Nanditha Narayanamoorthy | Cyber Activism in India: Representation and Analysis of Big Data
Channel: MSU Digital Humanities
Date: 2019-05-29

Nanditha Narayanamoorthy | York University

As we progress deeper and deeper into an age of data abundance and as what Simon Rogers describes a phenomenon of a “time in which we are all surrounded by data” and access to it, we are, in essence, at the heart of a process of self-digitization and online existence divorced from physical realities. Our move into cyberspaces and cybernetworks warrants higher digital footprints and our dependance on digital affordances engenders further stakes in dialogues of effective and appropriate representation of our non-virtual selves. These discussions necessitate and facilitate questions on and the problematics of virtual representation in the understanding of an effective measurement of otherness online.
My research situates itself at the intersection of Hellerstein’s (2008) “industrial revolution of data” or Big Data and digital activism movements in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in the Indian context, whose focus, at the forefront of cyber activism, posits the struggle of the queer subaltern against the government as an institution that misrepresents democracy and other institutions with postcolonial, patriarchal and heteronormative notions and concepts of citizenship.


My focus for the research is the recently eliminated colonial, anti-homosexuality law, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in India and the public, private and political discourses surrounding the issue. This study examines Big Data, particularly Twitter Data collected and filtered through queries of queer digital activism on the social media platform in the form of hashtags #Section377, #decriminalize+homosexuality, #Article377IPC among others in the understanding of an accurate virtual representation of the queer population that is engaged in the struggle and in the effective gauging of the problematics of intersectionality of representation. Is the data representative of the subaltern; is data racialized, gendered and inclusive or is it merely a depiction or an intent of an ideal of inclusion, queer empathy and support as a part of a larger movement of progressivity and voice of the subaltern within digital movement uprisings in India? Is it too optimistic to posit sufficiency in the argument of the internet and digitized spaces as a form of Nancy Fraser’s (1992) counter public spheres that combat authority, dominant narratives and/or structures and challenge the status quo. These are some questions that this research addresses.

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