Feminist Digilantism
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Feminist Digilantism The ripple effect of #MeToo in India BA Thesis Name of author: Lindsay Lo-A-Njoe Student number: 1274015 Online Culture: Art, Media and Society Department of Culture Studies School of Humanities and Digital Sciences Date: February 6, 2019 Supervisor: Mingyi Hou Second reader: Camilla Spadavecchia Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Theoretical framework ......................................................................................................................... 6 2.1. Vigilantism ..................................................................................................................................... 6 2.2. Digital Vigilantism ......................................................................................................................... 7 3. Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 10 4. Data Analysis ....................................................................................................................................... 12 4.1. The #MeToo Movement ............................................................................................................. 12 4.2. #MeToo in India .......................................................................................................................... 14 4.3. Raya Sarkar’s List ......................................................................................................................... 15 4.4. Feminists Reaction ...................................................................................................................... 20 5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 23 References .................................................................................................................................................. 24 2 1. Introduction Nowadays, the Internet can be used as a tool for both interpersonal and mass communication. Sometimes communication can be kind and caring and at other times it can be harsh and aggressive. People communicate in different ways, some use their words to show love and some use it to blame and punish others. Because technology is an easy tool to communicate with others, people can take out their frustrations online in such a way they want to correct perceived societal wrong doings and engage in social control of the people they feel need to be brought to justice or corrected of their wrong doings. That is also called digital vigilantism. According to Daniel Trottier (2017), “Digital Vigilantism is a process where citizens are collectively offended by other citizen activity, and respond through coordinated retaliation on digital media, including mobile devices and social media platforms”. The illegal acts in which people participate differ from small breaches of social protocol to terrorist acts and participation in riots. In order to punish others who have done harmful things, participants share additional information about the target, which results in naming and shaming the individual for whom it creates a harmful and lasting mediated social visibility (Trottier, 2017). While some scholars acknowledge the collective intelligence of vigilantism practices, others criticize that vigilantism, in any type of form, is illegal use of violence (Hoekman, 2014). The year 2017 has been a breakthrough for Indian feminists. It was a year when the word “feminist” had been popularized in the country whereas more women came forward with their individual stories of sexual exploitation. A law student named Raya Sarkar posted a list on Facebook which names Indian academic professors as sexual harassers (Steier, 2017). This event led to several discussions on social media at the end of 2017. Raya Sarkar posted a list on Facebook, inviting other women to name academic professors who have sexually harassed their students. This list went viral with 72 professors listed by name, the institutions they serve at and the subject they teach. This list is a calling out practice, which can be regarded as a case of digital vigilantism. The professors’ names are listed to be publicly shamed for their wrong doings. Importantly, Raya Sarkar’s case was not in isolation. This happened soon after the internationally famous Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein revelations shook Hollywood and the rest of the world. This event created a ripple effect all over America and the rest of the world, which is the starting point of the # MeToo movement. Digital media has played an important role in this online feminist movement as many women have found their voices online to accuse the men who are guilty of sexually harassing women. Because of the easy accessibility to social media, women all 3 over the world with similar experiences have formed a unity together. Through the Internet, they are encouraged and also encourage others to share their individual stories. The #MeToo movement has arrived in India and has reached several industries such as the entertainment industry but also academia and politics. Several female journalists and actresses in India have also spoken out about incidents of sexual misconduct by people inside the industry, whom they interacted with at a professional level (Singh, 2018). Raya Sarkar is also one of the women who spoke up, however in a different way. Raya’s list is a special case in the wider feminist activism movement. Previous cases involve certain information about the accusation of sexual offences, and they involve already highly visible figures. In contrast, Raya Sarkar’s list only consists the names and institutions of the accused targets and it discloses identifiable information of ordinary citizens. In this sense, it acquires a vigilantism perspective since the list is not only meant to reveal the situation, it punishes those professors with negative social visibility. However, Raya indeed has her own considerations on the list. The reason she started her list of names was because she thought that academia in India was full of similar sexual harassers. In other words, powerful men who exploit their students and/or colleagues (Aravamudan, 2017). While she made the names of the alleged sexual harassers public, she kept the names of the accusers and the ground of these accusations a secret. She felt that making the names of the students public, would jeopardize their future careers. Described above is a case of a phenomenon called by many names: e-vigilantism, digilantism, cyber vigilantism or digital vigilantism (Wehmhoener, 2010). This study explores the vigilante’s online practices, in particularly Raya Sarkar’s case, and why women participate in digital vigilante acts. It illustrates how certain feminist norms and/ or values are promoted and enforced through the use of digital media, and the social discussions on the efficacy of digital vigilantism in promoting feminist causes in India. The aim of this research is to give more insight about the issues that women in India are still dealing with and how new media is used as a mechanism to fight against their poor treatment by men. Another aim is to discuss to what extent digital vigilantism in the form of naming and shaming can contribute to online feminist activism. Therefore, the research question of this study is as follows: “How do digital vigilantes promote and enforce their norms and/or values in practice using digital media?” Following this introduction section is a literature review chapter. Firstly, I will discuss relevant studies about feminist activism, especially offline feminist vigilantism in India. Next, I will delineate a theoretical framework of vigilante practices on digital media by scholars who have already done research on the topic. The third chapter will be the methodology of this paper where I will discuss how I have 4 approached the research field and the method of data collection. The fourth chapter is the data analysis. In the data analysis chapter, I will sketch an overview on the starting point of the #MeToo movement and how it has been enacted in Indian digital world. In this way, I can contextualize the following detailed analysis of Raya’s case and the local discussions of this list by several feminist activism in India. I will finish this research with a conclusion and a discussion. 5 2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Vigilantism According to Rosenbaum and Sederberg (1974), vigilantism means “to take the law in one’s hands, a do- it-yourself justice when all other attempted measures have already failed”. Vigilantism is often described as a violent action, done by individuals or groups who take measures into own hands because they think that the present state system is failing to protect them and others. Individuals or groups who participate in vigilante acts have a different meaning of justice than to the justice meaning according to the state law (Hoekman, 2014). Vigilantism occurs when the state order has become aware of the threat from the transgression of institutionalized norms (Johnston, 1996). This practice started in the 13th and 14th century by Charivari. Charivari involved the public to mock and insult the individuals who went beyond and broke the community rules (Wall & Williams, 2007). In other words, vigilantism