The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 1 to 15.
Transcripts from WCIT-12
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012
<b>We are archiving copies of the live-transcripts from the World Conference on International Telecommunications, 2012 (WCIT-12) which is being held in Dubai from 3–14 December, 2012.</b>
<p>This is an unedited rough transcript of the discussions/sessions at the WCIT,2012 which is <a href="http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=CFI-WCIT">live-streamed and made available by the ITU</a>. We are hosting the live-streamed text for archival purposes: </p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/transcript-of-the-opening-ceremony-wcit-2012" class="external-link">Day 1 - WCIT-2012: Opening Ceremony (December 3, 2012)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/transcript-of-the-plenary-1-wcit-12" class="external-link">Day 1 - WCIT-2012: Plenary 1 (December 3, 2012)<br /></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012</a>
</p>
No publishersnehashishLive BlogInternet Governance2012-12-03T14:00:21ZBlog EntryTranscripts of Discussions at WIPO SCCR 25
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr25-discussions-transcripts
<b>We are providing archival copies of the transcripts of the 25th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, which is being held in Geneva from November 19, 2012 to November 23, 2012.
</b>
<p>This is an unedited rough transcript of the discussions at SCCR 25 which is live-streamed and made available by WIPO at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.streamtext.net/player/carttranscript?Event=WIPO">http://www.streamtext.net/player/carttranscript?Event=WIPO</a> and <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=WIPO">http://www.streamtext.net/player?event=WIPO</a>. We are hosting the live-streamed text for archival purposes:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-25-day-1-november-19-2012.txt" class="internal-link">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 1, November 19, 2012</a> (Full Text)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-25-day-2-november-20-2012.txt" class="internal-link">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 2, November 20, 2012</a> (Full Text)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-25-day-3-november-21-2012.txt" class="internal-link">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 3, November 21, 2012</a> (Full Text)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-25-day-4-november-22-2012.txt" class="internal-link">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 4, November 22, 2012</a> (Full Text)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-25-day-5-november-23-2012.txt" class="internal-link">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 5, November 23, 2012</a> (Full Text)</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr25-discussions-transcripts'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr25-discussions-transcripts</a>
</p>
No publishersmitaLive BlogCopyrightAccess to KnowledgeWIPO2012-12-05T00:58:55ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 4 Live Blog: Closing Remarks
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-closing-remarks
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant Shah closed the Habits of Living Thinkathon in Bangalore by disclosing that there truly was no blueprint planned for the event, as all of the participants were so diverse. There are future events already planned, and a repeat event with the same participants was mentioned for a year’s time from now.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the next steps suggested by Nishant are the creation of a course based on the Habits of Living events run by the same participants and a publication of sorts on the work and themes that were discussed over the course of the event. Oliver discussed some future events that he will be involved in that he hopes some of the participants will be able to become involved in. Following this, Nishant suggested that some structure of circulation, feedback, interaction and/or sharing be set up so the participants can continue to stay updated and involved in each others’ work. Tumblr and wikipages were suggested.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were interested in creating a digital publication on the discussions that took place during the Thinkathon. The creation of a course, and even a textbook, was also well received by the participants.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Gita Chadha felt that the process of the event and the discussions was very useful and conducive to sharing and reflection without being overwhelmed. She felt very strongly that the event was very helpful in helping her to draw parallels and connection between her work and the themes of the Thinkathon. She also felt that inviting an economist, even a political economist, might bring an interesting view to future events.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant suggested that each member write a guest blog for the website on their presentations, which the participants felt was an excellent idea. Nishant also suggested requesting blogs from the invited participants who could not make it to the Thinkathon, as well as extending the invitation to anyone the participants felt would be able to bring useful viewpoints to the discussions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The participants expressed gratitude at their involvement in the event and excitement for future events and activities with the group, and Nishant was thanked heartily by the group.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS would like to thank Brown University and the Brown Indian Initiative for supporting the Thinkathon, and Wendy Chun for making it possible. We would also like to thank the participants for taking part in the event and for making it a huge success! Thank you!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-closing-remarks'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-closing-remarks</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogHabits of LivingThinkathonDigital Humanities2012-10-09T06:27:31ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 4 Live Blog: Namita A Malhotra on Amateur Pornography
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-amateur-photography
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We found <b>Namita Malhotra</b>’s presentation on amateur video porn to be particularly stimulating. However, she begins her discussion not with porn but with the Sumeet Mixie, the first mixie made for Indian food. At the time that the Sumeet Mixie had its heyday, it was largely inaccessible to most Indians, even those in the mid-level middle class. The mixie, Namita claimed, was a representation of a crisis of the middle class in India in the 1980s, a representation of the progress that was promised to them through Nehru’s development programs that was still largely out of reach for the average Indian. Namita draws parallels between a picture of her father, a young engineer, with Nehru and the famous picture of Nehru with the Santhali tribal girl, who, at some point after the famous shot of her inaugurating a dam, placed a garland around Nehru and was subsequently ostracized from her village on the grounds that she had become married to him. Namita’s father’s life was also heavily influenced by Nehru and his call for engineers, as he was pressured to become an engineer when he had little interest in doing so.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Both the lives of her father and the Santhali girl were changed by the actions that they were asked to perform for the good of the country. Indians across the country were pushed to change their life, their dreams, and their habits in return for progress, for development, especially that of the Western kind. The reward was liberalization and a move towards consumerism, a duty that was placed upon the middle class as an activity of their earned progression but remained largely impossible. This struggle between the expectation to consume as a function of their hard-earned middle class status and their inability to do so was just one of many crises of the 1980s Indian middle class. Namita describes this period using two iconic phrases: “Life was hard and slow” and “a long afternoon of underdevelopment.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Moving on from discussions of Nehru and the middle class, Namita presents to us her work, jointly titled: Nehru’s Technologically Enabled Future or It Could Be Me. She enters into the discussion of amateur porn in India by showing us a 2-3 minutes video clip of the women’s section of a bus. The women are standing or sitting, and their activity barely changes over the period of the video. The eroticism, she suggests, could be in the suggestion of activities that could take place. It is the seemingly non-erotic images in India that have become some of the most defining features of amateur porn in India, both currently and in the past.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In past decades, the consumption of porn largely took place in communal male spaces. However, the event of a somewhat non-erotic clip of a teenage couple negotiating the terms of oral sex being auctioned on a website led to what Namita calls a “moment of sexual eureka”: the realization that amateur clips could be shared online. This led to a flood of amateur porn being circulated and shared through online networks. This eventually prompted a response from the state, though the response was largely one of confusion towards who or what was really responsible—the individual, the network or the technology? The state, of course, is not afraid of the content of the clips but the networks and connections that they cannot see nor trace.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Namita then moves on to a discussion of content of much amateur Indian porn. Much of the media that is created and consumed on mobile phones is grainy and low resolution, and even higher-resolution image clips tend to be highly un-staged with little to no focus on performance. There is a creation of anonymity through the way many clips are filmed, with one participant holding the camera and focuses being placed on body parts instead of faces. Where, then, does the eroticism come from? Namita argues that the familiarity and ability to relate and be present as a viewer in these amateur videos creates its own eroticism. The same can be said about the realness of videos whose purpose is not performance of sexual acts by ideal bodies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This creation of eroticism indicates possible discussion of surrogacy. Erotica stands in for sex, masturbation stands in for sex, etc. Surrogacy may be useful in completing this conversation about eroticism and Indian amateur porn.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were unsure about the connection between Nehru’s paradigms and amateur porn, and felt that it needed a bit more fleshing out. Discussion then moved towards ideas of transgressive epistemologies, and whether or not the culture and networks situated around amateur porn where sites of transgressive practices. There was debate around what the purpose of the transgression is—recovering ground in visual culture? Gaining control over one’s corporeality? Ultimately, Namita was wary of invoking a transgressive framework around these cultures, and put forth pleasure as a more interesting and useful frame, as there is always a sexual layer involved. She felt that a transfessive framework may be limiting in the exploration of these cultures.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-amateur-photography'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-amateur-photography</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:23:05ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 4 Live Blog: Wendy Chun on Friends
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-wendy-chun-on-friends
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Wendy Chun</b> talked to us today about what it means to be a friend. She began with a brief overview of network theory, with a focus on the dilemmas of the constant mapping. Moving on, she asked us to think about how networks are related to habits, as habits focus us on the duration of events. This is important for the understanding of networks, as networks require the constant generation of associated events that seem stable. Wendy then asked us to think about the difference between communities and networks, and helped us to think about the extent that networks are imagined (in Benedict Anderson’s sense of the imagined). Throughout this discussion, she continues to come back to the theme of “you,” the idea that networks enable us not only to see ourselves and our place in relation to other nodes in the network, but that simultaneous access of a network, a moment of “we,” will actually cause the network to fall into crisis,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Using this “you” framework, Wendy moves onto a discussion of the internet and how it has moved from being seen as a anonymous free space to a semi-private space where freedom stems from private authentication by others in your network. It is at this point that she asks us how we understand the idea of “friend”; are friendships mutual bonds created for support in times of crisis, or are they sometimes one-way affections where the act of requesting friendship creates the connection? How much has friendship become about broadcasting our connections—our place in the network?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber friendship, especially in the Facebook understanding of “friend,” becomes a method that we can use to understand our strange relationship with safety on online spaces—we desire security, and want to trust and authenticate our relationships with friends, but by pursuing this we can often put our friends into danger, or at least into realms that may not always be seen as “safe”, which now is often interpreted as “private.” For example, by “liking” a friend’s link on Facebook, we create tangible information for Facebook to collect and use about both our friends and ourselves. This method of capturing data only works when you are enmeshed in a network of friends. If our need for safety/privacy is what places in danger on the Internet, it is not security that tames networks by personalizing them that will help us; instead, we need to understand and accept that intimacy and danger in online spaces go hand-in-hand.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a finishing note, Wendy describes to us a phishing attack that she suffered. After clicking a link sent to her by a friend on Facebook, she sent phishing spam to all of her friends—all of the members of her network. This event created a moment of understanding for her, as she realized that her spam messages reminded her friends that they were part of her network, and that she liked them enough to put them at risk.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participant discussion began with a focus on how theory becomes implicated into networks, and how networks can be used to give oversights of theory. Participants asked: what does theorizing networks do to the networks, and the members in the networks? Can Facebook be seen as theory, particularly in the ideas of the existence of events without witnesses and how friendships are created and understood?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants also pointed out that it is wrong to be suspicious of organizations like Facebook, because it is not Facebook that betrays you but your friends. This is the implicit agreement of Facebook friendship—the agreement to be friends implicates the transmission of secrecy/vulnerability. Machines cannot betray, but humans, friends, can and often do, even in ways that may be involuntary.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Further discussion focused on both how friendships and application suggestions give us the ability to understand how we are building and presenting ourselves. This two-way communication with technologies that implicate networks puts us into a state of permanent crisis where we must continue to be active to connect, as connecting becomes the main activity of becoming and staying networked. This moved into a discussion on the creation of traces of networks that are constantly in motion, and constantly on the verge of disappearing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wendy’s discussion of friendship as an often one-way activity, particularly on Facebook where one member must request friendship with another, was a completely new way of thinking about the essence of friendship for me. How much does this cyber, “Facebook” method of creating friendship through the declaration of association cut into the real world? Are nonhuman agreements of friendship (i.e.: Facebook friends) reflections of significant real-world events, in the sense that they are often a nonhuman promise to pursue future friendship in the physical world that is made real through its broadcast on the network? What does this mean for real-world meetings that don’t cumulate in “friending”? What happens to the structure of real-world friendship if the promise of friendship that was broadcasted is never followed through? What does “defriending” mean? What does defriending do to networks?</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-wendy-chun-on-friends'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-wendy-chun-on-friends</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:18:59ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 4 Live Blog: Finding and Funding the Masses
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-finding-and-funding-the-masses
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant Shah of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore began the final day of the THinkathon with his presentation “Citizen action in the time of the network: beyond spectacles of change.” Nishant begins by describing the climate of the current digital moment. We are dealing with unprecedented questions of territory. Democratic states are facing resistance with their promising notes for the future. With increasingly queer boundaries between ‘citizen’ and ‘State’ mediated by digital relations, we are looking at a radical re-imagining of the role of the State and its sovereignty.</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">These past few years – in the midst of the Arab Spring – we’ve heard a lot about the <i>new</i> era of digital activism. Shah is interested in pinpointing what is actually ‘new’ about this activism. He begins with a bold assertion: this newness is indicative of new forms of citizen action, but not necessarily <i>new infrastructures</i> of activism. Shah argues that what is actually ‘new’ about this activism is that these digital technologies present an imperative that (activist) events be rendered intelligible and accessible within their paradigms. These technologies presume that a legible and intelligible network exists, despite temporal and geographical differences. What becomes evident is that the system makes invisible those actions that cannot be interpreted by the system – they only recognise actions that can be accounted for by the system. The study of networks presents a problematic proposition because of its self-referential network – any phenomenon is explained only through its relationality with other phenomena. To illustrate this, Shah presents the provocative question: “If a tree falls in a lonely forest and nobody tweets about it, has it really fallen?” The very acts of witnessing have been replaced by tools of networking.</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">Shah roots his epistemology within a case study of the Shanzhai Spring Festival Gala in China. He shows how discourse around this event has marked it as a ‘failed’ event and representative of how there can be no citizen action within authoritarian contexts. Shah suggests that another way of looking at this event is a phenomenon which cannot be accounted for by the network – a radical critique presented by activists that cannot be rendered intelligible by the current system. This raises a larger anxiety for Shah and the participants: if events do not become accessible it always gets counted as a failure and gets lost in public memory.</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">Shah’s presentation raised vibrant discussion on the politics of visibility, knowing, and the avante-garde. Participants suggested that Nishant look into the work of artists and theorists like Ariella Azoulay who attempt to conceptualise actions outside of the paradigm of rights, citizenship, and propriety. What does it mean to do in action <i>knowing</i> that it will be shut down – a politics of despair, if you will. What also becomes apparent is the <i>limits</i> of revolution – there has not been a transformation of a system. Rather, the system has included more citizens into its fold. The conversation reveals that we need to find a more critical way to discuss networks – a language in which the network is not clichéd, but rather porous.</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">Renée Ridgway from NEWS Amsterdam follow’s Shah’s presentation with her presentation “Surrogacy: Bodies, States, Networks: Crowdfunding for funding the crowds, a new model for the distribution of wealth?” Ridgway takes a departure from other presentations by directly implicated the participants in one of her current art projects. Ridgway reviews one of her current research-art projects on documenting indigenous plants in Kochin Kerela – a location with histories of Dutch colonialism. Ridgway has visited and exhibited in Kerela in the past and is now interested in expanding on her work and developing a documentary about these issues. She asks the participants: how does she fund this project without the State?</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">In rooting questions of State reparation, (neo)colonialism, race, and other central political questions within a tangible project – Ridgway invites the crowd into critical discussion. Participants remain wary of the way in which technology can serve as a ‘trojan horse’ to build collaboration with communities. What becomes apparent is that Ridgway, as an artist, has become a surrogate for the State for the people she worked with on the project in India. Questions of collaboration remained central to this discussion – how do we imagine collaboration as a condition of care by the network, one that requires investment and material labour to perform a particular task. Also, questions of neoliberalism emerged. What is a collective process that relies on affective and material labour by diverse peoples becomes lost in the narrative of ‘individual’ artist.</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: justify; ">I share participants concern that we complicate the role of an artist. What becomes apparent is that dynamics of class, race, and (neo)colonilism can manifest themselves in the technological realm. While I agree that technology can present a compelling platform to explore solidarities and collaborations across difference, it can simultaneously function as a site that reifies these oppressions.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-finding-and-funding-the-masses'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-finding-and-funding-the-masses</a>
</p>
No publisheralokLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:55:50ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 3 Live Blog: Eivind Rossaak on Archives in Motion
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-archives-in-motion
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Eivind Rossaak</b> talks to us today about Archives in Motion, and how networks, especially those created though interaction with technology and social media, have consequences for the way we conceptualize the idea of the archive. He runs us through a brief introduction to archival theory to helps us understand how the purpose, structure, and function of archives and their artifacts have changed over time, and leads us into an exploration of contemporary developments and discourses on archives. Currently, Rossaak is interested in themes of counter-memory practices, software vs. memory, and whether or not social media is a form of archives in motion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When approaching social media as forms of archives in motion, Rossaak calls on us to think differently about how we understand archival activities. Using the example of Youtube, Rossaak reminds us that we can’t just think of Youtube as a video archive or a repository of confessionary personal information, but instead we should begin to see Youtube as a platform of networked documents, and a site of network creation. Youtube videos are essentially linked; they are not just video logs, but emerge as the expressions of nodes in a complex network database.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Eivind calls upon the example of the Boxxybabe meme to help us understand this new way of being networked. The Boxxybabe video did not just go viral, it cut across many spheres of human interaction and activity, to the point where the identities and activities created by the Boxxybabe meme were experienced in both the online and offline worlds. The Boxxybabe video becomes a technological article in itself, as it testifies to multiple networks. Further, it represents new forms of associations created between objects that are both human and non-human, and motions towards a cyborg turn in the way we become human through the extension of human lives in cybernetic networks. The networks created by this plasticity between the human and nonhuman leads to new methods of social memory creation, and therefore new understandings of archives in motion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rossaak’s presentation prompts an ardent response from the participants. Participants discussed issues of anxiety associated with memory failure and how this leads to the desire to preserve. This leads into an exploration of what an archive really is and whether archives require institutionality or can be understood as personal. In this understanding, there is no need for counter-archives because archives are being built everywhere, all the time, and this facilitates the understanding of social media as archives. Participants agree that further study should be pursued around this concept.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other issues are brought up around subjects that were not addressed in the summary of archival theory, mainly around ideas of locationality and objectivity in the collection of information for archives, selectivity of information that goes into archives, the labor of the archive, and the implication of locationality in the understanding and function of archives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A large amount of further discussion is centered on the human and non-human elements of archive and network creation, and the activity of becoming human through the creation of non-human networks. Nishant Shah, our facilitator, sums up the main theme of this discussion with the following tweet: “If our idea of the human is mitigated through the non-human, then all attempts at being human will always be about being networked.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Personally, I thought the concept of archives in motion was incredibly interesting, and I would like to push the ideas of the motion and a recreation of what it is to be human a bit further. I wonder if these structures of social memory and complex offline/online networks that are created through interaction with social media actually represent a movement not only towards our abandonment of the concept of an event or object of being rooted in time, only able to be understood and documented once it has ended (therefore allowing us, using a linear structure of time, to understand it by viewing its beginning point and end point), but also towards viewing ourselves as being in motion, as well. What does it mean to be a human in motion? Does it mean the abandonment of linear temporality? Am I able to see myself, my identity, as not rooted in time but as a node in a network of my self? Can personal conceptualizations of “self” be networked? Is this what it means to be a human in motion?</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-archives-in-motion'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-archives-in-motion</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:39:46ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 3 Live Blog: Rijuta Mehta on Militant Hindu Nationalist Networks
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-militant-hindu-nationalist-networks
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Rijuta Mehta</b> talked to us today about networks of Hindu militant nationalism, which she has termed “Hindutva” networks. Through her back in cultural media studies, she has become interested in the creation and existence of non-citizens as well as the interaction between the state and the stateless person. Using the larger framework of non-citizenship and the media, Rijuta has been trying to make sense of the militant Hindutva movements that are abound in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rijuta argues that a good way of understanding these movements is by using a network framework, particularly one that recognizes the integral part that is played by interaction between the various networks and that these networks are characterized by the politics of non-citizenship—that is, those that are excluded from the Hindutva networks are non-citizens. Mehta asks us: What is the form of these networks, and what do they have to do with the persecution of non-citizens in India? To what extent does Hindutva make the form of the network visible in political society and political violence? How do networks of dispossession and externalism give and take form? What is the form of the Hindutva network(s)?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To help answer some of these questions, Mehta walks us through a brief history of the growth of Hindutva groups in India, and describes to us how their characterization has changed over time. Hindutva has moved from being a collection of networks of those who identify as Hindu to a multilevel movement known for its violence against Muslims and those it views as non-citizens. The Hindutva organization is characterized by many branches of networks, which has allowed for the expression of many different beliefs and ideologies within the overarching framework of Hindutva. However, though the networks may appear to be decentralized, the groups are still dependent on a hierarchal stratification of central nodes of power. This complex structure of authority allows for niches for petty/local sovereigns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mehta points out at this point that the public often sees networks as being emancipatory, but in the example of the Hindutva, this has to be questioned. We should expect to see networks being created in instances of mediated rule and patron-clientalism, both of which lead to the structure of civil society being characterized by the creation of multiple networks centralized around middlemen. Networked associations such as these tend to enable higher incidences of violence, and can even lead to long-term entrenched violence. Consequently, networks should not be seen as being ultimately emancipatory, as they can be the cause of more established structures of oppression.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were quick to discuss the use of the word “Hindutva” when describing these networks. It was pointed out that in a Supreme Court of India ruling, Hindutva was defined as “the way of life of the Indian people and the Indian culture or ethos,” and that Hindutva could encompass any type of Hinduism. Discussion arose over whether or not there are non-problematic Hindutva networks. Many participants argued that though Hindutva is now associated with the militant right-wing, it may still be incorrect to called the violent or aggressive Hindu nationalist movement Hindutva because the borders between the militant Hindutva networks and various other non-militant or even non-nationalistic Hindu networks are not clear.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Bringing it back to habits and living, discussions were brought up about the similarities between Hinduism as a lifestyle, as being part or a guiding structure to habits and living, and Christianity as a lifestyle. In many places in the USA, many people who are not orthodoxly religious still perform religious activities simply because it is part of their habit and lifestyles, and those practices are so deeply engrained into the culture and everyday life of those Americans. This is where the term Hindutva becomes problematic as simply a term to describe militant nationalist networks, as Hindutva can also be seen as a structure of everyday life for many Indians.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I thought the discussion about the use of the term Hindutva was very important, as the use of an all-encompassing term with unclear boundaries can vilify groups or individuals who do not identify with the popular understanding of Hindutva as a militant nationalist group. I also thought that the point about mediated rule and patron-clientalism is a highly interesting avenue for the research of networks and how network structures interact with the state and the political sphere, as they can influence both the development of a legitimate political regime as well as the creation of citizen and non-citizen identities.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-militant-hindu-nationalist-networks'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-militant-hindu-nationalist-networks</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:34:59ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 3 Live Blog: Joshua Neves on Media Archipelagos
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-media-archipelagos
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Joshua Neves</b> presents two areas of his work today. The first presentation is about his research on what he calls “media archipelagos,” a project that was inspired by island studies and grew into a focus on inter-Asian film festivals. The use of the term “archipelagos,” Neves argues, is a much more useful way of conceptualizing islands and “edge” communities—regions that are often thought about in terms of their isolation or juxtaposition against the mainland—than the current understanding of these regions as disconnected or “fringe.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The idea of an archipelago of these fringe regions becomes particularly useful when we attempt to realize, or even map, the networks that are beginning to characterize the media industries in these areas of the world, especially in the study of film festivals. Exclusively Asian film festivals like BUSAN represent the emergence of what Neeves calls “minor media capitals” in the periphery, which are significant entry points (nodes) in a network or multitude of networks that exist outside of or even parallel to the core’s networks (the implications of the use of dependency theory terms was not discussed). Increasingly, these minor media capitals are becoming important sites of the production of Asian experience and Asian identity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, true to network theory, the mapping of these media networks, even within the archipelago framework, only leads to the discovery of more networks, or at least ways of thinking about these networks. Joshua asks us: are these networks at the edge or networks made up of edges? Do different networks characterize continental islands and oceanic islands? The only certainty is that there are many different ways of imagining these networks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In his second presentation, Neves discusses with us another one of his research projects focused around mobile TV in post-socialist China. Mobile television has become common-place in most public spaces in urban China. Public squares, train stations, subways and buses—Television screens, and almost constant programming, can be found in all of the spaces. Many of these screens are aimed towards capturing the gaze of migrant populations, which Joshua finds particularly interesting and has become a major site of inquiry in this work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Because mobile TV is tailored to time and location, the common model of televisuality as being distant and uninfluenced by the individual viewer has been reconstructed. Specific viewers at specific places are viewing programming that has been created specifically for their consumption, and the experience is becoming seamless, in that the average urban Chinese individual moves from one screen to the next throughout their daily activities. Joshua asks: what is it to be seamless? How do we become seamless? How does homelessness interplay with seamlessness in this context?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the discussion, participants debated the use of the term “archipelagos,” particularly for islands, because there was a worry that the term did not invoke the complexity of many of the regions that it could encompass. Issues were also brought up with conceptualizing periphery media centres in the same way as core media centres, the structures of power in the dependency theory framework, and whether or not seamlessness could be invoked in the characterization of archipelago networks. Discussions about the habits of living as being temporal or spatial were also brought up, which led into a discussion of habits versus practice and habitus.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I actually found Neves' use of the word Archipelagos to be very useful for the conceptualization of "fringe" networks, as I felt that it was a term that invoked geography more than essence. I was troubled by the use of dependency theory in his presentation, but his reasoning for its use ("I like using problematic terms; they create dialogue") was satisfying for me. I think, though, that we must look closer at the film festival as a site of identity creation. How is this process happening? Why? Through films or the event itself? What type of films, then, are being rewarded? Is this influencing the types of identities being produced? Are these sites also producing restrictions on what is acceptable as "Asian" and asian identity?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I was also very intrigued by the participants’ further discussion of habitus and its relation to the entrenchment of power relations and unequal systems. Development, participants reasoned, is impeded by habits as they reinforce an understanding of the socio-cultural world. Without getting into a discussion on highly troublesome use of the word development, this is a problematic claim for me, as it infers that habitus is homogenous across multiple individuals. While I do not disagree that there must be patterns of habitus in certain groups or networks, the experience of socialization that leads to habitus must be different for each individual, especially overtime as their navigate the creation of their own identity. This idea of habitus-as-impediment also gestures towards a set of habits that are static over time.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is an interesting claim for development theory, especially in the context of relating networks to habits, as the starting point of development would then be to identify the cultural habitus (i.e. map the network), which would cause the network to fall into crisis. Is this not similar to the colonial process of dismantling local culture?</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-media-archipelagos'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-media-archipelagos</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:04:53ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 3 Live Blog: Akansha Rastogi's Performance on Exhibition Space
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-exhibition-space
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Akansha Rastogi </b>changes the pace of the afternoon session with a lecture—nay, a performance—on the form in exhibition spaces. Using language that can only be called poetry, she leads us through the biology of an image, and asks us to archive the image to the point of exhaustion and non-meaning. Though image analysis, she helps us to think about images through how they are accessed, to read their stories through their creators, their viewers, their past and present and their correspondences with the elements inside and out of the exhibition space—everything but the actual meaning of the image as art.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Towards the end of her presentation, Rastogi switches from prose to a discussion of her work, in which she divulged to us that many of the images she works with are from events that she was not involved in, and that she approached them as an outsider, a lurker. This allowed her to imagine and map the networks that were implicated in the exhibitions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The participants were very pleased by the form that Rastogi had used in her presentation, though a debate was generated around whether or not it was art piece. Another artist in the crowd interpreted it as a performance lecture, and was critical of the discussion of Rastogi’s work in the end. Other participants and Rastogi herself defended the discussion of the project in the end, as it was useful in helping the participants understand the layers and context of the documentation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another large discussion that was spurred by the performance was centered on the method of network mapping that Rastogi put forward, and whether or not the claim that we must be outside of a network to see it is valid or not. Further, participants debated the role that locationality played in the mapping of networks, especially if networks could be mapped from within.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were also interested in the concepts of “parasite” in the performance and its relation to surrogacy. While it was almost universally agreed that surrogacy was a troublesome concept that required further study, there was general contention around whether characterized terms like “parasite” or “epiphyte” were useful for discussion of surrogacy, and if more useful conceptualizations of surrogacy needed to move beyond the use of bounded language.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I was very intrigued by the discussions of inclusion and exclusion in the viewing and mapping of networks. Like many participants, I found the claims of required exclusion in order to view a network to be problematic. I agree that it may be easier to perceive a network when we are on the outside of it, but I don’t agree that it’s a pre-requisite. I think that this sort of “logical-academic” way of thinking about networks—that we need to be in a position of <i>study</i>, which requires an overview of all the various bits and pieces—places networks in an essence of structure that I am not sure is useful or not. Maybe the ability to see only certain parts of a network, which may be a position we find ourselves in when we are part of the network, is a better way of understanding the network, particularly its locationality, its presence, and its purpose, than comprehending it through the identification of all of its parts (i.e.: mapping).</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-exhibition-space'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-exhibition-space</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T06:09:29ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 2 Live Blog: Radhika Gajjala Lectures on e-Philanthropy
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Today, Radhika Gajalla gave a lecture about a body of work which she called as "Emerging forms of Surrogacy, E-Philanthropy and Digital Globalization through Online Micro-transactional Platforms". It looks at online micro-transaction platforms. She ran us through some of the history of micro-finance theory, from Yunis' methods of female empowerment to micro-finance as a profit-generating activity, and the newer online micro-finance platforms like KIVA, microplace and CARE's online micro-finance portal.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Radhika also spoke about labor organization and supply chains forming for handicraft micro-enterprises in India. She identified two categories of platforms that entrepreneurs could use: sites that link buyers directly to producers, like Etsy and Ebay, and mirco-finance websites that solicit (usually Western) donors. In some cases, resources like Ebay cannot be used in India (or couldn’t in the past) because of barriers like the banning of paypal, and there is more demand for the micro-finance platforms from lenders (Westerners); these forces have worked to make the empowered entrepreneur a much more legitimate and accessible image for lenders.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Consequently, Radhika begins to identify the politics of imagery on online micro-finance platforms, and identified two aspects of the images common on these online platforms: the empowered receiver (who is being directly empowered by the loans) and the empowered giver (who is being made to feel good by being enablers for these receivers). The images being used by the MFIs are strategically used to create the sense of connection or the belonging to mutual networks with the lenders — an example of this is individuals in the West who weave seeing a picture of an Indian weaver and want to fund her not just because they interpret her as poor but also as a fellow weaver. This philanthropic model of giving also uses guilt relief as a motivation — the return on the loan is the relief of guilt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the participant discussions, it was pointed out that the images also spur lending through the promise of improving lives. Also, this concept of using moral responsibility to prompt giving can be paralleled with the movement in Western business spheres of social responsibility.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another participant brought up the idea of mobilization, and asks us to think about what mobilizes individuals or groups to give in to these micro-finance organizations? Is it really hope, or is it shame? To what extent can these really motivate us?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Further, participant interaction caused us to wonder if, on websites like KIVA, both lenders and receivers become nodes and entry-points into new networks, or even the sites of new network creation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As for my own thoughts, I was particularly interested in a point that one participant made on the expression of poverty in the images on KIVA: they do not showcase destitution. While they are images of poverty, they are also images of hope — the colours are bright, the subjects are smiling. Are these images much more powerful as motivators for Western donations because Westerners are desensitized to images of destitute poverty? Or are they just more accessible to Western viewers?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While destitution suggests a rigidity of causal structures that cannot be altered by either the subject or the viewer, the image of the smiling Indian woman standing in front of the spinning wheel expresses the concept that poverty is escapable using the inherent tools and skills possessed by the subject, to the only thing missing that is capital — an idea that is much more accessible to the Western donor. It is also possible that the movement in international aid and development media from images of destitution to images of hope impresses upon the donor that there has been progress in the Global South, possibly progress that can be attributed to actions of Western development initiatives, which legitimizes the donation by implicating that improvement is possible and currently taking place.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Continue to follow our live blog of the Thinkathon for more thought-provoking discussion!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital NativesWorkshop2012-10-09T05:40:08ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 2 Live Blog: On Technology and Affective Indian Feminism(s)
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-technology-and-feminism
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multidisciplinary scholars and practitioners. The workshop aims to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Saumya Pant from the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad begins the day with a controversial and important talk "For the Love of Child? The Economy of Desire in Cases of Transnational Surrogacy". Pant invites us into the taboo world of international couples travelling to India to receive a child from a surrogate mother. After Oprah featured a story on Indian commercial surrogacy mothers, India has seen a surfeit of foreign couples looking for a — comparatively inexpensive — surrogate mother. Surrogate mothers must be between 20 to 45 years old, married, and have at least one child. They stay in carefully regulated spaces and are provided with vitamins, extravagant meals, and access to a television. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s theory of <i>affective economies</i>, Pant is interested in privileging the narratives of the Indian surrogates themselves. What motivates them to participate in this emotional journal of ten months?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Inspired by transnational feminist analyses, Pant concedes that one’s privilege in the world system is always linked to another women’s oppression and exploitation. However Pant wants to push and tease out this analysis — asking us to re-imagine the agency and affectual relations that mediate these surrogacy interactions. Pant shows how emotions actually <i>do</i> things in these interactions. Emotions circulate and create relationships of attachment between child, surrogate mother, commercial parents. This affect is not permanent, rather it is ephemeral. Pant traces these circulations of economies of hope and love and shows how Indian surrogate mothers position themselves as a 'giver' — in the most non-capitalist sense of the idea — to construct and experience surrogacy as a legitimate choice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pant’s project raised serious issues of methodology for the participants. One participant felt that in the turn to affect theory, we neglect the very real experiences of pain and exploitation that are apparent in these interactions. All in attendance re-iterated the importance of understanding <i>how women perceive their own bodies</i>, versus the various theories that govern how they <i>should</i> see their bodies. Others discussed how this project presents a useful opportunity to tease out the ‘body’ from the ‘bodily.’</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indeed, it seems as if Pant has stumbled on a very compelling research project — one which raises serious questions of (post)colonialism, citizenship, tourism, ethics, among others. I’m particularly intrigued by exploring the possibility of the Indian surrogate mother as a <i>Global South</i> queer figure. Much theorising in Western queer scholarship (especially explorations in queer temporality) has positioned ‘queerness’ as opposed to ‘reproduction.’ The surrogate mother calls this framing into question – how is reproduction mapped differently on bodies of women of color in the Global South? How can we imagine queer ways of actually participating in reproductive economies?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Gita Chadha from Mumbai ended the day by sharing her perspective on Thinkathon themes from her background in Feminist Science Studies. Chadha begin with raising her concerns with the metaphor of surrogacy — what does it mean to use a metaphor that is derived from such a potentially traumatic and embodied situation of women? Chadha outlines a brief history of the development of South Asian Feminist Science studies and then follows this summary by asserting that there are three major relational cognitive-affects of modernity that we continue to produce in postmodern times: the self system, the truth system, and the community system. For Chadha, the wholeness of these categories is contested in contemporary times with the digital turn: the self becomes hyphenated, the truth becomes destabilised, and the community fractured.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Coming at this digital moment from a feminist background Chadha reminds us how feminist positions on technology have shifted from viewing women as victims of technology to women as active claimants of technology. She then highlighted the particular challenge of Indian feminists who discuss issues of technology in negotiating their relationship to Western scholarship, including Dona Harraway. After reviewing this genealogy, Chadha argues that currently the real and the virtual in a sense serve as surrogates for each other and deliver a sense of self, a notion of truth(iness), and experience of community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chadha concludes by applying this feminist epistemology to the Pink <i>Chaddi</i> Campaign — a recent expression of ‘collective rage’ put forth by Indian women tired of the State’s regulation of the public space. Chadha draws our attention to the way that digital media was central to this campaign. While some critical feminist voices felt that the use of the <i>chaddi</i> in this campaign undermined the seriousness of the issue of violence against women, Chadha asks us to see how truth and community shift and are mediated by technology in these campaign spaces.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chadha’s framework allowed participants to talk about how what gets lost in science is the technology of science itself – how science valorises one scholar at the cost of collaborative processes. Once again questions of the efficacy of the visual domain arise. What does it mean to prioritise the visual within the affective turn? What also emerges is the ability to assert a truth with limited knowledge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I find Chadha’s commitment toward feminism as a particular epistemological/theoretical perspective (versus simply a mode of activism) very important. Discussions in media/digital theory often assume a de-gendered subject and Chadha does good work in bringing in the critical question of gender difference within our discussion of theory and networks.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-technology-and-feminism'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-technology-and-feminism</a>
</p>
No publisheralokLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T09:39:08ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 2 Live Blog: Deepak Menon on Water in India
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-water-in-india
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multidisciplinary scholars and practitioners. The workshop aims to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Deepak Menon welcomes us into his world by asking a very common question: Why is water in India of such bad quality?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He begins by pointing out that different groups with different ideologies have varying views on water in India, and very few of these multitudes of groups actually interact with one another to share their knowledge or work together. What is clear, though, is that water is integral to Indian life, and that the major problems associated with water are those surrounding drinking water and sanitation. Most of the drinking water in India is surface water, and most of the surface water is contaminated, which has spurned an interest in using groundwater. Fifteen years ago in Bangalore, apartment buildings were built close to groundwater reserves — now, even some of the most expensive housing is built without proximity to a water resource, so water must be brought in from other areas in large quantities. Groundwater is a large issue as well, as the deeper you drill into groundwater aquifers, the more contaminants are in the water — and they are dangerous to health. Doctors are constantly treating the symptoms of contaminated water without even knowing that the cause is bad water, and this lack of knowledge is widespread across India, except for those that work in the water industry.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Ministry of Health is not connected or in regular dialogue with the ministry of water management — so no one but the water ministry touches water issues. This lack of knowledge sharing and co-operation is pervasive throughout many Indian spheres, which is why, for Deepak, the process of network creation becomes an important comprehension point. How do we create a network, especially one with the purpose of disseminating knowledge to multiple spheres of society? How do we coordinate multiple actors to mobilize these networks? How do we create both online and offline networks that engage multiple groups? Many associations or appropriate groups are uninterested in talking to one another, so how do we get these groups talking? If we are unable to connect groups within one sector, how will we do it between sectors or even regions?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Deepak is interested in a model of network existence and creation. It's hard to create a network if many basic questions (How much time does it take? How long will it last) have no answers. Issues of structure also complicate the inclusion or participation of particular actors into a network framework — some individuals and groups are not used to working in non-hierarchal environments. How do we form long-lasting networks between different groups? Does the process differ between online and offline networks?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One participant reflected on the over-drawing of water and its relation with corruption — does corruption enable over-use of water resources? Deepak responded that this happens in both industrial and private use of water, as well as many other spheres in Indian society. The participant also put forth the idea of using mobile technology to collectively map water resources. Deepak pointed out that again, this is an issue of the creation of networks — if we were able to create the collective interest in creating this mapping activity, then it would be very useful, but so far, attempts to create the needed networks have not been successful. Crowd mapping was also suggested, and it was pointed out that thinking about crowd-mapping groups is a good exercise in envisioning the kinds specifics of the networks that need to be created.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another participant pointed out that much of the dialogue about and interaction with water exists within traditional knowledge systems, so we must be aware of these systems of consumption and understanding when dealing with water in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Deepak finishes by asking us to consider the following three questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>When have you felt most networked in your life? When do you experience a network?</li>
<li>List networks that you are part of online and offline.</li>
<li>What are the few defining characteristics that you felt that these networks possessed?</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While I do believe that networks often become apparent when you are excluded for them, as Nishant discussed on our first day, in my own experience, the identification of a network structure in an environment, I originally thought was hierarchical was when I felt the most networked. However, I have experienced my own belonging to networks before this point, but I believe that I viewed those networks that are relevant in my own life as being predominately social. I tend to see membership to most networks as being involuntary, but I believe that this stems from quite a narrow comprehension of network theory.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As for Deepak’s discussion, I believe that the search for a methodology for the creation of networks could be problematic. If it is true that the moment we see a network in its entirety is the moment that the network falls into crisis, what does this say about the essence of a network that was actively created with a specific goal in mind? Is it sustainable if the nature that connects the nodes of the network is not inherent or invisible, but constructed and clearly understood by all members? And what does this say about the orchestrator or architect of the network? When a tangible entity constructs a network, is this a hierarchical process? Can it result in a network, or is the structure created inherently hierarchical?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If you're interested in being part of this dialogue, please tweet your answers to these questions to #hol12!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-water-in-india'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-water-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T05:14:53ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 1 Live Blog: Globalising Lady GaGa
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-globalising-lady-gaga
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multidisciplinary scholars and practitioners. The workshop aims to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Maesy Angelina, an independent researcher from Jakarta, Indonesia was the first speaker with her presentation "Subversive Banality: Global Celebrities and Citizenship Practices on Twitter". Angelina first draws our attention to the way we tend to celebrate social media outlets like Twitter as being a site of political and activist resistance (Arab Spring). However, the reality of the situation is that the highest trending topics on Twitter throughout the world are about celebrities. Twitter users, including those in Indonesia where Angelina’s research focuses, are not tweeting about contemporary violence in society (at least directly). While some scholars have suggested that this is indicative of the mindlessness of the masses, Angelina wants to complexify this narrative and offer that perhaps the masses have different tactics to contest notions of citizenship that are not intelligible from a traditional 'activist' or 'academic' schema.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Angelina focuses on a series of protests and debates about international pop sensation Lady Gaga performing in Indonesia from March - June 2012. In reviewing the tweets generated during this time, Angelina finds that most of these messages have nothing to do with Lady Gaga and often include perspectives on culture, nature, and other topics pertaining to citizenship. For example: "Music is universal, but gyrating moves and revealing clothes are not". Angelina argues that the (international) celebrity presents an opportunity, a site by which Indonesian people are able to contest notions of citizenship. She presents the ‘banality’ of this celebrity discourse as actually subversive. She images this discourse as a way of the masses asserting agency.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Angelina’s presentation sparked an important conversation. Most notably, participants were concerned with what it means to view Twitter as a legitimate network by which to make these claims? Is Twitter really representative of the appropriate network to analyse these topics? Conceptual and methodological challenges arise here: what tools do we use to analyse new forms of media when we currently do not have the apparatus and training methods to do so? Participants also noted a serious need for historicity in these types of analyses. While we tend to fetishise the ‘digital’ or ‘social media’ ‘turn,’ we have to acknowledge histories — including fan culture in this case — that shape and structure the advent of these new discourses. Participants called for Angelina to ground her claims within histories of models of citizenship — particularly citizenships based on consumption.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I found Angelina’s presentation and notion of banal subversiveness quite provocative. However, I think we have to all think more critically about what it means that many of these international celebrities that initiate this dialogue are white and American. Considering that citizenship is already a fraught and contested category within formerly colonised areas, how do we incorporate an analysis of (neo)imperialism within our frameworks? How is the (racialised, gendered, etc.) body of the ‘foreign’ celebrity different to that of the ‘local’ celebrity? While it is important to acknowledge the increasing instability of these dichotomies and concede the interconnectivity of global system(s), fundamental questions of power, inequality, and colonialism cannot be neglected in this discussion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Oliver Lerone Schulz from the Post Media Lab in Lueneburg, Germany spoke next. Schulz’s approach to theory is unique due to his history in traditionally non-academic spaces which generate and approach theory in fundamentally different ways. He is committed to a conception of media that is not fettered by technological media. At its core, Schulz’s presentation sought to assert a conceptual schema, an epistemology to address questions of the visual. He reminds us how questions of the image and the visual have emerged as a specific point of irritation in contemporary theory and have come to represent an unsolved problem or anomaly. Schulz utilises a paradigm of globalisation to grapple with this dilemma.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Schulz asks us how is globalisation visualized? What does it mean to map out globalisation? Schulz reviews relevant literature on the visual domain establishing that a visual is a representation of something that cannot be represented in the first place without efforts to visualise it. Following this, we can recognise that globalisation is presented as a diagnosis of our times, but <i>it is also</i> the object which is being diagnosed. His project is an attempt to locate and establish a visual politics which is not only visual to map, characterise and critique globalisation. He draws the audience’s attention to a series of images and asks: to what extent can you see globalisation?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Schulz’s presentation raises important questions on the efficacy of visual analyses and frameworks. Participants agree that the visual turn is in crisis, and yet why do we still insist on reading the visual? Nishant and Akansha pushed the debate further suggesting that globalisation can be viewed as a series of images. More than the visual itself, it is the stack of visuals that are important. As Nishant reminds us, we need to de-stabilise the visual as the only form that needs to be read. We must read it, but not see it as central.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The most important point that emerged from Schulz’s presentation is that like any other network, globalisation is a diagnosis of the contemporary, but it is also the malady and the cure.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From day one of the conference, the contradictions and paradoxes already emerge.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-globalising-lady-gaga'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-globalising-lady-gaga</a>
</p>
No publisheralokLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-09T05:02:16ZBlog EntryHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 1 Live Blog: PechaKucha
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-1-pecha-kucha
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multidisciplinary scholars and practitioners. The workshop aims to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong id="internal-source-marker_0.3441830750089139">The following are the summaries of the Habits of Living Thinkathon’s PechaKucha presentations. These are short introductions presented by the participants on their research interests and how they are grappling with the questions posed by the themes of the Thinkathon:<br /><br />Rijuta Mehta</strong> begins the discussion on a serious note by bringing up critical issues of violent Hindu nationalism and citizenship, demonstrating how community networks are being formed around injury from an imagined "other". She also argues that technology allows the soldier to become an agent of civic violence, and discusses how networks make civic malfunctions mobile. In a post-9/11 world, internet platforms have created spaces where global and local hate-speech can cross-pollinate. Rijuta grapples with a question posed online: Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum? For Ritjuta, this museum actually is located in the networks that ask this question.<br /><br /><strong>Joshua Neves </strong>continues the discussion by sharing his thoughts on producing a different kind of self-relationality through media archipelagos. Inspired by island studies, Neves encourages us to think of a set of relations between islands, an alternative cartography of relationships. Drawing from sources as diverse as ephemeral film festivals across the world, Neves ask us: what does it mean to become each others' reference? <br /><br /><strong>Maesy Angelina </strong>brings the discussion to the domain of popular culture. While people try to romanticize networks as a site of activist resistance, the reality of the situation is that the majority of tweets produced are about celebrities. Instead of viewing this as deafening banality of the masses, Angelina questions the claim that pop-culture consumers can only be mindless. She suggests that celebrities can actually serve as a medium for citizenship expression of the masses, especially in the Indonesian context. Celebrities may be surrogates for citizen practice. Her presentation encourages us to think about alternative discourses beyond the lexicon of the Academy and 'activism' as we understand it. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Namita </strong><strong>Malhotra</strong> follows by reviewing cultural texts produced in India, with a particular emphasis on how particular stories of India tie up with meta-narratives of technology. She shows how these texts provide a space in which we can think about our affective relationships with technology. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Deepak Menon </strong>asks: how do we build knowledge networks? This is particularly pertinent for NGO groups like his own who are trying to do their work without necessarily getting into a donor relationship with the groups he works with. He is concerned with what happens to the networks if the donors move out. Deepak challenges us to think about important practical questions about networks, including the historical nature of networks, whether networks create knowledge that is network-specific, and how online networks differ from offline networks. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Eivind Rossaak </strong>encourages us to think of archives in motion. Archives are traditionally viewed as working towards the preservation of objects and knowledge that are static in time — making the preservation of technological artifacts very difficult for this archival structure. In order to document ideas and items that are constantly in motion, archives need to be in motion, as well. To help us conceptualize this, he challenges us to think of YouTube as both an archive and a site of construction and knowledge creation. Elvind asks us: how do media and social websites forge new associations between 'human' and 'objects'? We have to redefine the notion of 'life' and 'person' to understand these phenomena and construct a new way of thinking about memory, archives, and identities. <br /><br /><strong>Saumya Pant </strong>speaks to us about surrogacy in India, and challenges the mainstream narratives of either understanding surrogacy as a reward or gift that only certain types of women can participate in, or as completely unnatural. To study this, she has spent the last two years recording the stories of Indian women who have been surrogates. Her methods include participatory theater, participatory photography, and life histories. This work is highly relevant, as India is set to pass new legislation on surrogacy in India. <br /><br /><strong>Renée Ridgway </strong>draws our attention to crowd-funding, the idea that 'big society' can function on volunteerism. In a crowd-funding structure, the social funding and subsidies traditionally provided by the state in a socially-democratic society begin to be replaced by groups of people contributing their wealth to particular projects. In this method of wealth distribution, those who need funding for projects solicit financial support from their friends and family in exchange for some kind of incentive (for example, an artist may produce small art objects in return for receiving funding). This solicitation usually takes place through the use of social media networks. Renee is concerned with how our social and familial networks become monetized in this structure of funding.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Oliver Lerone Schultz </strong>brings our attention to counterculture and how these are created by re-interpreting and queering networks. Countercultures can create contradictory space — images that queer and remask and create new alternative geographies. He points out that physical and social creations, especially images, are forms of networks that we create both socially and physically, and that images in particular can be sites of network creation. Everything, from thoughts to highways, can be seen as a node in a network. He is interested in how images relate to global networks, and how they are both created by them and represent these networks. <br /><br /><strong>Akansha Rastogi </strong>compels us to think about the artistic domain. She grapples with questions of networks and surrogacy by asking: how does one creates an exhibition, an archive of space? <br /><br /><strong>Gita Chadha </strong>remarks that the two major affects of modernity are the self and truth. Considering this, she asks: where do we position ourselves in a post-colonial context in feminist science? In the post-modern discourse, both nature and the body becomes completely plastic and unbound. Gita states that there must be a middle ground, especially in feminist studies. We must recycle lineages of thought and think critically of the feminist politics of surrogacy. </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-1-pecha-kucha'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-1-pecha-kucha</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital HumanitiesWorkshop2012-10-10T07:15:27ZBlog Entry