has since
become a coordinator.</p>
<p>Nandita and
Annie’s stories are examples of how the virtual and physical spheres mesh in
their lives, but also that the link between the two has points of disconnection
that they are fully aware of. While Annie was ready to address the issue on the
streets, Nandita was uncomfortable with doing so – but they were both went
through a personal change enabled by Blank Noise’s cyber presence. Furthermore,
the choices they made could be accommodated by Blank Noise through its online
and offline interventions. This also shows a linkage or connection between the
virtual and physical spheres in Blank Noise’s activities.</p>
<p> The online
presence of Blank Noise serves multiple functions. It is a site for
organization, mobilization, empowerment, and many possibilities for engagement
that can be chosen based on one’s interest and abilities. It has value in
itself, but it does not stand alone. It resonates with the street interventions
in its potential to facilitate personal change at the individual level and
beckons those who encounter Blank Noise to also extend their participation at
the physical space – if they choose to do so. Blank Noise presents
possibilities, but it is up for people to use and give meaning to it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the <strong>sixth</strong> post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory/" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the
Digital </strong>series</a>, a research project that aims to explore new insights to
understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise
under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Image Source:</em>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#%21/event.php?eid=130518013647915&ref=ts">http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=130518013647915&ref=ts</a></p>
<div><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1">
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/grants/DN/diving-into-the-digital#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span></a> Mitra-Kahn,
Trishima (unpublished) <em>Holler back,
Girl!: Cyberfeminist praxis and emergent cultures of online feminist organizing
in urban India. </em>Quoted with permission.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/diving-into-the-digital'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/diving-into-the-digital</a>
</p>
No publishermaesy2011-08-04T10:39:46ZBlog EntryThe Digital Tipping Point
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point
<b>Is Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial factors behind the success. </b>
<p></p>
<p>What images popped in your head when you hear the term ‘digital
activism’? Those that popped in mine are of campaigns that originated in the
Internet, perhaps with a blog, a Youtube video, or a Facebook group, mobilizing
people to take part in a certain action to advocate for a cause or to respond
to a specific event. Whether the request is to sign a petition for a new
legislation or to wear a specific colour on a specific day, the campaigns also
ask people to spread the message, usually responded by re-tweets, status
updates, and link-shares that appear on my timeline. These campaigns, like the
famous Wear Red for Burma or the Pink Chaddi, are usually responses to certain
events and dwindle after the events have passed.</p>
<p>With its four blogs,
two Facebook groups, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account, at first glance Blank
Noise certainly resembles the images in my head. However, they popped one by
one as I got to know Blank Noise better. For one, as I have shared before,
Blank Noise was not a response to a specific event but rather the long term,
ongoing, structural problem of street sexual harassment. For another, street
interventions started as the main core of Blank Noise and have remained a
crucial element despite its prolific online presence. Blank Noise did not start
in the Internet nor did it immediately turn to Web 2.0 for its
mobilization.</p>
<p>The main blog was created soon after Blank Noise
started in 2003 to serve as an archive, information center, and space to
announce future street events. The diverse online campaigns, lively discussions
in the comment section of blog posts, and abundant blog post contributions by
people who have experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual harassment
started after two unexpected events that I call ‘the digital tipping point’.</p>
<p>The first was when
Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, started uploading pictures of her
harasser, taken with her mobile phone, to the blog in March 2005. The first
picture was of a man who had stalked and pestered her for coffee despite her
rejection to his unwelcomed advances. While some readers applauded her action,
many challenged the post. How is the action different from “Can I buy you a
drink?” Can it trigger the change wanted, especially since the guy might not
even have access to the Internet? Is the action of publicly labeling the man as
a perpetrator of street sexual harassment ethical, especially since the man has
not been proven guilty?</p>
<p></p>
<p>These challenges then spiraled into a long
discussion (72 comments!) about the grey areas of street sexual harassment and
the ethics around confronting perpetrators. Although Blank Noise still continue
to upload snapshots of harassers (this intervention is called ‘Unwanted’),
their pictures have since then been blurred until the face is unrecognizable,
including the one in the original post. This event was when Jasmeen realized
that the blog also has the potential of being a space for discussions,
opinions, and debates – the public conversation that Blank Noise aims for.</p>
<p>The second tipping point was when one of Blank
Noise volunteers proposed an idea of a blogathon to commemorate the
International Women’s Day in 2006. Blogging had become a major trend in India
around 2004 and the blogathon basically asked bloggers around India to write
about their experience with street sexual harassment in their private blogs and
link the post to the Blank Noise blog. The bloggers invited were both women and
men, people who have either experienced, witnessed, or committed street sexual
harassment. The blogathon was an immense success, perhaps due to the
frustration on the silence and downplay of street sexual harassment into eve
teasing. Suddenly, eve teasing became a booming topic on the web and Blank
Noise received media and (mostly the cyber) public attention.</p>
<p>This is when the idea of online interventions
started. In the following year, Blank Noise created the first of its blogs that
consist entirely of contributions from the public: the <em>Action Heroes </em>blog, a growing compilation of women’s experiences in
dealing with street sexual harassment. It is then followed by <em>Blank Noise Guys </em>and <em>Blank Noise Spectators</em>, which
respectively concentrates on the experiences of men and people who have
witnessed street sexual harassment. Other than the community blogs, the main
blog also introduced collaborative online campaigns in 2008, such as the
‘Museum of Street Weapons’ (a poster project that explores how women uses
everyday objects to defend themselves against street sexual harassment) and
‘Blank Noise This Place’ (a photo collection of places where street sexual
harassment occurs). These interventions were not only online; they were also
collaborative and invited the public to participate.</p>
<p>These tipping points are intriguing not only for
being the triggers to Blank Noise’s transformation to one of the most important
digital activism in India (Mishra, 2010), but also for the reason why they are
successful in doing so: they are able to attract public participation.</p>
<p>The first tipping point was able to attract people
to participate by commenting on a post. The said post was very simple; it
consists of a picture and a one-paragraph text that depicts a conversation
between the harasser and the woman:</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>“stalker no.
1: " Excuse me, have we met before?" machlee: no Stalker no. 1: Yes
we have! On commercial street! I work in a call centre. I am a science
graduate." machlee: why are you telling me all this? stalker no. 1: can I
have coffee with you? machlee: can i photograph you? stalker no. 1: yes! sure
you can! stalker no.1: blah blah blah</em>” (Patheja, 2005)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Having been used to NGO pamphlets and blog posts, I
have come to equate discussion on sexual harassment as a very serious
discussion with long text and formal language. This post is so different from
what I was used to, but it was clear to me that even though the language was
casual, the issue and intention were serious. The casual presentation
spoke to me “we would like
to share our thoughts and activities with you” rather than “we are an
established organization and this is what we do”. It is not the space of
professionals, but passionate people. As a blogger myself, I recognize the
space as being one of my peer’s and immediately felt more attracted and comfortable to jump into the conversation.</p>
<p>The second tipping
point attracted the more active, substantial participation than commenting;
many people actually created texts, photos, or posters for Blank Noise. It was
possible because Blank Noise opened itself. Jasmeen opened up to an idea of a
volunteer, who opened up to the possibilities offered by the cybersphere.
Instead of depending on a core team to conduct an intervention, Blank Noise
opened up to a project that <strong>entirely</strong>
depended on the public’s response to be successful. Moreover, Blank Noise
opened up to diverse points of views and many types of experiences with street
sexual harassment.</p>
<p>It is widely
acknowledged that the success of a digital activism lies on its ability to
attract public collaboration; however, the digital tipping points of Blank
Noise underline several important factors behind the ability. Attracting public
engagement is not always a result of a meticulous pre-planned intervention. On
the contrary, it might spawn from unintentional events that welcome diverse
points of view, adopt a peer-to-peer attitude, invite contributions, and most
importantly, touched an issue that is very important for many different people.
Web 2.0 is an enabling tool and site for dialogue, but it is certainly not the
only reason behind the success of digital activism in galvanizing youth’s
engagement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the fifth post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series,</a> a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em><u>Reference:</u></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mishra, G.
(2010) ‘The State of Citizen Media in India in Three Short Ideas’. Accessed</p>
<p>19 May 2010
< <a href="http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/the-state-of-citizen-media-in-india-">http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/the-state-of-citizen-media-in-india-</a>in-three-short-ideas/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Patheja, J. (2005) ‘Unwanted. Section 354 IPC.’ Accessed 25 October
2010. < <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/stalker-no.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/stalker-no.html</a>></p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p> </p>
<p>SOURCE OF PICTURE</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/07/he-placed-his-hand-on-my-breast-and.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/07/he-placed-his-hand-on-my-breast-and.html</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalYouthSocial Networkingmovements2011-08-04T10:36:56ZBlog EntryTaking It to the Streets
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets
<b>The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME? </b>
<p></p>
<p>In a previous
<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first/" class="external-link">post</a>, I
have shared how Blank Noise is unique in articulating its issue: it does not
offer a strict definition of eve teasing nor does it propose a specific
solution. In <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">another</a><strong></strong>, I shared that Blank Noise’s main goal may seem to be to raise
public’s awareness on eve teasing, but it is actually secondary to its less
obvious objective to provide a space where people can become empowered through
its personal experiences in the collective. The main strategy employed to
achieve these goals is to create a public dialogue through artistic and playful
means, both at the physical and virtual spheres. The interventions attracted
media attention and volunteers, but the main impacts are internal: people are
able to personalize the meaning of their involvement in Blank Noise and undergo
individual transformations.</p>
<p> This post will flesh out how these
elements are actually translated in Blank Noise’s interventions. It is
difficult to pick one example Blank Noise a wide variety of interventions as it
evolves through the seven years of its existence. It started in 2003 as Jasmeen
Patheja’s final project when she was a student in the Sristhi School of Art and
Design in Bangalore. At this first phase, Blank Noise consisted of nine people
and dealt with victimhood through a series of workshops that became the basis
for small art interventions. As s many other activist groups before them, Blank
Noise took the initiatives to the physical public sphere: the streets, bus
stands, public transportations, parks – anywhere outside the home. Blank Noise
decided to move forward and try to engage the wider public in 2005 and engage
more volunteers than the initial group of nine. Despite being more well-known
lately for its virtual presence, the collective only started its first online
intervention in 2006 and street events remainan integral part of its being. Given
this history, and also because this is the one most often brought up in my
conversations with the Blank Noise people, I choose to share the ‘Y ARE U
LOOKING AT ME’ street intervention experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The experience starts with a post in the
Blank Noise <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org">main blog</a> and e-group, announcing a date and time for the next
street intervention. The announcement is accompanied by an invitation for anyone
who reads it to participate and come to a designated place (such as the popular
café Coffee Day or the famous Cubbon Park in Bangalore) for a preparation
meeting and also the actual intervention (sometimes immediately afterwards). When
the time comes to for the meeting, the faces that appeared are varied. Some are
regular faces in Blank Noise meetings and interventions: perhaps Jasmeen,
others who have been coordinating interventions, or regular volunteers. Some
faces are new: people who read the announcements online, heard it through word
of mouth, or those who were around and curious about the gathering. The number
could range from three to more than 100. Most who came were women although
there were also men.</p>
<p>After
a brief introduction of everyone present, the meeting proceeded with a brief
discussion on eve teasing and the intervention that will take place. ‘Y ARE U
LOOKING AT ME’ is an intervention where a group of women wears a giant letter
made of red reflective tape on their shirts. They then stand idly on the
streets or zebra cross, staring at the vehicles and passers-by without a word.
Together, the letters on their shirts form the sentence ‘Y ARE U LOOKING AT
ME’, demanding attention by asking a silent question. When the traffic light
flashed to green, these women will disappear to the sidewalks. A group of male
volunteers are already there, distributing pamphlets and engaging passers-by
about in a conversation about what they just saw and relate it to eve teasing. The
idea behind this intervention is an act a female gaze to reverse the male gaze
that often times could be considered as a form of eve teasing. Because it is so
unusual, onlookers often look away or feel embarrassed after an encounter with
the female gaze. Despite being done without a word, the twist of gender
dynamics in this intervention provoked the interest of people in the sidewalk
and opened up the space for public dialogue – the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">aim</a> Blank Noise strives to
achieve.</p>
<p>Jasmeen
told me that after this point some people started asking “But how will the
public get what we’re talking about?” The idea of addressing an issue with such
an ambiguous approach was indeed difficult to digest for some people –
including me. The intervention did not explicitly mention eve teasing nor did
it convey any clear message; there was no such thing as a placard that says
“Stop Eve Teasing” or something similar. There was no specific proposal. The
playful performance definitely is provocative enough to generate public
dialogue, but what change will it create?</p>
<p>Blank
Noise coordinators then encouraged people to experience the intervention first
before making conclusions. The various roles are introduced and the volunteers
were free to choose what they want to do. There are people who opted for the
backstage work of preparing the red tapes and printing the pamphlets, some
wanted to perform, while others are more contented to talk with the public
afterwards. After the intervention took place, Jasmeen found that the feedback
from the volunteers showed that the initial doubts disappeared.</p>
<p>Although
there were people who did not want to talk to the volunteers, in general they
were surprised by how open the public was to the conversations. “Maybe people
are tired of the old ways of just meeting on the streets and trying to convince
others through protests or petitions,” said Aarthi Ajit, a 25 year old research
assistant who helped organize a Blank
Noise Bangalore street intervention in
2008. “Maybe we need to look for different ways to get people’s attention and
the creative, playful, and non-confrontative approach will work better than
aggravation in making people think of the issue and become part of the movement.” She further explained
that widening definitions of street
sexual harassment and proposing tangible
solutions are helpful to create
the open attitude, while some people, especially men, could feel alienated by a poster that depicts men being
violent to women as all men were
labeled as perpetrators. This may be able to explain the public interaction as
well as the numerous media coverage Blank Noise received for these street
interventions. In this sense, people who doubted that the public would respond
no longer questioned whether Blank Noise’s message would get through.</p>
<p>However,
the question of whether the intervention made any change is still valid,
considering that there is no means for Blank Noise to follow-up with the many
people on the streets about whether they change their perception or behavior on
street sexual harassment. Instead, the change could be detected within the
volunteers.</p>
<p>Hemangini
Gupta, one of Blank Noise coordinators, recalled her first experience of performing
the intervention. “It felt strange, but fun and empowering in a way. I never
realized how disconnected I was from the streets before the intervention - I
would never look at people before. It felt very safe knowing that I could just
stand and look at people without any repercussions.”</p>
<p>Annie
Zaidi, another Blank Noise coordinator, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.anniezaidi.com/2006/10/empower-unpower-empower">blogged</a> about how her experience with Blank Noise interventions changed the way she
deals with street sexual harassment. “Something has changed. This time, my
reaction is different from what it would have been two years ago… I was
surprised, felt contempt and anger – but I did not feel fear. This, I realize
now, is because of Blank Noise, partly. .. It is as much about dealing with
women’s fear of public spaces and strangers as it is about dealing with
sexually abusive / intimidating strangers.”</p>
<p>Hemangini
and Annie’s stories were echoed by many other volunteers. Jasmeen said that it
was when Blank Noise started articulating that the change occurs internally
first and blurring the line between the audience and the “Action Heroes”. The
volunteers are as affected by the process as the viewers; they are mutually
dependent on each other for the intervention experience to be meaningful. That
is why Blank Noise does not think of “an audience”, everyone is a participant
and co-creator in the experience.</p>
<p>Instead
of shouting “Stop street sexual harassment!” or performing a street theatre
with spoken words, Blank Noise chose to quietly ask “Why are you looking at
me?” on the streets. They welcome many people, but the strength of its
interventions does not lie in numbers. Blank Noise thinks about their issues
differently and consequently, they also do things differently. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><em>This is the fourth post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-director" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*Photo courtesy of Jasmeen Patheja</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2011-08-04T10:33:19ZBlog EntryTalking Back without "Talking Back"
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back
<b>The activism of digital natives is often considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with The Blank Noise Project and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level – how young people today are thinking about their activism. </b>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="description">Last August, I had the opportunity to participate in the three-day grueling yet highly rewarding ‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back" class="external-link">Digital Natives Talking Back</a>’ workshop<b> </b>in Taipei. On the very first day, Seema Nair, one of the facilitators and a good friend, asked us to reflect about what ‘talking back’ means in the context of activism. At first glance, activism is almost always interpreted as a confrontational resistance towards an identifiable opponent over a certain issue - a group of activists protesting against a discriminatory legislation passed by a government, for example. Although this is definitely the most popular form, is this the only way activism could be done? </span></p>
<p><span class="description">While reflecting on Seema’s question, I thought of my conversations with people in the Blank Noise Project and how they seem to defy this popular imagination through their efforts to address street sexual harassment. From the way it articulates its issue (I have shared it before in <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first" class="external-link">here</a>), Blank Noise challenges the idea of an opponent in activism by refusing to identify an entity as the “enemy” or the one responsible for the issue, given the grey areas of street sexual harassment. The opponent is intangible instead: the mindset shared by all members of society that enables the violation to continue. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Consequently, Blank Noise ‘talks back’ differently. While it is common for many movements to set an intangible vision as its goal (for instance: a society where women is treated as equals with men), they also have a tangible intermediary targets to move towards the broader vision (e.g. a new legislation or service provision for women affected by domestic violence). Blank Noise sticks with the intangible. The goal is to form a collective where eve teasing is everybody’s shared concern, spreading awareness that street sexual harassment is happening every day and it is unacceptable because it is a form of violence against women. Pooja Gupta, a 19 year old art student who is one of the initiators of the ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook campaign, underlined this intangible goal by saying that “The goal really is to spread awareness. It is not about pushing any specific agenda or telling people what to do.”</span></p>
<p><span class="description">Because of this goal, I initially thought that there is a clear demarcation between people within the Blank Noise and the ‘public’ whose awareness they would like to raise – that there is a clear “us” (the Blank Noise activists) and “them” (the target group). However, I was corrected by Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, when we chatted one day. “I haven’t ever put it that way. Since the beginning, the collective is meant to be inclusive and there is no specific target group. The public is invited to participate and there is no audience, everyone is a participant and co-creator.” </span></p>
<p><span class="description">The strategy for this is to open up a public dialogue. When Blank Noise first started in 2003, it started with the street as the public space and uses art as its method of intervention. It takes many forms: performative art, clothes exhibition, street polls, and many others. Although today Blank Noise is much more known for its engagement with the virtual public through its prolific Internet presence (4 blogs, a Twitter account, 2 Facebook groups, many Facebook events, and a YouTube channel), the street interventions remain a significant part of its activities. Regardless of the methods, which I will elaborate more in future blog posts, the principles of creativity, play, and non-confrontation are always maintained. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">At this point, some critical questions could be raised. What is Blank Noise actually trying to achieve through the dialogue? Can public dialogue really address the issue? How does Blank Noise know if it is interventions have an impact?</span></p>
<p><span class="description">When I asked the last question, many people in the Blank Noise admitted that impact measurement is something that they are still grappling with. Some said that the public recognition of Blank Noise by bloggers and mainstream media is an indicator; others said that the growth of volunteers is also an impact. However, I found that this is not an issue many people were concerned with and was a bit puzzled. After all, if one were to dedicate their time and energy to a cause, wouldn’t s/he want to know what kind of difference made?</span></p>
<p><span class="description">The light bulb for this puzzle switched on when Apurva Mathad, one of Blank Noise male volunteers, said, “Eve teasing is an issue that nobody talks about. It seems like a monumental thing to try and change it, so the very act of doing something to address it and reaching as many people as possible right now seems to be enough.” </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Apurva basically told me that it is the action of doing something about the issue is what counts – and that it is the personal level change among people who are active within the Blank Noise is the real impact. I recalled that everyone else I talked with mentioned individual transformation after being a part of Blank Noise intervention – something I would elaborate upon in future posts. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">This observation was confirmed in a later conversation with Jasmeen, where I discovered that Blank Noise also has another goal that was not as easy to identify as the first: to allow people involved with the collective to undergo a personal transformation into “Action Heroes” - people who actively takes action to challenge the silence and disregard towards street sexual harassment. In this sense, Blank Noise is similar to many women collectives that became organized to empower themselves and hence could be said to also adopt a feminist ideology. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">The difference with most women collectives, however, lies on Blank Noise’s aim to allow a personalization of people’s experience with the collective. “The nature of this project is that people are in it for a reason close to them and they give meaning to their involvement as they see fit,” Jasmeen said. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Blank Noise does face challenges in doing this. Some people found it difficult to understand that an issue could be addressed without shouting slogans or advocating for a specific solution and others joined with anger due to their personal experiences. Hence, the non-confrontational dialogue approach becomes even more important. The discussion and debates it raises help the Blank Noise volunteers to also learn more about the issue, reflect on their experiences and opinions, as well as to give meaning to their involvement. This is when I finally understood the point of “no target group”: the Blank Noise people also learn and become affected by the interventions they performed. Influencing ‘others’ is not the main goal although it is a desired effect, the main one is to allow personal empowerment. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Going back to the ‘talking back’ discussion in Taipei, Seema then shared her experiences working with women groups in India and showed how ‘talking back’ could also be ‘talking with’, engaging people in a dialogue. It need not always address the state; it could also be aiming to make a change at the personal level in everyday life. It could also be ‘talking within’, keeping the discussion and debates alive within a movement to avoid a homogenized, simplification of the activism and provide a reflective element to the action. ‘Talking back’ could also take form other than “talking”, which usually is done through slogans and placards in a street protest, petition, or statements. It could be done through art, theatre performance, and many, many other possibilities. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Blank Noise is definitely an example of these different forms and its experience shows that the difference is not arbitrary. It is based on a well-thought analysis of the issue that extends to how it formulates its objectives which is then translated into its strategies. Blank Noise is not only an example of how activism is done differently, but also on how the thought behind it is different.</span></p>
<p><span class="description">As I looked around the workshop room I was reminded that Blank Noise was not the only one. A few seats away from me sat two people who combined technology and poetry to create everyday resistance towards consumerism in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.slideshare.net/zonatsou/huang-po-chih-tsou-yiping-presentation-20100816-reupload">Taiwan</a></span><span class="description"><b> </b></span><span class="description"> and a young woman who held urban camps in India to mobilize young people to <a class="external-link" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/MIE-My-India-Empowered/125105444189224">volunteer</a> Regardless of the issue and the technology used, many digital natives with a cause across the world remind us that ‘talking back’ could be done in many other ways than “talking back”. </span></p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><i>This is the third post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><b>Beyond the Digital </b>series</a>, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </i><span class="description"> <br /></span></p>
<p><br /><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><span class="description">*The photo is from one of Blank Noise's interventions in Cubbon Park, Bangalore. You can learn more about this intervention <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/06/learning-to-belong-here.html">here</a>.<br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismEve teasingDigital NativesYouthResearchBlank Noise Projectart and interventionBeyond the DigitalCommunitiescyberspacesStreet sexual harassment2011-09-22T11:37:54ZBlog EntryThe 'Beyond the Digital' Directory
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory
<b>For the past few months, Maesy Angelina has been sharing the insights gained from her research with Blank Noise on the activism of digital natives. The ‘Beyond the Digital’ directory offers a list of the posts on the research based on the order of its publication.</b>
<p></p>
<p>Have you ever
wondered what is really “new” about the activism of digital natives? In May
2010, the Hivos-CIS ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ Knowledge Programme started
a collaboration The Blank Noise Project in India and Maesy Angelina, a
student-researcher from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam – International
Institute of Social Studies in The Hague who is taking up the research agenda
for her final project to qualify for her Masters degree in International
Development with a specialization in Children and Youth Studies.</p>
<p>Maesy
has been blogging about the insights she gained from her field work in
Bangalore in the CIS website under the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series, which
consists of the following posts:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"><strong>1. <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause/weblogentry_view" class="external-link">Beyond the Digital: Understanding
Digital Natives with a Cause</a></strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Digital
natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina
argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth
digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the
contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial
first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey
to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research
with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge
Programme.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><strong>2. <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first/weblogentry_view" class="external-link">First Thing First</a></strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Studies
often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the
characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what
the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series
reverses this trend and explores how Blank Noise articulates the
issue it addresses: street sexual harassment.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link"><strong>3. Talking Back without “Talking Back”</strong></a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span class="description">The activism of digital natives is often
considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools
they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with Blank Noise
and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the
difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level –
how young people today are <em>thinking</em>
about their activism. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets/" class="external-link">4. Taking It to the Streets</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME?</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point" class="external-link">5. The Digital Tipping Point</a>
<p> </p>
<span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Is
Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so
successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the
transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium
into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial
factors behind the success.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/diving-into-the-digita" class="external-link">6. Diving Into the Digital</a><br /></span>
<p> </p>
<p>Previous posts in the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series have discussed the non-virtual aspects and presence of Blank Noise. However, to understand the activism of digital natives also require a look into their online presence and activities. This post explores how Blank Noise’s engagement with the public in their digital realm.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question" class="external-link">7. The Class Question</a></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Blank
Noise aims to be as inclusive as possible and therefore does not
identify any specific target groups. Yet, the spaces and the methods
they occupy do attract certain kinds of volunteers and public. This
raises the class question: what are the dilemmas around class on digital
interventions? Are they any different from the dilemmas on street
interventions? <br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within" class="external-link">8. The Many Faces Within</a></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Blank
Noise, as many other digital native collectives, may seem to be
complete horizontal at first glance. But, a closer look reveals the many
different possibilities for involvement and a unique way the collective
organize itself. <br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term" class="external-link">9. Activism: Unraveling the Term</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">After
discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current
post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture
the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions
from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about
how they relate with the very term of activism. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond" class="external-link">10. Reflecting from the Beyond</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">After
going ‘beyond the digital’ with Blank Noise through the last nine
posts, the final post in the series reflects on the understanding gained
so far about youth digital activism and questions one needs to carry in
moving forward on researching, working with, and understanding digital
natives. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><br /><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"></span>While the posts present bits and pieces of field research notes and reflections from data analysis, the full research products are:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">- Angelina, M. (2010) '<a class="external-link" href="http://thesis.eur.nl/theses/law_culture_society/iss/cys/index/863849405/">Beyond the Digital: Understanding Contemporary Forms of Youth Activism - The Case of Blank Noise in Urban India</a>'. Unpublished thesis, graded with Distinction. The Hague: International Institute of Social Studies - Erasmus University of Rotterdam.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">- Angelina, M. (2010) '<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-paper/view?searchterm=position%20paper%20digital%20natives" class="external-link">Towards a New Relationship of Exchange</a>'. Position paper for the Digital Natives with a Cause Thinkathon. </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesWeb PoliticsStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalCommunitiesart and interventionResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:33:39ZBlog EntryFirst Thing First
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first
<b>Studies often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series reverses this trend and explores how the Blank Noise Project articulates the issue it addresses: street sexual harassment. </b>
<p></p>
<p>To
try to understand youth digital activism is to first understand what the issue
it deals with is all about. This point is made clear by the 13 people involved
in Blank Noise, who all started our conversation with a discussion on eve
teasing, the issue that Blank Noise deals with and the reason for its existence.
Taking the hint from them, I start sharing my research journey by sharing how
Blank Noise thinks of the issue it takes. As I recall our conversations, I am
still amazed by how everyone, regardless of whether they have been involved as
an initiator of a 15-day Facebook campaign or as a coordinator for five years,
share the following articulation </p>
<p>‘Eve
teasing’ is a euphemism in English that refers to the various forms of sexual
harassment experienced by women in public places, be it parks, streets, or
buses. It takes different forms, ranging from staring, verbal lampooning,
accidental jostling, or outright groping. While public sexual harassments also
occur in almost every place in the globe, the term ‘eve teasing’ itself is
particular to South Asia, especially India. The term plays on the biblical Eve
that is considered as a temptress, playing on the dichotomy of ‘good and bad’
women and placing the blame on women for enticing men to tease them. The word
‘tease’ itself downplays the severity of the action and making it a trivial,
funny, non-issue - so much that it is regarded as a rite of passage into
womanhood and ignored by the authorities unless it leads to violent deaths. This
term is what Blank Noise seeks to address; it aims to denounce the word ‘eve
teasing’ and call it by its appropriate name: street sexual harassment.</p>
<p>While
in the popular perception street sexual harassment happen only to young women
who dress in Western fashion, actually all women irrespective of age, class, or
dress have experienced it. In a much lesser degree, men also experienced street
sexual harassment. However, the norms of masculinity deny their victimhood and
a typical reaction would be ‘yes, I got felt up but I pity the bugger because
he’s gay’ (Blank Noise, 2005).</p>
<p>The
root of the problem is how eve teasing is internalized by all members of the
society, including women. Laura Neuhaus, a 27 year old American woman who
became active in Blank Noise when she worked in Bangalore for a few years, was
shocked to find that the senior women in her department, who had PhD degrees
and were at the top of their career, turned a blind eye to the harassment they
experience and advised her to do the same. Tanvee Nabar, a 19 year old student
who was one of the initiators of Blank Noise’s ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook
campaign, stated that victims may also perpetuate the problem by thinking that
accusing themselves of being responsible for the harassment because of the way
they dress or behave. She said, “Even by thinking that way I am validating eve
teasing, so this needs to stop.”<em> </em></p>
<p>The
problem thrives on the silence of victims, who are further deterred from
speaking up by negative reactions ranging from agreeing that it’s a problem but
it should be ignored because nothing can be done about it, increased
restrictions from protective parents, or even offers to beat up the perpetrator
to get even by men relatives or spouses.</p>
<p>However,
Blank Noise recognizes that the issue is not as straightforward as it may seem.
While some actions like groping are clearly a form of harassment, other forms
such as looking or verbal taunting are not as obvious. Therefore, rather than
offering a rigid guideline to what is or is not street sexual harassment, Blank
Noise attempts to build a definition of ‘eve teasing’ through public polls,
both online on its blog and on the streets.</p>
<p>Blank
Noise does not advocate for any specific, tangible solution either. It is not proposing for a new legislation or service
provision. Many youth experts would say that it is a sign of youth’s decreasing
trust to the state, but actually this is an extension of Blank Noise’s
acknowledgement of the ambiguity of street sexual harassment. Hemangini Gupta, a
29 years old Blank Noise coordinator, asked, “Should we be allowing the state to legislate an issue like street
sexual harassment where there is so much grey even with how it is understood
and defined - from ‘looking’ to physical violence?” Instead, Blank Noise aims
at creating public dialogue to break the ignorance on street sexual harassment and change the
mindset of both men and women, young and old. Blank Noise does not promote a specific course of action for women
affected by the harassment either; it promotes the confidence to choose how to
react to harassment.</p>
<p>What
is unique about Blank Noise from this articulation? Some would argue that Blank
Noise is unique for being the first collective that addresses eve teasing, but
a closer inquiry into the history of the Indian women movements show that it is
widely acknowledged as a form of violence against women. However, perhaps due
to the limited resources of the movement, efforts to address eve teasing have
been taken up very systematically (Gandhi and Shah, 2002). In this sense, when
it was born in 2003, Blank Noise was unique for being the only group whose
existence is solely dedicated to address this issue.</p>
<p>Blank
Noise is not unique in problematizing the issue of violence against women. The
women’s movements in India and elsewhere have been refusing to prescribe any
solutions to the victims and identifying patriarchal mindset of both men and
women as the root cause either. Yet, it is exceptional in not identifying an
opponent or an entity where concrete demands are proposed to push for a
tangible progress towards a change of mindset.</p>
<p>Intangible
changes are as good as tangible ones. This might be a new characteristic of how
digital natives think about their causes, but it could also be more related to
their reading of the specific issue they are dealing with. Perhaps, if the
issue at hand is climate change, the same people will advocate for specific
solutions to the state or promote concrete behavior change. Either way, the
message is clear: we need to always take into account <em>what </em>a digital natives activism is about and not just <em>how </em>they do it!</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the second post in the <strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link">Beyond the Digital</a> </strong>series, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS
Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. <br /></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><u>Reference:</u></em><u></u></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blank Noise
(2005) ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. Accessed 21 September 2010. <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/frequently-asked-questions.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/frequently-asked-questions.html</a></p>
<p><u><br /></u></p>
<p>Gandhi, N. and
Shah, N. (1992) <em>The Issues at Stake:
Theory and Practice in the Contemporary Women’s Movement in India. </em>New
Delhi: Kali for Women</p>
<p>Source for the picture: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=2703755288">http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=2703755288</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismEve teasingDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentYouthBeyond the Digitalmovements2011-08-04T10:31:48ZBlog EntryBeyond the Digital: Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause
<b>Digital natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">The last decade
has witnessed an escalating interest among academics, policy makers, and other
practitioners on the intersection between youth, activism, and the new media
technologies, which resulted in two narratives: one of doubt and the other of
hope. The ‘hope’ narrative hinges on the new plethora of avenues for activism
at the young people’s disposal and the bulge of the population, stating that
the contemporary forms of youth activism represent new ways of conceiving and
doing activism in the present and the future (see, for example, UN DESA, 2005).
The ‘doubt’ narrative, on the other hand, questions to what extent the digital
activism can contribute to broader social change (Collin, 2008) and some
proponents of this view even call it ‘slacktivism’, stating that online
activism is only effective if accompanied with real life activism (Morozov, 2009).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Before assessing
the potentials of youth’s digital activism to contribute to social change, it
is imperative to first gain a comprehensive understanding about this emerging
form of activism. A brief review of existing literature on the topic found that
most of the analyses are centered on three perspectives, each with its own
approach, strengths, and weaknesses: the technology centered, the new social
movements centered, and the youth centered perspectives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The technology centered
perspective places a great emphasis on the instrumental role of the internet
and new media (see, for instance, Kassimir, 2005; Shirkey, 2007; Brooks and
Hodkinson, 2008). It discusses how internet savvy young people are able to
exercise their activism differently, because the technology can remove
obstacles to organizing, provide a new platform for visibility and make
transnational networking easier. In this perspective, the Internet and new media technologies are seen as enabling tool sand the web is viewed as a new space to promote
activism. However, this perspective mainly stipulates that there is already a
formulaic form of activism that can be transferred from the actual, physical
sphere to the virtual arena; it does not consider that the changes caused by
the way the youth are using technologies in their daily lives may also create
new meanings and forms of activism. This perspective is the most dominant in
literature on the topic, being the lens used by the pioneering studies on
youth, Internet, and activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The new social
movements centered perspective goes beyond that and looks at how new meanings
and forms of politics and activism are created as the result of the way people
are using new media technologies and the Internet. This perspective is leading
the recently emerging literature on the topic and emphasizes on the trend of
being concerned on issues related to everyday democracy and the favour towards
self organized, autonomous, horizontal networks (for examples, see Bennett,
2003; Martin, 2004; Collin, 2008). However, this perspective treats young
people merely as ‘vessels’ of the new activism and neglect to examine how their
lives have been shaped by the use of new media technologies and the Internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">The youth
centered perspective, represented for example by Juris and Pleyers (2009),
acknowledges that ICTs have always been part of young people’s lives and that
it intersects with other factors in shaping how they conceive politics and
activism. Most of the studies in this perspective were done with youth
activists in existing transnational social justice movements, such as the
global anti-capitalism or environmental movements. Nevertheless, this
perspective mainly views youth activists as ‘becomings’ by defining them as the
younger layer of actors in a multi-generational group that will be future
leaders of the movement. There are very few researches on autonomous youth
movements that are created and consist of young people themselves and look at
the youth as political actors in its own right. In addition, the majority of
studies also focused on the youth as individuals but not as a collective force.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">In addition to
the shortcomings of each perspective, there are also common gaps in the current
broader body of knowledge on the intersection of youth, new media technologies,
and activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Firstly, existing
researches tend to define activism as concrete actions, such as protests and
campaigns, and the values represented by such actions. It neglects other
elements that constitute activism together with the actions and values, such as
the issue taken up by the action, the ideologies underlying the formulation of
action, and the actors behind the activism (Sherrod, 2005; Kassimir, 2005). Divorcing
these elements from the analysis gave only a partial view of what youth digital
activism is.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Secondly, the
majority of studies zoomed into the novelty of new media technologies and how
they are being used as a point of departure to investigate the topic. This
arguably stems from an adult-centric, pre-digital point of view, which overlooks
the fact that internet and new media has always been ‘technology’ for most
young people just as how the radio and television have always been ‘technology’
for the previous generation (Shah and Abraham, 2009). This way of thinking
divorces the ‘digital’ from the ‘activism’ in digital activism; consequently,
it ignores all the other factors that are causing and shaping youth activism and
fails to capture how youth actors themselves are viewing or giving meaning to
this digital activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Finally, researches
on the issue skew excessively on developed countries. It must be acknowledged
that the ‘digital divide’, or the unequal access to and familiarity with
technology based on gender, class, caste, education, economic status or
geographical location, in developing countries is deeper and that the digitally
active youth are a privileged minority. Yet, a neglect to understand their
activism also means a failure to understand why and how the elite who are often
perceived to be politically apathetic are engaging with their community to
create social change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">The weaknesses
identified above demonstrate that our understanding on this particular form of
contemporary youth activism is currently obscured. Hence, the two narratives of
‘hope’ and ‘doubt’ lose their relevance given that the subject of assessment,
the digital youth activism, is not even clearly understood.</p>
<p>Based
on the above overview of the limitations, it is imperative to find a new way to
approach to understand the phenomenon of digital youth activism. I will explore
the possibilities of such an approach with the following arguments as the
starting point.</p>
<p>Firstly,
I argue that the key limitation lies on the adult-centric perspective in
viewing youth’s engagement with new media technologies, thus what is essential
is to go beyond the ‘digital’ and focus on the ‘activism’ part of youth digital
activism. Secondly, I argue that exploration of the
issue from the standpoint of the youth political actors themselves is crucial
to counter the adult-centric perspective dominating the literature on this
topic. Thirdly, since so many researches divorce the youth from the context of
their activism, it is crucial to focus on a particular case study to a tease
out the nuances of youth digital activism.</p>
<p>I
have the opportunity to explore the approach through a study with <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/">The Blank Noise
Project</a>, an initiative to address the problem of street sexual harassment in
public spaces that originated in 2003 in Bangalore. It has since expanded into
nine cities in India with over 2,000 volunteers, all young people between 17-30
years of age. Known for their unique public art street interventions as well as
their savvy online presence, The Blank Noise Project was also chosen because
its growth and sustainability over the past seven years are a testament to its
legitimacy and relevance for youth in India. </p>
<p>The
research does not aim to assess the contribution of The Blank Noise Project to
social change nor does it claim to represent all forms of youth digital
activism in India. Rather, it aims to offer insights on one of the forms of
digital natives joining forces for a cause. The research is interested in the
following questions: how do young people involved in the Blank Noise articulate
their politics? Who are their audience? What are their strategies? What is
their conception of the public sphere? How do they organize themselves? How do
they represent themselves to others? How do they see and give meaning to their
involvement with the Blank Noise? How can we make sense of their initiative? While
‘activism’ is the popular term that is also used in this research, is their
initiative a form of activism or is it something else altogether? More importantly,
how do these young people define it by themselves? For the next few months, I
will share stories, questions, and reflections that emerge along my journey of
exploring those questions with The Blank Noise Project on the CIS blog. </p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<p><em>This is the first post in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS
Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </em><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>References:</strong></p>
<p>Bennett,
W.L. (2007) ‘Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age’, paper presented at</p>
<p>the OECD/ INDIRE Conference on Millenial
Learners, Florence, Italy (5-6 March).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Brooks,
R. and Hodkinson, P. (2008) ‘Introduction’, <em>Journal
of Youth Studies</em> Vol. 11:5,</p>
<p>p. 473 – 479</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Collin,
P. (2008) ‘The internet, youth participation policies, and the development of</p>
<p>young people’s political identities in
Australia’, <em>Journal of Youth Studies </em>Vol.
11:5, p. 527 - 542</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Juris,
J.S. and Pleyers, G.H. (2009) ‘Alter-activism: Emerging cultures of
participation</p>
<p>among young global justice activists’, <em>Journal of Youth Studies </em>Vol. 12 (1): p.
57-</p>
<p>75.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Kassimir,
R. (2006) ‘Youth Activism: International and Transnational’, in Sherrod,</p>
<p>L.R., Flanagan, C.A. and Kassimir, R.
(eds.) <em>Youth Activism: An International </em></p>
<p><em>Encyclopedia,
</em>p.
20-28. London: Greenwood Press.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Martin,
G. (2004) ‘New Social Movements and Democracy’, in Todd, M.J. and Taylor,</p>
<p>G. (eds.) <em>Democracy and Participation: Popular protests and new social movements</em>,
p. 29-54. London: Merlin Press.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Morozov,
E. (2009) ‘The brave new world of slacktivism’. Accessed 19 May 2010 <</p>
<p>http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shah,
N. and Abraham, S. (2009) ‘Digital Natives with a Cause? A Knowledge</p>
<p>Survey and Framework’. Accessed 7 April
2010 < <a href="http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause">http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause</a>></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Sherrod,
L.R. (2006) ‘Youth Activism and Civic Engagement’, in Sherrod, L.R.,</p>
<p>Flanagan, C.A. and Kassimir, R. (eds.) <em>Youth Activism: An International </em></p>
<p><em>Encyclopedia,
</em>p.
2-10. London: Greenwood Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shirkey,
C. (2008) <em>Here Comes Everybody: How
Change Happens and People Come </em></p>
<p><em>Together</em>. New York:
Penguin Books</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>United
Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs / UN DESA (2005)</p>
<p>‘World Youth Report 2005: Young People
Today and in 2015’. Accessed 7 April 2010 <http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/wyr05book.pdf></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2012-03-13T10:43:37ZBlog Entry