http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415877916/

Speak at the the South Asia Colloquim, Yale.

published in “Social Identities” May 2011

Mapping nodes where my research and personal journeys have (and continue to ) overlap online/offline

over the years …its mostly a personal journey on my own, not surprisingly.

Last week (not yesterday) on Saturday, I was walking the streets of London looking for an Internet Cafe where my first experience of a f2f meeting of friends (flesh meet we used to call them?) formed fully through online discussion spaces (this group were from the spoon-collective list “cybermind” http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/spoons/).

It was akin to meeting a group of pen pals – but with hardcopy snail mail letters we would not have shared the same letter with a *group* of people – some of whom we did not know we were “broadcasting” to since we were still writing as if we were writing one to one letters (I think I said something of this sort in my dissertation way back in the 90s when this was all new in my understanding and experience and it was considered a research “finding” through my cyberethnographic investigations)….

I had my 11/12 year old son with me then – and we both figured out the London underground to get there (this was our first actual venture into London city – previously we had only been at Heathrow airport en-route to the US etc) – and little did I know at that time, how much the online/offline social world would be shaping his skills and personality – future social and professional life. But knowing this and being aware of this in this very personal, applied, concrete and historically contextual manner makes me able to connect with how my undergraduate students (not just grad students) live through these contexts. The fact that I have many nieces, nephews and even a grandniece and grandnephew who are not only sophisticated with-body world travelers but are also sophisticated navigators of online/offline social networks in their personal, educational and professional lives, enhances this understanding.

I think how commonplace it is now to weave online and offline social networks and how the younger generations no longer think about this … and of course the social networks that form through each of the platforms (multiple and multifarious in present times) and software available in present times are of such a wide range…

Now, as I continue my ethnographic investigations in virtual worlds – am waiting for an upgrade again so I can re-join the 3D worlds and continue to follow the RMTs…

It would be another kind of personal journey, no doubt, if I also tried to stretch my mapping to physically travel through
all the places (not just the countries – but the actual places, nooks and crannies) I recollect from my journeys hopping from country to country in my childhood.

[excuse the sloppy erasures in the image below ]

Greg Seigworth – co-editor for the Affect Theory reader recently released, is kindly donating time to help my grad students in trying to understanding and dialogue around issues of Affect.

(and p.s. – yes there is a connection between my following of micro-moneys, placement of affect and online/offline ethnographies – partly why my grad seminars this semester are “Subaltern Studies and Affect” and “Digital Media, Race [Labor] and Affect”)

The body will be more vulnerable

it can be attacked

no amount of social networking and learning of skills
may help

networking in so-called public space where the body cannot enter

voicing out loud when the body
is

not

can
not

be there

no it is NOT

a revolution if you can only speak or write to me

I worry about what is happening to your body
and how you can protect
and shape it….

because these bodies – all we are doing
is watching you…

we cannot be there to help you

so why are we asking you to shout out to us?

“Moreover, khadi mentality means decentralisation of production and distribution of the necessities of life”

- M.K. Gandhi

http://cyberdivalive.livejournal.com/2005/05/31/

http://cyberdivalive.livejournal.com/2006/05/19/

http://cyberdivalive.livejournal.com/2006/07/19/