The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 21 to 35.
Activism: 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 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 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 EntryDigital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/position-papers
<b>The Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon conference co-organised by Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society is being held from 6 to 8 December at the Hague Museum for Communication. The position papers are now available online.</b>
<p>The emergence of digital and Internet technologies have changed the world as we know it. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic expansion, political protocols and governmental mediation are all undergoing a significant translation, across the world, in developed and emerging Information and Knowledge societies. These processes also affect the ways in which social transformation, political participation and interventions for development take place.</p>
<p>The Digital Natives with a Cause? research inquiry seeks to look at the potentials of social change and political participation through technology practices of people in emerging ICT contexts. It particularly aims to address knowledge gaps that exist in the scholarship, practice and popular discourse around an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital and Internet technologies in social transformation processes.</p>
<p>The programme has three main components. The first is to incorporate the users (often young, but not always so) as stakeholders in the construction of policies and discourse which affect their lives in very material ways. The second is to capture, with a special emphasis on change, different relationships with and deployment of technologies in different parts of the world. The third is to further extend the network of knowledge stakeholders where scholars,practitioners, policy makers and the Digital Natives themselves, come together in dialogue to identify the needs and interventions in this field.</p>
<p>In the late summer of 2010 two workshops, in Taiwan and South Africa, brought together 50 Digital Natives from Asia and Africa to place their practice in larger social and political legacies and frameworks. The ‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talkingback/?searchterm=talking%20back" class="external-link">Talking Back</a>’ workshop in Taiwan looked at the politics, implications and processes of talking back and being political and the ‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future" class="external-link">My Bubble, My Voice and My Space</a>’ workshop in Johannesburg looked at change, change processes and the role of Digital Natives in it.</p>
<p>For the Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon that will be held in The Hague, The Netherlands from 6 to 8 December 2010, Digital Natives from the workshops in Taipei and Johannesburg have provided us with their take on social change and political participation in the following position papers. They look at issues of: what does it mean to be a Digital Native? What is the relationship of people growing up with new technologies and change? What are the processes by which change is produced? Can you institutionalize Digital Natives with a Cause Activities? How do you make it sustainable in each context?</p>
<p>We hope you will find the Digital Natives with a Cause? position papers inspiring, thought-provoking and challenging.</p>
<p><img alt="" /> Download the position papers <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-papers.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Thinkathon Position Papers">here </a>[PDF, 1173 KB] <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-papers.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Thinkathon Position Papers"><br /></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/position-papers'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/position-papers</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital ActivismRAW PublicationsDigital NativesFeaturedPublicationsResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:34:35ZBlog 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 EntryThe Future of Journalism: EJC @ Picnic 2010
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/picnic
<b>Nishant Shah was a speaker at the PICNIC 2010, in Amsterdam, where he made a presentation titled "Citizens in the time of Database Democracies : Information ecology and role of participatory technologies in India"
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The
relationship between citizenship and government informatics have
historically
been shaped through a series of debates around questions of
citizenship,
security, State-market collaborations, and right based discourse in
India. Even
before the information explosion caused by the emergence of digital and
internet technologies, there has been a strident discourse around
participatory democracy and technology mediated governance as ways of
empowering the citizen's access to rights and resources in the country.
With the emergence of new technologies of storage,
retrieval and dissemination, these expectations have become more
visible. The Indian Government has
officially accepted the transition to become a S.M.A.R.T.
(Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsible and
Transparent) State, with the rise of 'Netizens' who, in their access
to new digital and internet technologies will change the very shape and
structure of governance. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However,
as the digital infrastructure develops and new kinds of citizen
services and consumption come to the fore,
battle-lines are being drawn between stakeholders. On the one hand are
those
who believe that this might be the opening of a Pandora’s Box for a
country
like India where a stark digital divide might create great inequality
in citizens' access to State services and resources, producing unjust
and discriminatory structures based on access, bandwidth and education.
. On the other
hand are those who celebrate the need for transparency, participation
and access to governmentality that these e-governance initiatives usher
in, addressing long standing questions of plutocratic governance,
bureaucratic systems of denial of rights and widespread corruption.
Both the warring factions draw upon partial data – of
failed attempts and projects by different government initiatives to
pilot
studies initiated by different government and civil society
organisations
respectively – to make their arguments for and against the emergence of
a 'Database Democracy' .premised on participatory politics facilitated
by new media practices in the country.</p>
<p>Especially
with the current rolling out of a Unique Identity Project (named Aadhar
– The
Hindi word for ‘Support’) these discussions have become more severe and
the
arguments have become angrier. It is not only timely but also necessary
to
examine the ecology of participatory technologies and processes in the
country in order
to look at the different sides of the debates and explore the role that
new media practitioners and stakeholders would play in efficiently and
responsibly establishing a protocol
of open and transparent governance structures without compromising
either the privacy,
rights or safety of the citizens. This presentation explores the
project Aadhar as symptomatic of a changing relationship between the
State and its Citizens mediated by ICT technologies and stakeholders,
to look at the ways in which new Citizenships are being forged in
emerging information societies like India.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>More news about the panel on Future of Journalism, arranged by the European Journalism Commission, is available at</p>
<p>http://futureofjournalism.net/index.php/EJC_at_PICNIC2010</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/picnic'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/picnic</a>
</p>
No publishernishantConferenceDigital ActivismDigital Governance2010-10-13T07:13:29ZBlog EntryDigital Natives Workshop in South Africa - Call for Participation
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/workshop-in-south-africa
<b>The African Commons Project, Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands for organising the second international workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" in Johannesburg from 07 to 09 November 2010. Send in your applications now! </b>
<h2>An Open Call for Participation</h2>
<p>As the Internet and
digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking: we are
constantly connected to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our
networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as a Digital
Native – someone to whom digital technology is central to life – you are
directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.</p>
<p>The organisers are calling out to young users of technology to join this global conversation. The three-day workshop will focus on how the young people use the tools and
platforms at their disposal to create social change in their
environments. We want to hear from you: If you have used digital technologies
to respond to problems, crises, or needs in your community or social
circles, we want to hear your story. These can be stories where you have made a
significant impact by initiating campaigns or
movements for a particular cause, stories where you have used technologies for
learning, sharing, exchanging and disseminating information, stories where you
have either organized or been part of a digitally organized event (online or
offline) such as a petition or campaign, or stories where you used social
media like blogs, social networks, discussion group, etc., which led to an
interesting social outcome. </p>
<p>We invite you to share your perspectives in an
informal conversation with people having a similar approach from the neighbouring
community. The workshop will involve participants from around Africa, who
will be guided by facilitators in an interactive and engaging dialogue. Results
from the workshop will be used to establish a network of collaboration and
support for Digital Natives.</p>
<p>Participants
can register by filling in an online <a class="external-link" href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLNMXGW">application</a> form by 12 October 2010.</p>
<p>Expenses relevant to the project will be granted to
the selected participants. For any questions, concerns or comments please
contact <a href="mailto:digitalnatives@cis-india.org">digitalnatives@cis-india.org</a>.<br />
<br /><strong>
Dates</strong>: November 07 to 09, 2010<br /><strong>
Venue</strong>: Johannesburg, South Africa</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/workshop-in-south-africa'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/workshop-in-south-africa</a>
</p>
No publishertettnerDigital ActivismFeaturedDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:31:05ZBlog EntryWhat's in a Name? Or Why Clicktivism May Not Be Ruining Left Activism in India, At Least For Now
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/whats-in-a-name-or-why-clicktivism-may-not-be-ruining-left-activism-in-india-at-least-for-now
<b>In a recent piece in the Guardian titled “Clicktivism Is Ruining Leftist Activism”, Micah White expressed severe concern that, in drawing on tactics of advertising and marketing research, digital activism is undermining “the passionate, ideological and total critique of consumer society”. His concerns are certainly shared by some in India: White's piece has been circulating on activist email lists where people noted with concern that e-activism may be replacing “the real thing” even in this country. But is the situation in India really this dire?</b>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Among those
who consider themselves activists in a more traditional fashion,
critical debates on what it means to be an activist certainly remain
alive and well. Among India's social movements, perhaps most
prominent, over the past decade, have been those that protest against
large-scale “development” projects and the displacement they tend
to cause – projects of which especially India's tribal people, or
<em>adivasis</em>,
often are the victims. In these circles, arguments against the use
of the Internet for activism often focus on the elitist character of
this tool: in a country where Internet penetration rates continue to
hover around a meagre five percent, frequently neither the people
affected nor the wider groups that need to be mobilised have access
to this resource. Clearly then, organising online is never
sufficient and, perhaps not surprisingly, debates about what is
called “armchair activism” consequently are both common and
intense. In a recent <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTnncO8kc-Y">video</a>
posted on YouTube, for example, the respected Himanshu Kumar – who
everyone will recognise as a grassroots activist –
called on the nation to support the <em>adivasis</em>
and their causes. In the same video, he also explicitly requested
people to get off the Internet: </p>
<blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">
<em>Is
me jo shehero me rehne wale log hai, mujhe unse khas tor se kehna hai
ki aap sheher me baithe rahenge, net par thoda sa likh denge – usse
sarkar ko koi farak padne wala nahi hai. Na janta Internet padthi
hai na sarkar Internet padthi hai. Hum jo activist hai wohi aapas
mein Internet par pad lethe hai. Usse sarkar ki koi policiyan nahi
badal payenge, sarkar par pressure nahi create kar payenge. Jab tak
ham aam janta ke beech mein nahi jayenge, na to hame desh ki problems
pata challenge, na ham desh ke logon ko jaga payenge. </em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">
[To
the people in the cities, I want to especially say that, you keep
sitting in the cities, you write something on the Internet - it
doesn't make any difference to the government. Neither do people read
the Internet, nor does the government read the Internet. Only
activists like you and me read on the Internet. Through that, we
cannot change the policies of the government, we cannot create
pressure on the government. As long as we don't go among/approach
the common people, neither will we come to know the country's
problems, nor will we be able to awaken the people]. </p>
</blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Not
everybody I spoke to would have agreed with Kumar's argument. The
importance of mass mobilisation and the need to be in touch with
grassroots realities are recognised by all movement activists, as is
consequently the requirement to get active offline as much as online.
But whether mass mobilisation at the grassroots is the <em>only</em>
way forward is not something that everyone is convinced of. In the
context of the <a href="http://www.binayaksen.net/">Free Binayak Sen
campaign</a>, for example, there is considerable recognition that the
website was a vital complement to a well-organised offline campaign
to free Dr. Binayak Sen from jail, which kicked off in the spring of
2008. Sen is a community health doctor and civil liberties activist
who had worked for more than twenty five years among the <em>adivasis</em>
of Chhattisgarh, the heart of the current Maoist conflict, when he
was arrested on the basis of what many considered completely
baseless, yet non-bailable charges of being a Maoist himself, and
left to languish in jail for two years. A regularly updated website,
and related Facebook group and email list, soon became the focal
point for a massive outpouring of support for Sen from different
parts of the world, including in the form of a letter from twenty
Nobel Prize winners, as well as an important source of information on
the campaign for activists within the country. In May 2009, the
Indian Supreme Court finally released granted bail to Dr. Binayak
Sen. The Doctor's trial is currently ongoing.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">In
this context of critical debates, how do those who do see themselves
as activists, yet draw on the Internet as a significant tool to
publicise struggles, justify themselves? If the Internet can play a
role in changing matters at the grassroots, and has proven to do so
in the past, does it become possible to intensely use this tool and
still be recognised as an activist in a more traditional reading of
this word? The fact that most middle-class English speaking cadres
of movements are online, despite their protestations against online
activism for being elitist, may well play in the favour of advocates
of online protest: it does open up a space to argue for the relevance
of this medium, even if for a limited group, and for the importance
of its responsible use. Indeed, it may well be for this reason that
it is possible to watch on YouTube a number of videos in which
Himanshu Kumar shares his experiences at the grassroots, his own
discomfort with the medium notwithstanding. But it is not this
ambiguity that is at the heart of the claims to credibility of
advocates of online activism. Rather, as has always been the case,
it is their continued connectedness to the grassroots. How much you
are in the know of what happens at the grassroots; whether you have
physically joined struggles; to what extent you get your hands dirty
offline and show up for meetings, rallies, poster pasting, rather
than limiting your engagement to the online route – these are the
kind of elements that determine whether you are an online <em>activist</em>.
What you do offline remains as important as ever. To only
work online is not sufficient. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Importantly,
such readings are frequently mirrored by those who do not have such
connections to the grassroots. In my research, I have more than once
come across “online activists” who started their conversation
with me by stating that they were not, in fact, activists at all.
Interestingly, Maesy Angelina has observed a similar reluctance to
identify as an activist among participants in the <a href="http://www.blanknoise.org/">Blank
Noise</a> project (personal communication and Angelina, forthcoming),
a campaign to combat street sexual harassment and, with its extensive
use of online tools over the seven years of its existence, one of the
paragons of online activism in India. While Maesy herself will blog
more about how Blank Noise participants understand activism later on
<a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn">here,</a> (earlier
posts are available as well) at least in my research, the reason why
people refused the “activist” label was generally not because
they disapproved of what it might stand for. Rather, they saw a
clear difference between their own contribution and that of the
full-time activists who ceaselessly mobilise and organise people on
the ground, those who in many cases draw on a distinct and
easily-recognisable language of protest that infuses everything from
the shape protests take to activists' dressing sense in the process –
the “jholawallahs”, as
one person I follow on Twitter calls them, after the trademark cotton
bag that they often carry around. Those who refused the namecard of
an “activist” were clear that they would never have chosen such a
full-time activist's life; what new technology allowed them to do,
however, was to nevertheless make a contribution, even if often on a
smaller scale, of their own. As one person put it quite movingly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">
I believe that, I think that ordinary people, and I am <em>convinced</em>,
that they can do, can use this medium to actually make a difference,
you know or bring about change, to change the world. You know, these
dreams that you have sometimes, “I want to change the world in some
way” [laughs]. You know? I do believe that... it's possible. And
you don't have to be an activist or working in an NGO. You can be
working anywhere, you can be doing anything as your day job, you
know, or your regular job. But, you can contribute.</p>
</blockquote>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Clearly,
then, critical readings of what it means to be an activist are common
not only among those who are activists in a more traditional sense,
but among those who focus on exploring the use of new tools for
social change as well: the kind of credibility, based on offline
experience, that attaches to more traditional activists is not
something they claim for themselves. But what they understand is
that new technologies have facilitated a qualitatively new kind of
engagement with movements, with activism, with social change. And
what such “not-activists” do claim is that this has made it
possible for ordinary people to now also make a difference, even
though small that difference often may be. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">In
many ways this type of involvement is actually not new, as
contributions of non-activists have always played an important role
in the survival and evolutions of movements, especially at times of
great urgency: doctors who are ready to treat patients for free;
lawyers who supply legal advice without expecting anything in return;
people with comfortable jobs in the private sector who one knows one
can rely on for donations when required (most movements in India
survive financially by relying solely or mostly on donations by
private persons). What is new with the introduction of the Internet
is that the possibility of contributions by people who are not
activists are now extended into new areas, as it has become much
easier to contribute to publicising and building community around
issues that are close to movements' heart as well.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">So
how to evaluate White's claim that clicktivism is ruining Left
activism in the Indian context then? For one thing, it is important
to remember that we simply do not – or not yet at least – have
platforms such as <a href="http://moveon.org/">MoveOn</a> or <a href="http://avaaz.org/">Avaaz</a>,
that draw, as White explains, on market ideology to conveniently
break down a seemingly endless number of political campaigns into
little bites for easy individual consumption with the click of a
mouse button. Left activism in India, even online, remains firmly
embedded in <em>communities</em>
of engagement. Surely e-petitions, for example, are popular here as
much as elsewhere. But the point to remember is that they rarely
circulate in isolation. Instead, they emerge from the email lists,
from the postings and repostings as well as conversations on
Facebook, from the blogs around which much Left activism online
revolves. And crucial to these uses of the Internet as a tool for
social change is not clicking, but engagement and conversation.
Perhaps it is for this reason that even a landmark campaign such as
Free Binayak Sen has hardly received any attention in the
international online activists' arena: campaigns such as this do not
revolve around the number of clicks they get, nor around flash-points
or events shaped to satisfy the hunger of the international media,
valuable as some may argue these can be; rather, they are intended
for the long haul, as they attempt to build on existing collectives
to extend the communities of solidarity around issues that move and
drive the Left in this neoliberal age. Even online, the politics can
and does infuse the method, at least for now. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">This,
then, gives something to ponder over. It is true that working among
people, offline, remains of crucial importance if Left movements in
the country are to achieve their goals. But perhaps it is worth
considering more seriously the value and role of this pool of people
willing and available to help building such communities in a more or
less sustained fashion online (I am not talking about the accidental
activist here), without necessarily wanting to take on a core
“activist”'s role. Yes, perhaps their work does not amount to
activism as we know it. But nevertheless, it may well be that in
many cases the efforts of these committed individuals do not amount
to distractions, but to gravy: extras that help ensuring that more
and more people start to care as the message of social movements is
amplified to a much larger audience than might have otherwise been
the case, perhaps even getting many more people involved, while also
acutely aware of their own limitations when it comes to achieving
fundamental, lasting social change. In fact, perhaps the Left would
also do well to wonder whether it can afford to lose this valuable
support: as I will document in a future blog post, with the rise of
the Internet in India, online initiatives have also emerged that take
neither of the stances described above, but that instead explicitly,
and at times aggressively, seek to present themselves as a
forward-looking <em>alternative</em> to the existing progressive
politics in this country. A lack of engagement on the part of the
Left with supporters online would effectively entail a ceding of the
space to such challengers. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">The
point to remember for now, however, is that many of those active in
online campaigns are acutely aware themselves not only of the
potential of their work, but also of its limitations. What we do
need to do, however, is to keep firmly alive this tension and debate
surrounding what it means to be an activist, as well as to remain
vigilant that the dazzling charms of the tools do not, in the long
term, blind us to our politics. At the moment, it seems to be the
continuing vibrancy of the Left in India that makes it difficult for
anyone who wants to get seriously involved with movement politics to
consider online activism a sufficient replacement. It is the
endurance of these attitudes of continuous critical inquiry that will
ensure that, clicktivism or not, Left activism will remain firmly
alive in this country in the future as well – in the hearts and
minds of activists and non-activists alike. <br /></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><br /></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><em>With
thanks to Prasad Krishna for assistance with the translation.</em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><strong>References</strong></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Angelina,
M. (forthcoming). 'Beyond the Digital: Understanding Contemporary
Youth Activism in Urban India' (working title). MA thesis. The Hague,
International Institute of Social Studies – Erasmus University of
Rotterdam.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/whats-in-a-name-or-why-clicktivism-may-not-be-ruining-left-activism-in-india-at-least-for-now'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/whats-in-a-name-or-why-clicktivism-may-not-be-ruining-left-activism-in-india-at-least-for-now</a>
</p>
No publisheranjahistories of internet in IndiaDigital ActivismmovementsResearch2011-08-02T09:25:39ZBlog EntryPolitical is as Political does
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/political
<b>The Talking Back workshop has been an extraordinary experience for me. The questions that I posed for others attending the workshop have hounded me as they went through the course of discussion, analysis and dissection. Strange nuances have emerged, certain presumptions have been questioned, new legacies have been discovered, novel ideas are still playing ping-pong in my mind, and a strange restless excitement – the kind that keeps me awake till dawning morn – has taken over me, as I try and figure out the wherefore and howfore of things. I began the research project on Digital Natives in a condition of not knowing, almost two years ago. Since then, I have taken many detours, rambled on strange paths, discovered unknown territories and reached a mile-stone where I still don’t know, but don’t know what I don’t know, and that is a good beginning.</b>
<p> <strong>The researcher in his heaven, all well with the world</strong></p>
<p> This first workshop is not merely a training lab. For me, it was the
extension of the research inquiry, and collaboratively producing some
frames of reference, some conditions of knowing, and some ways of
thinking about this strange, ambiguous and ambivalent category of
Digital Natives. The people who have assembled at this workshop have
identified themselves as Digital Natives as a response to the open call.
They all have practices which are startlingly unique and simultaneously
surprisingly similar. Despite the great dissonance in their
geo-political contexts and socio-cultural orientations, they seem to be
bound together by things beyond the technological.</p>
<p> Each one chose a definition for him/herself that straddles so many
different ideas of how technologies interact with us; there are writers
who offer a subjective position and affective relation to technologies
and the world around them; there are artists who seek to change the
world, one barcode at a time; there are optimist warriors who have waged
battles against injustice and discrimination in the worlds they occupy;
there are explorers who have made meaning out of socio-cultural
terrains that they live in; there are leaders who have mobilized
communities; there are adventurers who have taken on responsibilities
way beyond their young years; there are researchers who have sought
higher grounds and epistemes in the quest of knowledge. The varied
practice is further informed by their own positions as well as their
relationship with the different realities they engage with.</p>
<p> How, then, does one make sense of this babble of diversity? How does
one even begin to articulate a collective identity for people who are
so unique that sometimes they are the only ones in their contexts to
initiate these interventions? Where do I find a legacy or a context that
makes sense of these diversities without conflating or coercing their
uniqueness? This is not an easy task for a researcher, and I have
struggled over the two days to figure out a way in which I can start
develop a knowledge framework through which I can not only bring
coherence to this group but also do it without imposing my questions,
suggestions or agendas on you. And it is only now, at a quarter to dawn,
as I think and interact more with the different digital natives that
things get shapes for me – shapes that are not yet clear, probably
obscured by the blurriness of sleep and the rushed time that we have
been living in the last few days – and I now attempt to trace the
contours if not the details of these shapes.</p>
<p> <strong>Questioning the Question</strong></p>
<p> The first insight for me came from the fact that the Digital Natives
in the workshop talked back – not only to the structures that their
practice engages with, but also the questions that I posed to them.
“What does it mean to be Political?” I has asked on the first day,
knowing well that this wasn’t going to be an easy dialogue. Even after
years of thinking about the Political as necessarily the Personal (and
vice versa), it still is sometimes difficult to actually articulate the
process or the imagination of the Political. It is no wonder that so
many people take the easy recourse of talking about governments,
judiciaries, democracies and the related paraphernalia to talk about
Politics.</p>
<p> I knew, even before I posed the question, that this was going to
lead to confusion, to conditions of being lost, to processes of
destabilising comfort zones. However, what I was not ready for was a
schizophrenic moment of epiphany where I tried to ask myself what I
understood as the Political. And as I tried to explain it to myself, to
explain it to others, to push my own knowledge of it, to understand
others’ ideas and imaginations, I came up with a formulation which goes
beyond my own earlier knowledges. There are five different articulations
of the legacies and processes of the Political that I take with me from
the discussions (some were suggested by other people, some are my
flights of fancy based on our conversations), and it is time to reflect
on them:</p>
<p> <em><strong>Political as dialogue</strong></em></p>
<p> This was perhaps, the easiest to digest because it sounds like a
familiar formulation. To be political is to be in a condition of
dialogue. Which means that Talking Back was suddenly not about Talking
Against or Being Talked To. It was about Talking With. It was a
conversation. Sometimes with strangers. Sometimes with people made
familiar with time. Sometimes with people who we know but have not
realised we know. Sometimes with the self. The power of names, the
strength of being in a conversation – to talk and also to listen is a
condition of the Political. In dialogue (as opposed to a babble) is the
genesis of being political. Because when we enter a dialogue, we are no
longer just us. We are able to detach ourselves from US and offer a
point of engagement to the person who was, till now, only outside of us.</p>
<p> <em><strong>Political as concern</strong></em></p>
<p> This particular idea of the political as being concerned was a
surprise to me. I have, through discourses and practice within gender
and sexuality fields, understood affective relationships as sustaining
political concerns and subjectivities. However, I had overlooked the
fact that the very act of being concerned, what a young digital native
called ‘being burned’ about something that we notice in our immediate
(or extended) environments is already a political subjectivity
formation. To be concerned, to develop an empathetic link to the
problems that we identify, is a political act. It doesn’t always have to
take on the mantle of public action or intervention. Sometimes, just to
care enough, is enough.</p>
<p> <em><strong>Political as change</strong></em></p>
<p> This is a debate that needs more conversations for me. Politics,
Knowledge, Change, Transformation – these are the four keywords (further
complicated by self-society binaries) that have strange permutations
and combination. To Know is to be political because it produces a
subjectivity that has now found a new way of thinking about itself and
how it relates to the external reality. This act of Knowing, thus
produces a change in our self. However, this change is not always a
change that leads to transformation. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake can
often be indulgent. Even when the knowledge produces a significant and
dramatic change, often this change is restricted to the self.</p>
<p> When does this knowing self, which is in a condition of change,
become a catalyst for transformation? When does this knowing-changing
translate into a transformation for the world outside of us? Just to be
in a condition of knowing does not grant the agency required for the
social transformation that we are trying to understand. Where does this
agency come from? How do we understand the genesis and dissemination of
this agency? And what are the processes of change that embody and foster
the Political?</p>
<p> <em><strong>Political as Freedom</strong></em></p>
<p> On the first thought, the imagination of Political as Freedom seemed
to obvious; commonsense and perhaps commonplace. However, I decided put
the two in an epistemological dialogue and realised that there are many
prismatic relationships I had not talked about before I was privy to
these conversations. Here is a non-exhaustive list: Political Freedom,
Politics of Freedom, Free to be Political, Political as Freedom, Freedom
as Political... is it possible to be political without the quest of
freedom? Is the freedom we achieve, at the expense of somebody else’s
Political stance? How does the business of being Political come to be?
Not Why? But How? If Digital Natives are changing the state of being
political what are they replacing? What are they inventing? Where, in
all these possibilities lies Freedom?</p>
<p> <a href="http://northeastwestsouth.net/brief-treatise-despair-meaning-or-pointlessness-everything#comment-2131"><em><strong>Political as Reticence</strong></em></a></p>
<p> We all talked about voice – whose, where, for whom, etc. It was a
given that to give voice, to have voice, to speak, to talk, to talk back
were conditions of political dialogue and subversion, of intervention
and exchange. So many of us – participants or facilitators – talked
about how to speak, what technologies of speech, how to build conditions
of interaction... and then, like the noise in an otherwise seamless
fabric of empowerment came the idea of reticence. Is it possible to be
silent and still be political? If I do not speak, is it always only
because I cannot? What about my agency to choose not to speak? As
technologies – of governance, of self, and of the social constantly
force us to produce data and information, through ledgers and censuses
and identification cards – make speech a normative way of engagement,
isn’t the right of Refusal to Speak, political?</p>
<p> Sometimes, it is necessary to exercise silence as a tool or a weapon
of political resistance. The non-speaking subject holds back and
refuses to succumb to pressures and expectations of a dominant
erstwhile, and in his/her silence, produces such a cacophony of meaning
that it asks questions that the loudest voices would not have managed to
ask.</p>
<p> <strong>The Beginning of a Start; Perhaps also the other way round</strong></p>
<p> These are my first reflections on the conversations we have had over
the two days. I feel excited, inspired, moved and exhilarated as I
carry myself on these flights of ideation, thought and
conceptualisation. It is important for me that these are questions that I
did not think of in a vacuum but in conversation and dialogue with this
varied pool of people who have spent so much of their time and effort
to not only make their work intelligible but also to reflect on the
processes by which we paint ourselves political. I have learned to
sharpen questions of the political that I came with and I have learned
to ask new questions of Digital Natives practice. I don’t have a
definition that explains the work that these Digital Natives do. But I
now have a framework of what is their understanding of the political and
what are the various points of engagement and investment.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/political'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/political</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismDigital NativesPoliticalYouthFeaturedCyberculturesDigital subjectivitiesWorkshop2011-08-04T10:30:51ZBlog EntryDigital Natives : Talking Back
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talkingback
<b>One of the most significant transitions in the landscape of social and political movements, is how younger users of technology, in their interaction with new and innovative technologised platforms have taken up responsibility to respond to crises in their local and immediate environments, relying upon their digital networks, virtual communities and platforms. In the last decade or so, the digital natives, in universities as well as in work spaces, as they experimented with the potentials of internet technologies, have launched successful socio-political campaigns which have worked unexpectedly and often without precedent, in the way they mobilised local contexts and global outreach to address issues of deep political and social concern. But what do we really know about this Digital Natives revolution? </b>
<p><strong>Press Release</strong></p>
<p> Youth are often seen as potential agents of change for reshaping
their own societies. By 2010, the global youth population is expected
reach almost 1.2 billion of which 85% reside in developing countries.
Unleashing the potential of even a part of this group in developing
countries promises a substantially impact on societies. Especially now
when youths thriving on digital technologies flood universities, work
forces, and governments and could facilitate radical restructuring of
the world we live in. So, it’s time we start listening to them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> Because of the age bias and the dependence of a large section of
Digital Natives around the world, on structures of authority, there has
always been a problem of power that has restricted or reduced the scope
of their practice and intervention. For younger Digital Natives,
Parental authority and the regulation from schools often becomes a
hindrance that thwarts their ambitions or ideas. Even when they take the
initiative towards change, they are often stopped and at other times
their practices are dismissed as insignificant. In other contexts,
because of existing laws and policies around Internet usage and freedom
of expression, the voices of Digital Natives get obliterated or
chastised by government authorities and legal apparatuses which monitor
and regulate their practices. The workshop organised at the Academia
Sinica brings in 28 participants from contested contexts – be it the
micro level of the family or the paradigmatic level of governance – to
discuss the politics, implications and processes of ‘Talking Back’.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> What does it mean to Talk Back? Who do we Talk Back against? Are we
alone in our attempts or a part of a larger community? How do we use
digital technologies to find other peers and stake-holders? What is the
language and vocabulary we use to successfully articulate our problems?
How do we negotiate with structures of power to fight for our rights?
These are the kind of questions that the workshop poses. The workshop
focuses on uncovering the circuitous routes and ways by which Digital
Natives have managed to circumvent authorities in order to make
themselves heard. The workshop also dwells on what kind of support
structures need to be developed at global levels for Digital Natives to
engage more fruitfully, with their heads held high and minds without
fear, with their immediate environments.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The proceedings of the first workshop in Taipei, 16-18th August, 2010 are available at <a class="external-link" href="http://digitalnatives.in/">http://digitalnatives.in/</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talkingback'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talkingback</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismDigital NativesYouthFeaturedWorkshopDigital subjectivitiesResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:50:19ZBlog 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 EntryDigital Natives Workshop in Taipei: Only a Few Seats Left!!!
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/open-call
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the Frontier Foundation is holding a three day Digital Natives workshop in Taipei from 16 to 18 August, 2010. The three day workshop will serve as an ideal platform for the young users of technology to share their knowledge and experience of the digital and Internet world and help them learn from each other’s individual experiences.</b>
<p>Everybody has a story to tell, and with the Internet, it is possible to tell the story and be heard. Young people around the world use digital technologies to find a voice, an expression, a creative output and a space for dialogue. Gone are the days when the young were only to be seen and not heard. In the Web 2.0 world, the young are seen, heard and are making a dramatic change in the world that we live in.</p>
<p>As Internet and digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking, time is replaced by Internet time, we are constantly connected and intricately linked to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as <a class="external-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz4KoL3jzi0">Digital Natives</a> – people who have found technologies as central to their lives – you are directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.</p>
<h3>An Open Call for Participation<br /></h3>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) in collaboration with the Frontier Foundation (Taipei, Taiwan) are calling out to young technology users to share stories about how they have tried to change things around them with the use of digital and Internet technologies. Conversely, if you feel that the presence of these technologies has significantly changed you in some way, we want to hear about that too! These can be stories where you have made a significant impact by initiating campaigns or movements for a particular cause, stories where you have used technologies to cope with problems in your personal and social life through your online persona in the virtual World Wide Web or stories where a small blog you started, or a facebook group you created, or a plurk network that you started, or a discussion group that you participated in, led to a change that has a story to tell. </p>
<p>The three day workshop will select 20 participants from all around Asia and in the Middle East to come and share these stories, to interact with facilitators and scholars who have worked in different countries and areas, and to form a network of collaboration and support. We will give your stories a face, a voice and a platform where they can be heard in your own voice, in your own style and in your own formats. Participants can fill in an application form (as given below) and forward it to digitalnatives@cis-india.org by 15th July 2010.</p>
<p>Simultaneously a website will also be hosted online where the Digital Natives will contribute to the content. Selected participants will be encouraged to document in it. Expenses relevant to the project will be granted to the selected participants.</p>
<h3>Application Form<br /></h3>
<ul><li>Name:</li><li>Gender:</li><li>Age:</li><li>Primary language of communication:</li><li>Other languages you can read and write:</li><li>Email:</li><li>Postal address:</li><li>Describe your Internet related experience / initiative(s) in 300 words. Furnish with URLs where necessary. Optionally, if images and videos are part of the description, then upload them in a high resolution version to a secure website and provide the URL.</li><li>Write in a few sentences about your expectation from the workshop.</li><li>I declare that the above information is true to the best of my knowledge.</li><li>I agree that Digital Natives will use the material I have provided for public use.</li></ul>
<p>
Please note that the information you provide will be kept for purposes
of the Digital Natives project. Materials which you submit will be used
for reporting to sponsors and for public use relevant to the project.</p>
<p>Dates: 16, 17 and 18 August, 2010<br />Venue: Taipei (Taiwan)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/open-call'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/open-call</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital ActivismCyberculturesFeaturedDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:29:26ZBlog Entry