Cyber Activism in India: Representation and Analysis of Big Data
Creators: name: Nanditha, Narayanamoorthy
Publisher: name: unknown
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Gays
subject: Political participation
subject: South Asia
subject: Digital humanities

description: Our move into cyberspaces and cyber networks warrant higher digital footprints and our dependence on digital affordances engenders further stakes in dialogues of effective and appropriate representation of our non-virtual selves. These discussions necessitate questions on and the problematics of the virtual representation of otherness online. My research situates itself at the intersection of Big Data and digital activism movements in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in the Indian context, whose focus 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 of the 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 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.
description: Our move into cyberspaces and cyber networks warrant higher digital footprints and our dependence on digital affordances engenders further stakes in dialogues of effective and appropriate representation of our non-virtual selves. These discussions necessitate questions on and the problematics of the virtual representation of otherness online. My research situates itself at the intersection of Big Data and digital activism movements in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly in the Indian context, whose focus 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 of the 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 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.