J writes on that discussion (see url linked in a previous post – if I put the url here it pings back to the site in the comments section and I dont want to link all my thoughts directly via that site once again in another comments post – even though people may very well travel here from there anyway because of the previous ping):

” what is the kind of politics that can be generated through online exchange of images such as this? If left at the level of individual viewing it would perhaps, at best, be an act of critical conciuosness–I continue to be optimistic that that is in itself a valuable part of education. At its best, it will become part of a collective source of action.”

I responded on that site – but am still uncomfortable – I would have so easily agreed with this 8 years ago. The team at DA has literally shown me – through taking my hand and actually travelling me through – allowing me to work and go to the villages with them whenever I went to H’bad these past several trips… this is what we are trying to now articulate.

Yes there will be collective action – but what forms will it take – is action without engagement in the context in itself productive.

The point though is exactly that – the “kind of politics that [may] be generated…” while I am sure that in that statement is implicit an optimism abou the kind of politics possibly generated – there is no guarantee that the culture of globalization within which internet-speak as it is today will yield the kind of politics assumed by the optimistic reading of that statement…

enough said for now – this feeds so much into the work I am currently writing/dialoguing on – which is why I found myself caught up in discussing it so much. L looked at it today and thankgoodness she got it. So we will go back to talking about a certain documentary maker and enunciation within “global” contexts – where global is set up in a particular hierarchy which is conveniently erased as soon the global is spoken of with very specic “globals” pitted against it as local. More on this later.

We have to develop multiple notions of what it means to act – collectively – and when which collective contributes what…

enough said for this morning…

L emailed me her re-construction of the memory from last november – perhaps as we write that I will be able to get back to this nagging sense I have about seemingly unproblematized or unpacked notions of collective action through these interfaces.

yes the time will come

when we too will be old (er)

two greying old women with tooth fallen out

barely able to walk

peering into the screen and the telephone (or whatever’s next) keypad

talking, talking, talking

wondering at the folly

deciding not to be hurt

any more

we shall

chuckle and walk away into the setting sun…

but in the meanwhile – what is to be done

as (not) (or) knowing what they want

they tear at the very base

of the banyan tree

that gives….

consequences of folly

come in unexpected ways..

who is to make them understand?

more later…

[dialoguing with my thoughts from yesterday at the Great Decisions talk that C gave]

just had to put the header up to remind myself to blog those thoughts sometime…

V was reading out a newspaper article a while ago…

Yet another model immigrant being interviewed and explaining what happens to “us” and our language when we migrate…

all I can say is – re- quote A in her sa-cyborgs response (I seem to be going back to this several times today – see my response on mediacommons again…)

see http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik/Cyberethnography.pdf

(it was a conference paper written long ago – so dont know what parts of it went into what print authorized pub)

just as S and I are dialoguing in relation to representational practices and the DA encounter with a particular documentary maker last November – a further opportunity to elaborate on what we are trying to articulate comes up at

media commons

where the following youtube video was placed by curators for viewers to critique and discuss –

_ I did post to the comments section there – and what I posted may very well lead to me being accused of not seeing the liberatory potential of the internet….

but of course the video was placed there for comment and criticism.

What is the “voice” we hear. Bant Singhs have been singing all along – what’s at stake in putting this out there for an unknown audience – obviously it was not Bant Singh who decided to put this up in this way? Even if he did – is this his choice to make – the choice to have his freedom cries out in the forest of the Internet. What about his accountability to those he sings for and with – does he sing alone? Is that possible? Who made the decisions of how his singing is to be framed?

This also reminds me of the discussions we started to have around the “who gaze is it anyway” image (of ethnographer and weaver) that I put up last year for my COMS 640 to comment on…. the semiotic reading of that image was very interestingly de-contextualized and re-situated by the reader into contexts/discourse of linear narratives of development, modernity and post-structuralist and feminist discussions of voice and voicelessness. But the act of capturing image was in actuality pretty straightforward and innocent – it was the placing of it in the context of my class that lead to misreadings. Therefore it was the reader (not the read) who revealed himself/herself in that case – but it is the readers’ retelling of that story that will be taken as the “truth” (my problematizing it in class notwithstanding…)?

we talked and we talked and we talked

Ph was here – she understood

we understood

now we must write
and write and we must write

C understood as well so we will
write and we will write and

write…

it is in the state of being in a dream and beginning to awake

the mind is reaching for the unheard

I reached for the cell phone

I thought I heard you answer me

I thought we were continuing our discussions on

[it sounded as though you were continuing a sentence we had started a while ago...]

voice

working class

technological practices

communication

but the call

ended..

perhaps you were saying to me

that the conversation persists there

perhaps that was a part of a conversation you were having with someone else

perhaps you let me hear you at that moment to let me know that we were not
done

conversing

it is in the hearing

it is in the seeking

it is in the

not getting offended

it is in the rethinking…

but it is also in the belief that I must hear

or else….

it is a feeling in my gut that if I listen and prod long enough I may hear something …

it is a pain deep down that I cannot locate that urges me

with such urgency
perhaps because intuitively there has been some sensing

that something in what these “voices” say back to me will

temporarily ease my pain…

it is not solace – but perhaps a slap

that will remind my body – and help it articulate

to recover momentarily from the pain of understanding it affectively

but not being able to translate

perhaps I am looking for the boundaries of a container

not knowing what shape the container takes

will take

in the effort to say this this and that…

not that not that not that

na ithi na ithi na ithi…