'Instagram is like a karela': transnational digital queer politics and online censorship and surveillance in India
| Main author: | Kanchan, Tanvi |
|---|---|
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Online access: |
Click here to view record |
| id |
eprints-42477 |
|---|---|
| recordtype |
eprints |
| institution |
SOAS, University of London |
| collection |
SOAS Research Online |
| language |
English |
| language_search |
English |
| description |
This article explores transnational queer political flows and negotiations in Indian queer/trans communities on Instagram, situating this in its limits and restrictions as a public sphere that is corporate- and state-governed and subject to conditions of profitability, censorship, regulation, and algorithmic disciplining. Using insights from 23 in-depth interviews with queer/trans women and non-binary Instagram users and community organizers across India, I argue that binaries of Western/Indigenous, global/local, authentic/inauthentic are insufficient to understand Indian queer digital politics. I instead explore the political utility of agentic reclamations and negotiations of queer/trans identity by marginal queer/trans users. At the same time, drawing on participant experiences of content moderation, censorship, and corporate and state surveillance, I examine how the potentials of Instagram as a site to mediate articulations of a radical politics of queer liberation are restricted, thwarted, and reconfigured by platform design and policing. |
| format |
Journal Article |
| author |
Kanchan, Tanvi |
| author_facet |
Kanchan, Tanvi |
| authorStr |
Kanchan, Tanvi |
| author_letter |
Kanchan, Tanvi |
| title |
'Instagram is like a karela': transnational digital queer politics and online censorship and surveillance in India |
| publisher |
Oxford University Press |
| publishDate |
2024 |
| url |
https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/42477/
|