We Be Imagining

On Caste and The Digital (Feat Riya Singh and Murali Shanmugavelan)

How does caste get articulated on the internet? Or where does caste creep in to our studies of media and technology? Can you dismantle Hindutva without dismantling caste? Black women organizers like Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie have emphasized police abolition in their work with survivors of sexual atrocities in the US, what are the overlaps and distinctions in how Dalit women activists are engaging with these political projects in the Indian context. This inaugural episode of season 4 for the We Be Imagining podcast interweaves commentary from Riya Singh, the founder of Dalit Women Fight, Murali Shanmugavelan, resarcher at Data and Society alongside some provocations from Thenmozhi Soundararajan of Equality Labs and the concluding plenary of the Dismantling Hindutva conference.  Please write us at WeBeImagining@gmail.com with feedback on this episode or to share your perspective on caste and the digital :) **Please note, there are some descriptions of sexual violence and killings within the episode due to the realities of caste violence and brahminism.  Riya [https://dalitwomenfight.org/]Singh [https://twitter.com/dalit_swag] is a doctoral researcher in Women & Gender Studies at Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Delhi - Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi. She is a part of Core Leadership Group in India’s single and largest Dalit women-led collective, Dalit Women Fight. She works on ground with the survivors of caste based atrocities of Dalit community  in six states of Northern India. Murali Shanmugavelan [https://datasociety.net/people/murali-shanmugavelan/] isa Faculty Fellow, Race and Technology at Data and Society. He researches caste in media and communication studies and digital cultures. Murali is currently working on the re-manifestation of caste and social hierarchies in digital cultures such as hate speech and platform economies. At Data & Society, Murali’s work will scrutinise communication and technology studies from (anti)caste perspectives. His work will analyse everyday casteism on the Internet and develop actionable policy recommendations and build pedagogic content about caste in communications and technology studies. Lightly Edited Transcript Available here [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fy-outDP6v_HJjsqJoUNnKFfO73Du752fjaLqttuPLA/edit?usp=sharing] and you can find out more about We Be Imagining [https://americanassembly.org/we-be-imagining] on our website or @WeBeImagining on Twitter and IG.  IG + Twitter: @WeBeImagining [https://twitter.com/webeimagining?lang=en] Support Us: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=45292504&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Famericanassembly.org%2Fwbi-about&utm_medium=widget] Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman [https://twitter.com/UpFromTheCracks] Music: Drew Lewis [https://open.spotify.com/artist/4LFXb70Hkb3f93vpwexRVv?si=ZoEDEAexSOqXD-X4FRw5Jg] Links for Episode: Dalit Women Fight [https://dalitwomenfight.org/] EQUALITY LABS [https://www.equalitylabs.org/] Caste-hate speech Report by Murali Shanmugavelan [https://idsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Caste-hate-speech-report-IDSN-2021.pdf] Dismantling Global Hindutva [https://dismantlinghindutva.com/] DGH: Multidisciplinary Perspectives Closing Statement [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFifoPnzXL4] How to write anti-caste solidarity texts [https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10034:how-to-write-anti-caste-solidarity-texts&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132] Cast(e)ing Indian Media: Unsettling Secular Mythologies [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MZvA4AP8Lg] Practice of Caste in USA - Series#1- Q&A with Dr. Balmurli Natrajan & Dr. Murali Shanmugavelan [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtBpf1hwLck] Advocacy Group Fights India Caste System Discrimination in Silicon Valley [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4HQmm1EdUk&t=14s] Trapped in Silicon Valley's Hidden Caste System | WIRED [https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidden-caste-system/] Opinion | California's lawsuit against Cisco shines a light on caste discrimination in the US and around the world - The Washington Post [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/new-lawsuit-shines-light-caste-discrimination-us-around-world/] Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 [https://tribal.nic.in/actRules/preventionofAtricities.pdf]

Seeking Refuge From Biometrics (w/ Zara Rahman)

IG + Twitter: @WeBeImagining [https://twitter.com/webeimagining?lang=en] Support Us: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=45292504&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Famericanassembly.org%2Fwbi-about&utm_medium=widget] Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman [https://twitter.com/UpFromTheCracks] and Ilan Mandel Music: Drew Lewis [https://open.spotify.com/artist/4LFXb70Hkb3f93vpwexRVv?si=ZoEDEAexSOqXD-X4FRw5Jg] Who is responsible for safeguarding the biometric data of refugees collected in a humanitarian and mass atrocities context? The canonical justification for collecting biometric data in a humanitarian context is to mitigate the risk of fraud by recipients. However, this claim has been thoroughly debunked including because it assumes fraud is most prevalent among recipients rather than the organizations that operate as intermediaries between donors and aid recipients. What is driving this competition between the UNHCR and the World Food Program (WFP) to create and own the largest multinational biometric database? Zara Rahman joins the WBI show to discuss these questions with a focus on how the Rohingya have resisted digital identification schemes that violate their collective autonomy. Zara Rahman [https://zararah.net/about/]is a researcher, writer and linguist based in Berlin, Germany, and working internationally. She’s currently the Deputy Director at The Engine Room [https://www.theengineroom.org/], an international non-profit organisation strengthening the fight for social justice by supporting civil society to use technology and data in strategic, effective and responsible ways.  **This episode was recorded April 1, 2021, prior to this report being released, but please note Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented that the UN shared Rohingya Data Without Informed Consent [https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/06/15/un-shared-rohingya-data-without-informed-consent] Links for the Episode: Myanmar coup: What is happening and why? [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55902070] Black Lives Matter protesters aren’t being tracked with Covid-19 surveillance tech. Not yet [https://thecorrespondent.com/507/black-lives-matter-protesters-arent-being-tracked-with-covid-19-surveillance-tech-not-yet/67121325414-80648a52] Rohingya refugees protest, strike against smart ID cards issued in Bangladesh camps [https://www.refworld.org/docid/5c2cc3b011.html] Bangladesh cuts access to mobile phone services for the Rohingya [https://globalvoices.org/2019/09/03/bangladesh-cuts-access-to-mobile-phone-services-for-the-rohingya/] When technology improves the lives of refugees [https://www.unhcr.org/blogs/new-technology-improves-lives-refugees/] Biometrics in the Humanitarian Sector [https://www.theengineroom.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Engine-Room-Oxfam-Biometrics-Review.pdf] Automating Inequality | Virginia Eubanks | Macmillan [https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250074317] Denied visibility in official data, millions of transgender Indians can't access benefits [https://scroll.in/article/997580/denied-visibility-in-official-data-millions-of-transgender-indians-cant-access-social-benefits] 4 Cultural, Social, and Legal Considerations | Biometric Recognition: Challenges and Opportunities [https://www.nap.edu/read/12720/chapter/6] LiveCast Episode 13 Infant Identity Management – ID4Africa [https://id4africa.com/livecast-episode-13-infants/] How Our Days Became Numbered: Risk and the Rise of the Statistical Individual, Bouk [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo20298894.html] Rohingya Refugees Protest, Strike Against Smart ID Cards Issued in Bangladesh Camps [https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/rohingya-refugees-protest-strike-11262018154627.html] Burma: Amend Biased Citizenship Law [https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/13/burma-amend-biased-citizenship-law] AP Exclusive 'Leave no Tigrayan': In Ethiopia, an ethnicity is erased By CARA ANNAa few [https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-tigray-minority-ethnic-cleansing-sudan-world-news-842741eebf9bf0984946619c0fc15023] A fiduciary approach to child data governance [https://www.unicef.org/globalinsight/reports/fiduciary-approach-child-data-governance] DHS/USCIS/PIA-081 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Information Data Share [https://www.dhs.gov/publication/dhsuscispia-081-united-nations-high-commissioner-refugees-unhcr-information-data-share] Tested on millions Non-volunteers (Jordan EyeHood Technology) [https://www.unhcr.org/blogs/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2018/01/article_1.pdf] Use of Biometric Data to Identify Terrorists: Best Practice or Risky Business? [https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Terrorism/Use-Biometric-Data-Report.pdf] Palantir and WFP partner to help transform global humanitarian delivery | World Food Programme [https://www.wfp.org/news/palantir-and-wfp-partner-help-transform-global-humanitarian-delivery] Palantir's partnership with the UN World Food Programme has humanitarians worried. [https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/palantir-un-world-food-programme-data-humanitarians.html] ID 2020 Agenda [https://id2020.org/digital-identity] Irresponsible Data Risks Registering Rohingya [https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2017/10/23/irresponsible-data-risks-registering-rohingya] The Biometric Assemblage: Surveillance, Experimentation, Profit, and the Measuring of Refugee Bodies - Mirca Madianou, 2019 [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527476419857682] Digital payments to refugees A pathway towards financial inclusion [https://www.unhcr.org/5fdcd8474.pdf] Bangladesh Will Demand Biometric Data From All SIM Card Users [https://advox.globalvoices.org/2015/12/22/bangladesh-will-demand-biometric-data-from-all-sim-card-users/] Sharifa Sultana [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2wSaNE0AAAAJ&hl=en] Zara Recommends  Native American DNA — University of Minnesota Press [https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/native-american-dna] She Would Be King [https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/she-would-be-king]

Academic Extraction: Columbia Student Workers Strike +NYU Might Follow (w/ Yasemin + Dylan)

Prior to COVID-19, a significant percentage of academic revenue –particularly in terms of New York University (NYU) and Columbia University– came from real estate. COVID-19 has jeopardized the security of those assets and underlined the importance of teaching staff in order to establish value for classes that are online for the same full tuition as in person learning. So why is Columbia University refusing to agree to the demands of the Graduate Student Workers Union? Why are graduate students who typically make below the Federal Poverty Line having their pay withheld by Columbia in lieu of redistributing money from the university’s endowment? Yasemin Akçagüner (representing the Columbia Graduate Student Workers Strike) and Dylan Iannitelli (representing the Graduate Student Union at NYU) join We Be Imagining to share an inside view of being a scholar during the austerity politics of COVID-19, the scope of their demands which include the right to neutral arbitration for workers experiencing sexual harassment and the stakes of their labor organizing given graduate students are the life blood of a university. Yasemin Akcaguner Graduate Student Worker, 3rd year PhD and TA in History Department a member of Graduate Workers of Columbia University: GWC-UAW Local 2110 [https://columbiagradunion.org/] , UAW Local 2110 [https://www.2110uaw.org/] and Academic Workers For a Demcratic Union (AWDU) Dylan Iannitelli  6th year PhD student in Biology studying neurodegeneration, a member of the Grad Student Union at NYU [https://makingabetternyu.org/] and a member of the Academic Workers For a Demcratic Union (AWDU). **PLEASE CONTRIBUTE TO THE COLUMBIA ACADEMIC STUDENT WORKERS HARDSHIP FUND Solidarity with Columbia Academic Student Workers [https://www.gofundme.com/f/solidarity-with-columbia-academic-student-workers] IG + Twitter: @WeBeImagining Support Us: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=45292504&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Famericanassembly.org%2Fwbi-about&utm_medium=widget] Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman [https://twitter.com/UpFromTheCracks] Music: Drew Lewis [https://open.spotify.com/artist/4LFXb70Hkb3f93vpwexRVv?si=ZoEDEAexSOqXD-X4FRw5Jg] Links for the Episode: The graduate workers union strike: explained [https://www.columbiaspectator.com/spectrum/2021/03/18/the-graduate-workers-union-strike-explained/] Columbia reports $310 million increase in endowment during pandemic while smaller schools flounder [https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2020/10/22/columbia-reports-310-million-increase-in-endowment-during-pandemic-while-smaller-schools-flounder/] NYU strike authorization vote begins as graduate workers continue strike at Columbia University [https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/24/nyu-m24.html] Ivy League Presidents Take Pay Cuts Up to 25% in Crisis [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-29/ivy-league-presidents-take-pay-cuts-up-to-25-in-covid-crunch] Columbia TAs who say they can't pay their rent due to COVID-19 launch work stoppage [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/28/columbia-tas-who-say-they-cant-pay-their-rent-due-covid-19-launch-work-stoppage] Columbia University graduate students demand rent freeze [https://ny.curbed.com/2020/5/4/21240056/columbia-university-coronavirus-graduate-student-housing] Columbia People's COVID Response [https://covidresponsecu.com/rent-strike/] Columbia still refuses to give the GWC-UAW neutral, third-party arbitration. Is this indicative of a deeper institutional issue? [https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2021/03/25/columbia-still-refuses-to-give-the-gwc-uaw-neutral-third-party-arbitration-is-this-indicative-of-a-deeper-institutional-issue/] FY 2020 Financial Statements for The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York [https://www.finance.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/Finance%20Documents/Financial%20Reports/Columbia-Consolidated%20Financials%20and%20Footnotes%20FY20%20FINAL.pdf] GSOC Petitions for NYU to Stop Stonewalling Contract Negotiations [https://nyulocal.com/gsoc-petitions-for-nyu-to-stop-stonewalling-contract-negotiations-nyu-shows-up-to-bargaining-e073dcf785e3] Columbia Grad Students On Strike Over Wages And Harassment Policies, NYU Counterparts Voting On Similar Actions [https://gothamist.com/news/columbia-grad-students-strike-over-wages-and-harassment-policies-nyu-counterparts-vote-similar-actions] Columbia canceled housing contracts, so 14,000 students moved into the city. What does this mean for the local housing market? [https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2020/11/11/columbia-canceled-housing-contracts-so-14000-students-moved-into-the-city-what-does-this-mean-for-the-local-housing-market/]

On Them Goon Rules: Fugitive Essays on Radical Black Feminism (w/ Marquis Bey)

How do we think about “Nah” vs  the “I would rather not to” of Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville- in other words, how does Blackness re-situate refusal? Samaria Rice and Lisa Simpson, mothers of Tamir Rice and Richard Risher who were murdered by the police, released forceful statements calling out the opportunist infiltration of BLM LA and Shaun King into the movement. This inadvertently catalyzed a conversation on Twitter around “Abolish Black Men” This episode unpacks what that phrase means, What is gender abolition? How does class mediate this discussion around gender and is leaving the hood a precondition for Black studies? Marquis Bey joins the WBI show to vibe on Lil Wayne’s A Milli, Katrina, digital infrastructure for mutual aid, and the utility in being unrecognizable to the state.  Marquis Bey [https://afam.northwestern.edu/people/faculty/marquis-bey.html] is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies and English, and core faculty member of critical theory, at Northwestern University. Their work concerns black feminist theorizing, transgender studies, abolition, and critical theory. The author of several books, including Them Goon Rules: Fugitive Essays on Radical Black Feminism, most recently they are in the midst of revising a monograph entitled Black Trans Feminism to be published in 2022 with Duke University Press. Bey is committed to thinking rigorously and radically about subjectivity, blackness, nonnormative gender, and thoroughgoing abolition. **You can send personal donations to the CashApps of $SamariaRice and $LisaLee693 and/or make contributions to the Tamir Rice Foundation [https://www.tamirericefoundation.org] IG + Twitter: @WeBeImagining Support Us: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=45292504&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Famericanassembly.org%2Fwbi-about&utm_medium=widget] Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman [https://twitter.com/UpFromTheCracks] Music: Drew Lewis [https://open.spotify.com/artist/4LFXb70Hkb3f93vpwexRVv?si=ZoEDEAexSOqXD-X4FRw5Jg] Links for the Episode: Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism [https://www.akpress.org/anarcho-blackness.html] Tina Campt: Black Feminist Futures and the Practice of Fugitivity - Classroom [https://www.artandeducation.net/classroom/video/153814/tina-campt-black-feminist-futures-and-the-practice-of-fugitivity] Melville, Herman. 1853 [https://www.bartleby.com/129/] Spike Lee turns cameras on New Orleans [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/aug/17/hurricanekatrina.film] Spike Lee Paid $200,000 By NYPD For Consulting On Ad Campaign [https://www.okayplayer.com/culture/spike-lee-paid-200000-by-nypd.html] Fred Moten Blackness and Nothingness (Mysticism in the Flesh) [http://raumstation.cc/content/archiv/poetiken_der_existenz/Moten-blackness-and-nothingness-mysticism-in-the-flesh.pdf] Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next) – Dean Spade [http://www.deanspade.net/mutual-aid-building-solidarity-during-this-crisis-and-the-next/] Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures [https://nyupress.org/9781479829965/distributed-blackness/] Samaria Rice Calls Out Prominent Black Activists In Scathing Statement [https://hiphopwired.com/960366/samaria-rice-lisa-simpson-shaun-king-tamika-mallory-black-lives-matter/] Samaria Rice Has Demands for Shaun King, BLM Activists [https://theslot.jezebel.com/tamir-rices-mother-releases-list-of-demands-to-those-pr-1846494423] 2Pac Speaks On Malcolm X Grassroots Movement 1992 [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0krx-B0tXoI] Otherwise Movements – The New Inquiry [https://thenewinquiry.com/otherwise-movements/] Nikki Giovanni Speaks on her "Thug Life" Tattoo [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjzxexwBkSc] Denise Ferreira da Silva – Hacking the Subject: Black Feminism, Refusal, and the Limits of Critique [https://bcrw.barnard.edu/videos/denise-ferreira-da-silva-hacking-the-subject-black-feminism-refusal-and-the-limits-of-critique/] Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book Author(s): Hortense J. Spillers [https://chromaticcabinet.swarthmore.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Spillers.pdf] Alondra Nelson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alondra_Nelson] The Race for Theory [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1354255] by Barbara Christian Recommendations: Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being [https://www.dukeupress.edu/black-aliveness-or-a-poetics-of-being] MAGIC: THE GATHERING [https://magic.wizards.com/en]

On Media Distortions (w/ Elinor Carmi)

How do layers of content moderation infrastructure shape sociality and anti-sociality? What are the incentives motivating algorithms used by Facebook, Google and Amazon? How do algorithms shape our sense of time, how we register social information and what content is produced by users? What are the implications for digital consent?  Unsettling the myth of “organic content” we discuss Spam and who gets to decide which media is categorized as deviant. Elinor Carmi joins the WBI show to discuss the history of Bell Telephone regulating sound as a form of urban planning in New York City-where Black Americans were deemed noisy (and certain decibels were criminalized), the way digital infrastructure mediates discourse around Israel/Palestine, and the connections between digital literacy and grassroots digital activism.  Elinor Carmi [https://elinorcarmi.com/] is a Postdoc Research Associate in digital culture and society, at the Communication and Media Department, Liverpool University, UK. She’s the author of: Media Distortions: Understanding the Power Behind Spam, Noise and Other Deviant Media [https://media-distortions.net/] IG + Twitter: @WeBeImagining Support Us: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=45292504&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Famericanassembly.org%2Fwbi-about&utm_medium=widget] Host: J. Khadijah Abdurahman [https://twitter.com/UpFromTheCracks] Music: Drew Lewis [https://open.spotify.com/artist/4LFXb70Hkb3f93vpwexRVv?si=ZoEDEAexSOqXD-X4FRw5Jg] Links for the Episode: The Organic Myth — Real Life [https://reallifemag.com/the-organic-myth/] Me and my big data: developing citizens' data literacy [https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/me-and-my-big-data-developing-citizens-data-literacy] Being Alone Together: Developing Fake News Immunity Being Alone Together: Developing Fake News Immunity- Faculty of Humanities & Social [https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/humanities-and-social-sciences/research/coronavirus-research/fake-news-immunity/] THE playlist – Media Distortions [https://media-distortions.net/the-playlist/] Dear Science and Other Stories - playlist by demonicground | Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7AIBjDWfHnQg9oYziFETDW] Social media's erasure of Palestinians is a grim warning for our future [https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/palestine-facebook-twitter-google-erasure-warning] Black Siren Radio — The American Assembly [https://americanassembly.org/black-siren-radio] He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addiction [https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/11/1020600/facebook-responsible-ai-misinformation/] Architectures of Sound : Acoustic Concepts and Parameters for Architectural Design / Michael Fowler. [https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/11496104] Over*Flow: Digital Humanity: Social Media Content Moderation and the Global Tech Workforce in the COVID-19 EraSarah T. Roberts / University of California, Los Angeles – Flow [https://www.flowjournal.org/2020/03/digital-humanity/] Netanyahu presides over a social media empire. Here's how he runs it [https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/netanyahu-presides-over-a-social-media-empire-here-s-how-he-runs-it-1.6846655] 'Go home,' chant anti-Netanyahu protesters ahead of Israel's snap polls [https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210321-go-home-chant-anti-netanyahu-protesters-ahead-of-israel-s-snap-polls] Operation Restart (May 14 Social Media Walk Out) [https://www.operationrestart.co]