Gender, Citizenship, and Identity in the Indian Blogosphere; Writing the Everyday 2019030508, 2019030509, 9781138500037, 9780429342011

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Preface and acknowledgements
1 Introduction: capturing the “breaking wave”
2 Mapping the Indian blogosphere: blogs as “site” and “text”
3 New media studies and gendered narratives
4 Everyday feminisms in cyberspace: blogging about gender
5 Transcontinental journeys and transnational lives: blogging from the diaspora
6 Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity: blogging about food
7 Conclusion: performing the gendered self
References
Index

Citation preview

“In this insightful analysis of a little-examined part of the online world, Sumana Kasturi offers us a way to read the ways in which Indian women bring their digital selves into being, while also seeking and building communities across geographies and cultures, all the while negotiating the tenuous boundary between the private and the public. Written in a manner that can appeal to both academic and general interest in digital culture, diaspora studies and feminist scholarship, this book makes an important and pioneering contribution to Internet studies in India.” – Prof. Usha Raman, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India “Apart from the contemporary relevance, the study is important in the way that it has woven in theory in both an easy and insightful fashion. It avoids both the trap of empiricism and extraneous theoretical claims that mar many studies on culture and new technologies. It actually uses theory to understand (unlike a growing trend to use theory as ornamentation) what this new area implies for self-expression, community building, and identity formation – core issues for sociology. She correctly places communication as central to the contemporary period and does not erase the critical link between communication and capitalism, even as she is aware of the autonomous logic of the new forms – the fragments, the speed, the excess, the innovation as of their implications for a democratic public sphere.” – Prof. Maitrayee Choudhary, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Gender, Citizenship, and Identity in the Indian Blogosphere

This book examines the role of women bloggers in the Indian Blogosphere. It explores how women use new media technologies to create online spaces that share knowledge, raise awareness, and build communities. A unique work at the intersection of digital culture, feminist theory, and diaspora/transnationalism studies, this book brings to light layered and complex issues such as identity, gender performativity, presentation of self, migration, and citizenship. This volume will be useful for scholars and researchers of cultural studies, political studies, gender studies, women’s studies, sociology, diaspora studies, feminist theory, media and communication studies. Sumana Kasturi has a Master’s in Media Studies from Pennsylvania State University, USA, and a Master’s and PhD in Communication from the University of Hyderabad, India. She has previously worked in publishing, print media, and, for the last several years, in international higher education. Her interest in new media is long standing, and she has various published works in this field. She is currently working on two writing projects.

Gender, Citizenship, and Identity in the Indian Blogosphere Writing the Everyday Sumana Kasturi

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Sumana Kasturi The right of Sumana Kasturi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kasturi, Sumana, author. Title: Gender, citizenship, and identity in the Indian blogosphere : writing the everyday / Sumana Kasturi. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019030508 (print) | LCCN 2019030509 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Women—India—Blogs. | Women—India—Social conditions. Classification: LCC HQ1742 .K377 2020 (print) | LCC HQ1742 (ebook) | DDC 305.40954—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030508 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030509 ISBN: 978-1-138-50003-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-34201-1 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Dedicated to Baamma, my Grandmother (1918–2017)

Contents



x

Preface and acknowledgements

1 Introduction: capturing the “breaking wave”

1

2 Mapping the Indian blogosphere: blogs as “site” and “text”

9

3 New media studies and gendered narratives

35

4 Everyday feminisms in cyberspace: blogging about gender

55

5 Transcontinental journeys and transnational lives: blogging from the diaspora

91

6 Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity: blogging about food

128

7 Conclusion: performing the gendered self

164

References178 Index 191

Preface and acknowledgements

The beginnings of this research project emerged out of a personal encounter with the blogosphere. As a mother of young children in the mid-2000s and a member of the Indian diaspora, living first in central Ohio, and then in the San Francisco Bay area, I was looking for information online, when I stumbled upon the blogosphere. My concerns and interests were three-fold: As a mother, I was looking for other accounts of parenting bilingual children in a largely monolingual environment. As someone interested in cooking, and excited by the variety of foods that California’s farmers’ markets offered, I was looking for recipes old and new to experiment with, and finally as an interrupted graduate student marooned in a world of Indian software engineers, and playgroup moms, I was in search of some semblance of intellectual community. To varying degrees, I found all three in the blogosphere. As a student of media studies, I was intrigued by the virtual worlds that cyberspace enabled us to explore and create, and specifically by the multiple aspects of content, communication, and community that the blogosphere offered. The blogs I was reading were fun, informative, and thoughtful. When I first began to think about these digital technologies, and blogs in particular from a media studies perspective, social media was just beginning to edge into our lives, offering exciting possibilities, and scholarly work on the topic was starting to grapple with the online and offline realities of what it all meant. In the years since, the study of digital cultures has become a thriving field of its own and the relevance of the academic work in this area to multiple aspects of contemporary life has been established beyond doubt. In this book, I focus my attention on the personal blogs of Indian women. I concentrate primarily on the “text” of the blog itself, laying emphasis on the idea that conversations and community built in virtual reality are indeed “real” and that our online selves are as much a part of who we are as our offline ones. Taking a largely sociological approach, I locate both the bloggers and myself within the contexts of social, cultural, and economic class, foregrounding my analysis in feminist theory. While focusing on a specific category of blogs, my discussion places them within the larger contexts of the scholarship on gender, migration, citizenship, and identity.

Preface and acknowledgements  xi My first thanks go to the bloggers – and my respondents – whose remarkable personal narratives convinced me to begin this project, and whose enthusiasm and passion for what they do came through clearly during my interviews with them. IHM, Desi Girl, OJ, Mom Gone Mad, Sala, Aparna, and Ishita: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. This book would not have been written without the mentorship, commitment to academic rigour, and firm determination of Dr Vinod Pavarala, who continually challenged me to stretch my intellectual muscles, clarify my thought process, and complete this study. Special thanks also go to him for his patient reading and editing of my work. Drs Usha Raman and Aparna Rayaprol generously shared their time, expertise, and insight throughout the course of this research, and their help was invaluable to both the writing of this book and to my growth as an academic scholar. My grateful thanks to them. I also convey my thanks to Dr Dennis Davis, my “first advisor” at Pennsylvania State University for his continued support of my academic pursuits. Any mistakes contained herein are entirely my own. I cannot miss this opportunity to remember Prof. Joe Kincheloe, the man who introduced me to the world of critical theory, and whose love of learning – and laughter – will forever stay with me. I join the wide-ranging community of his students who mourn his untimely passing. Joe was the first person to encourage my writing and also the one who got me my first book contract. Though that book never made it to print, this one was partly inspired by that early work, and I know he would approve. Thank you, Joe! I also remember with thanks my other teachers and fellow students at the College of Communications at the Pennsylvania State University. (Katy Razzano, thank you for the friendship, lunch time conversations, and chocolate chip cookies.) My time there as a graduate student provided the grounding for any subsequent work I have done. I would like to thank my friends among the faculty, staff, and students at the University of Hyderabad for their help and support. Thanks also to Aditya Deshbandhu, for his editing and technical help with this manuscript. On the personal front, a huge thank you to so many of my friends and family for cheering me on from the sidelines. In particular, to my sister, Jyotsna, and my parents, Kusum and Viswanath, for their unshakeable belief in me and for never swerving in their willingness to help me in any way I need. Their support, in tangible and intangible ways, was so special to me. Thank you to my children, Ani and Kai, for their cheerful outlook on life that kept me smiling, and their patience and understanding at many missed outings and weekends while I worked on this book. In particular, thank you, Kai, for the innumerable cups of tea and bibliographic help, and thank you, Ani, for thinking of Stuart Hall when we played “20 Questions.” Finally, thank you to Vikram, for absolutely everything.

1

Introduction Capturing the “breaking wave”

Stepping into cyberspace The Internet has changed our lives in many ways. We wake to the alarm on our smartphones and check our email and online calendar as we make our morning coffee. As we progress through the day, we may schedule meetings on Google calendar, update our LinkedIn profile, read the latest post on our favourite blogs, have conversations on chat, and meetings via Skype on our laptop. As the day comes to a close, we may back up our files to Dropbox, and use our tablet to post a status update on Facebook, and order some dinner and groceries online. We may wind down with some music or a TED Talk or spend some time on YouTube, or stream a movie on Netflix via any or all of these devices. That media technologies and their cultural products and social practices have permeated every aspect of our lives has become more and more obvious and increasingly of interest to scholars of many disciplines (Couldry, 2015). The Internet and the advent of Web 2.01 technologies have changed the way we think of time and space, and have not only enabled us to dramatically reconfigure our temporal and spatial realities, but also changed the way we communicate and interact with one another. These “new media” technologies open to us a whole new world, for as we enter cyberspace, we are connected to people and places through vast networks in virtual space that is seemingly of multiple dimensions and limitless in its boundaries. In cyberspace, we are learning to live in virtual worlds. We may find ourselves alone as we navigate virtual oceans, unravel virtual mysteries, and engineer virtual skyscrapers. But increasingly, when we step through the looking glass other people are there as well. (Turkle, 1999, p. 643) Perhaps Turkle’s “Alice in Wonderland” reference is not inappropriate, as the “wonderland” that is cyberspace can play havoc with traditional notions of who we think we are, how we see ourselves, how we understand the world, and how we interact with others (Featherstone and Burrows, 1995;

2  Introduction Turkle, 1995; Rheingold, 2000). In recent years, the rapid innovation and introduction of new technologies such as social media networks, blogs, and microblogging platforms have enabled new forms of being and interacting in cyberspace, and further changed how we negotiate our way through these online worlds. With such rapidly changing technologies, it becomes critical for us as researchers to engage with not only the technologies but also the practices that surround it. The devices, the servers, the code and algorithms, and the interface, all, in a sense, constitute the “hardware” of the technology, while the everyday practices, the “social arrangements” and the repositories of knowledge (e.g. Gajjala, Rybas, and Altman, 2007; Couldry, 2012) that form around these technologies become part and parcel of not only how the technology is used but also how it develops, adapts, and grows (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2002). Mitra (2010) uses the term narbs or “narrative bits” of personal information (including names, photos, interests, locations, status updates, etc.) that we as individuals leave like footprints in our journey through cyberspace – and social media in particular. The large cache of personal data that these narbs form together is a matter of concern and interest to both researchers and marketers. Scholarship focusing on these areas of work seeks, among other things, to enhance our understanding of the construction of online identities, and the building and maintaining of virtual communities (Hookway, 2008). The connections between cyberspace, our online practices, and the “real” world have come dramatically to the fore in recent times as online harassment of journalists, cyberbullying by right-wing trolls, and data breaches in banking, email, and social media have been in the news almost continuously. All of these issues have thrown a spotlight on the very concerns that online researchers have grappled with and warned us about for the last several years.2 Among the many concerns that have arisen in the context of social media and the practices that surround it, issues of privacy, sexuality, and gender have been particularly prominent. Online spaces have been celebrated as emancipatory and democratising, but the rise of trolling, cyber-stalking, and prevalence of vicious online racism and misogyny have shown that such spaces are not just fragile but also particularly conducive to such activities. Despite these drawbacks, online spaces such as those social media platforms offer act as important spaces to build community, provide counter-narratives, and fight misogyny, among other things. One of the many digital platforms that has emerged in cyberspace, allowing users to perform, share, and interact, is the blog (Gurak, Antonijevic, Johnson, Radtliff, and Reyman, 2004). A largely text-based interactive medium, blogging allows for large amounts of text, photographs, and video to be shared and discussed and makes the blogosphere an attractive online space for information and entertainment. The blogosphere has become a

Introduction  3 popular social space that creates new forms of self-expression, community building, and identity formation while cutting across geographical, cultural, and social barriers (Nayar, 2009). One of the challenges of studying digital cultures is the fast-changing nature of the technology, what Jodi Dean calls “the rapidity of innovation, adoption, adaptation, and obsolescence” (2010a, p. 1). The nature of networked communication in essence is a fast-paced culture of new innovations and constantly new ways of interacting and using technology. Can we, then, attempt to critically study the technologies and practices of such rapidly changing communicative environments? Dean (2010a) points out that the researcher who sets out to study digital technology and its accompanying practices from a critical media theory perspective is faced with a two-fold problem. First, in order to adequately address a medium that “innovates and adapts” at such lightning speeds, in a timely manner, the “book” or project also has to adopt a “fresh, up-to-the-minute, fashion-forward, bleedingedge approach.” The implicit assumption is that in such a fast-changing world of networked communication and social media, there’s no time for sustained, carefully thought out critical analysis. “The temporal take-over of theory displaces sustained critical thought, replacing it with the sense that there isn’t time for thinking . . . that one can’t keep up and might as well not try” (2010a, p. 2). Second, Dean introduces the concept of “communicative capitalism,”3 which she compares to industrial capitalism. She explains that just as industrial capitalism relied on the exploitation of labour, so communicative capitalism exploits communication “so as to enrich the few as it placates and diverts the many” (2010a, p. 4). This form of communication [f]ragments thought into smaller bits, bits that can be distributed and sampled, even ingested and enjoyed, but that in the glut of multiple, circulating contributions tend to resist recombination into longer, more demanding theories. (2010a, p. 2) Dean cites Adorno who critiqued the mass media forms of radio and film with regard to the surfeit of information that was available by saying “there still prevails the iron law that the information in question shall never touch the essential, shall never degenerate into thought” (Adorno, 1991, as cited in Dean, 2010a, p. 2). This is even more relevant today, with the excess of information that ever-evolving Internet technologies are constantly funnelling our way. For scholars of new media, this rapidly changing environment poses theoretical and methodological challenges that necessarily need to be addressed. Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant, and Kelly (2009) compare it to taking “a snapshot of a breaking wave” (2009, p. 2). They point out that seeking to

4  Introduction focus only on those media technologies that are “new” at the time of writing would be an absurd exercise: Rather, we set ourselves the task of more fundamentally investigating the more fundamental issues of what constitutes newness in media and what part technological change may play in that. Similarly, rather than taking notice of only those ideas that arise in the immediate context of discussions about “cyber culture”, we draw on a much wider range of historical and contemporary resources that offer to shed light on the present situation. . . . By taking this approach we try to get our heads above the tidal wave of media and technological change, to survey what lies in the distance and not simply to concentrate on the froth on the crest of the wave, (Lister et al., 2009, pp. 2–3) This is a tall order but, nevertheless, a worthy approach to take. In the following chapters, I draw on a variety of theoretical viewpoints and frameworks in order to better understand new media in general and blogs in particular.

Scope and overview The feminist Internet has recently received a fair amount of attention as feminist activists have taken to cyberspace to combat both the many manifestations of online misogyny and the more long-standing sexism of the offline world. While it’s important to address the serious concerns surrounding online abuse of women through trolling, stalking, and doxxing,4 we must also utilise opportunities to study and explore those small pockets of resistance, community-building, and knowledge-sharing initiatives that push back against the victimhood narratives that can often dominate popular writing about women and new media. Social media campaigns that have rallied supporters to counter misleading information, to organise in protest of an event or in support of a cause, or to create cross-border/international collaborations to regain and build both online and offline feminist spaces have captured both popular and scholarly attention. However, this study seeks to shed light on a little noticed corner of the feminist Internet; one that in fact does not overtly proclaim itself as feminist. The central focus of this book is an exploration of how women use new media technologies to create online spaces that share knowledge, raise awareness, and build community. These spaces then act as not only valuable resources for the readers in this circle but also important documentation for those of us who are interested in women’s lived experiences as documented by women themselves. This focus revolves around the pivotal argument that women’s everyday narratives are important resources for feminist research and also valuable artefacts for study in other fields like history and sociology,

Introduction  5 media and digital cultures. Thus, this project lies at the intersection of the study of how new media can offer opportunities to build conversation and community, and feminist approaches that consider women’s autobiographical narratives as epistemological. This study focuses on the personal blogs of Indian women5 – who write from different contexts and in different voices – in three different categories of interest or location. I argue that these personal, quotidian narratives rooted in the specificities of their everyday experiences are valuable media texts and important resources for academic study. In this, I follow the example of feminist scholars such as Smith (1987), Harding (1991), and Mohanty (2003), among others, who have addressed the importance of women’s narratives told from their own point of view. Smith and Watson (2010) use the term life narrative to refer to the autobiographical accounts that have historically been the domain of men and emphasise how women’s narratives were dismissed as subjective and unimportant. Yet feminist scholars point out that it is these very narratives that we must pay attention to as they provide us with a unique opportunity to listen to women’s experiences as recounted by them. In talking about autobiographies by Third World women, Mohanty (2003) reiterates the idea: These narratives are thus an essential context in which to analyse Third World women’s engagement with feminism, especially since they help us understand the epistemological issues which arise through the politicization of consciousness, our daily practices of survival and resistance. (2003, p. 83) In the age of digital culture and social media, these personal bloggers are providing us with precisely that – life narratives in the form of their everyday experiences told from their unique personal viewpoint. In the following pages, we see how seemingly simple conversations about a personal experience, reflections on life, and conversations about family, friends, or food can be an important epistemological resource for us to better understand women’s experiences. This study examines both how women bloggers use the genre of personal blogging to perform the “self” in the blogosphere and how the supposedly binary concepts of public and private manifest in these online spaces that are at once both public and private at the same time. Overall, through this analysis, I seek to understand how the particularities of their everyday experience in these digital narratives relate to larger themes such as gender, citizenship and identity. Over the last decade and a half, blogs have grown rapidly in number and maintain a steady presence in the world of social media. Though no longer considered cutting edge and new on the technology front – vlogging has taken the blogging world by storm, and along with Twitter and Instagram, which have seized the limelight, we also have newer entrants such as

6  Introduction Snapchat and Instastories – the number of blogs on the Internet continues to grow every day. As we will see in the next chapter, personal blogs hold an important place within the blogosphere. As researchers have begun to explore this quiet phenomenon, we are seeing more scholarship in this field, yet critical work on the Indian blogosphere remains slight. Emerging scholarship on digital media in the Indian context largely concentrate on issues of access, economic benefits, and developmental goals, notably Narayan and Narayanan’s (2016) work that opens up some interesting lines of inquiry with regard to topics such as New Media and governance, regulation, politics, disability, and political economy. Writings on the feminist Internet tend to focus on public feminist initiatives and instances of misogyny. Newer kinds of blogging have also come under the spotlight as microbloggers and vloggers dominate both the popular and scholarly imagination. However, this study focuses on the original, long-form blog with longer text narratives that, I argue, are valuable media texts for us to better understand women’s everyday lives. This book thus addresses a gap in both feminist digital cultures and studies of women’s writing by looking at the self-told digital life narratives of women’s everyday lives. In Chapter 2, I introduce the blogosphere, concentrating first on describing its features and functioning and then placing it within the context of contemporary media practices and cultures. I then review the Indian blogosphere, “mapping” its contours in terms of statistics, usage, popularity, and content. Next, I present an overview of the scholarly work on blogs, tracing early research that focused on “public or “filter” blogs that focused on politics, news, and technology and then examining more recent work that has taken a qualitative approach to the many kinds of personal blogs such as fashion and gossip blogs, food and exercise blogs, and blogs written by teenagers, young women, and diasporic populations. In the last section, I briefly address methodology, explaining how traditional textual and content analysis methods can be adapted to blog research and the ethical and methodological challenges that this throws up. In Chapter 3, I present the theoretical entry points that I use to ground my analysis. A new area of scholarship studying digital cultures has developed since the Internet was invented, where researchers grapple with the ways in which this technology has changed the ways we live and function in society. However, sociology, feminist theory, cultural studies, and related fields have also given us useful frameworks that allow us to analyse the world around us. Following Lister et al., I introduce the varied theoretical sources I draw from in order to make sense of the social and cultural practices that surround these new media. In Chapter 4, I focus on personal blogs written by Indian women who write predominantly about gender. I first provide a short description of the emergence of online feminisms in the Indian context and then locate the three personal blogs in my sample within that online space. These personal blogs act as online spaces for the women to write about their experiences and

Introduction  7 in the process explore and share their thoughts about women’s issues in the context of Indian society. The bloggers recount their everyday experiences in the form of anecdotes, incidents, and interactions, but what makes these narratives interesting is that they view these through a feminist lens. While the quotidian experiences of these bloggers are rooted in the local (for them), the gender issues they raise can be placed within a larger framework of feminist concerns. In contrast to some other personal bloggers, these blogs are written anonymously, the bloggers preferring to use pseudonyms. I describe each blog using a modified version of Herring’s (2010) webCA model and then use textual analysis to draw out the dominant themes that emerge from the discussion. In the process, I address the literature that critiques the public/ private binary and examine how these “feminist” blogs are renegotiating that contested dichotomy. I also draw on Butler’s concept of performativity to see how the bloggers perform their online selves in the context of these blogs. Through this analysis, I explore how feminism is articulated through the everyday experiences of the people in this blog community. In Chapter 5, I trace the history of Indian migration in the context of globalisation and explore how new media has created digital diasporas that have changed the meanings of “home” and “away” and allowed migrants new ways of connecting with their home and host locations as well as with each other. Using a sample of three personal blogs written by Indian women of the diaspora, located in three countries, I explore the themes that this online space throws up. The purpose of this chapter is to complicate our understanding of diaspora with respect to the shifting meanings of migration, community, and the politics of location. I draw from Anderson’s (1983) work on imagined communities, Appadurai’s (1990) work on defining five “scapes” into which such communities can be broken down, and Grewal’s problematisation of the concept of “transnationalism.” As in the previous chapter, I use qualitative tools of analysis in order to tease out the themes that emerge from these diasporic narratives. Some themes that I explore are the politics of location and the changing meanings of “home” and “host,” fluid identities in the context of global migration, and the politics and practices of transnationalism and the transnational life. In Chapter 6, I venture into the rapidly developing field of food studies in order to contextualise the new media phenomenon of the food blog. By placing the study of food and culture at the centre of its academic quest, food studies as a discipline critically examines food in the context of contemporary life. As part of this academic focus, scholars view culinary artefacts such as cookbooks, television shows, advertisements, blogs, and movies as important material aspects of food cultures. Among the most popular of the blogging genres, the food blog has captured the imagination of food enthusiasts and has created an online community of bloggers who blog about their experiences with cooking, serving, and eating different foods. As a document of contemporary food practices, the food blog becomes an invaluable resource for researchers to study. In this chapter, I explore the world

8  Introduction of the Indian food blog and focus my analysis on three food blogs written by Indian women. I examine how a food blog is not only an extension of a traditional cookbook but also a far more authentic document of contemporary culinary culture as it documents the everyday culinary experiences of the home cook. I further argue that these conversations about food and its attendant practices construct ideas about who we are, how we define ourselves, and what it means to be part of a community – be it regional, national, multicultural, or transnational. In Chapter 7, the concluding chapter, I pull together the varying threads of the different chapters in order to ruminate on the larger themes that pervade this sample of personal blogs written by Indian women. Blogs “give people a chance to talk back” (Meyers, 2012) and the online spaces of discussion created by these women act as gendered spaces for interaction. I identify four main themes that I see as common to the three categories of blog and expand on how they manifest in each sample set. These four themes are (1) the renegotiation of the concepts of “public” and “private,” (2) the notion of community in the context of online environments such as the blogosphere, (3) issues of identity as they relate to gender performativity and the notion of self, and also with regard to fluid, transnational identities, and (4) the idea of geography or space, be it imagined, virtual or real, or a combination of all of those. Finally, I make suggestions for future lines of research to follow to make a contribution to this field of study.

Notes 1 Web 2.0 is a term used to refer to the new, more interactive and collaborative way that people are using the web. Though used previously by others to refer to a new web platform, the term gained popularity in association with O’Reilly Media’s Web 2.0 Conference held in 2004. Web 2.0 is now used to refer not to a technical upgrade of the World Wide Web but rather to the shift from the relatively passive websites with limited interactivity to new user-generated, informationsharing web applications that have changed the nature of the Internet and the way in which consumers interact. Web logs, Wikis, social networking sites, and video-sharing sites are some popular examples of Web 2.0 (Constantinides and Fountain, 2008; O’Reilly, 2009). 2 See, for instance, TED Talks by researcher Zeynep Tufecki. 3 Dean defines communicative capitalism thus: “Just as industrial capitalism relied on the exploitation of labour, so does communicative capitalism rely on the exploitation of communication . . . communicative capitalism is economic-ideological form wherein reflexivity captures creativity and resistance so as to enrich the few as it placates and diverts the many” (2010a, p. 4). 4 Referring to the internet practice of digging up information about a person such as real/full name, address, place of work, and other personal data and broadcasting it so as to make the targeted person vulnerable in offline spaces as well. While it is sometimes used by law enforcement to track hate speech and hackers, the practice is most often referred to in the negative context of abuse by online trolls of people with views opposing their own. Alternate spelling: “doxing.” 5 Those of Indian origin or who identify themselves as Indian.

2

Mapping the Indian blogosphere Blogs as “site” and “text”

The last two and a half decades have seen the advent of a whole array of digital, Internet-based, or Internet-enabled communication technologies that enhance the ways that users can express themselves, communicate, and interact with others. These include multi-user domains (MUDs and MOOs),1 Internet chat rooms, file-sharing networks (movies, music, photographs), social media networks, blogs, and microblogging platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. These technologies allow spatially and/or socially distanced users to connect with each other. However, a media/communication technology is more than just the infrastructural hardware that enables it to function; the social practices that surround it are an essential and indispensable part of it (Couldry, 2012; Dean, 2010a; Lievrouw and Livingston, 2002). Blogging is one such digital communication technology and media practice that despite the introduction of newer and more cutting-edge technologies has remained a popular choice for users. The popularity of blogs has grown by leaps and bounds, not just as a medium of communication and self-expression but also increasingly as a source for entertainment, information, and news.

Building the blogosphere The personal webpage of the 1990s can perhaps be considered the precursor of the blog. A personal webpage was a website that individuals maintained to showcase informational or entertainment content of a personal nature. It allowed the user to customise the visual and textual content (to a certain extent) and add hyperlinks, and it was considered a way of establishing an online presence and expressing oneself in cyberspace. The Web 2.0 iteration of the personal webpage, the blog (short for web log),2 is an online journal the popularity of which rests on the ease of use and interactivity it affords the user. Updates (called “posts”) tend to be frequent because of this and are published in a reverse chronological order on the blog. Usually written by a single author – though “group blogs” have been gaining popularity in recent years – the platform allows quick uploads of text, graphics, images, and videos. The content management features on blogs today allow

10  Mapping the Indian blogosphere for archiving previous posts by date, as well as cataloguing posts under different categories and “tags,” and, most important, interacting with readers via comments. As blogs have evolved, and newer Internet technologies have developed, blogs have become even more multimodal in nature, incorporating Twitter feeds, links to Facebook and Instagram, widgets to track number and locations of users; listing additional content by similarity; and enabling “link parties” where multiple bloggers can post thumbnail links to their own blogs in a common space (Hine, 2000; Herring, Kouper, Scheidt, and Wright, 2004; Hookway, 2008; McGaughey, 2010). Until the 1990s, only those having a certain level of technical knowledge of web design and coding languages like HTML had the ability to publish content on the Internet. In August 1999, Pyra Labs introduced a platform that they named Blogger; it allowed even those with no technical knowledge to publish online content.3 Blogger provided the templates, organised and archived content, and published the content. This ease of use immediately made it accessible to anyone who was familiar with word processing software, and the number of blogs skyrocketed. (Popular blog hosting platforms WordPress and BlogSpot continue to use this model, offering more and more options in terms of templates, colour schemes, and widgets that bloggers can use to express their individuality in their blogs.) By 2004, the first year from which reliable data are available, it was reported that there were more than 4 million blogs in existence. The blogosphere was doubling an average of every four months and was eight times larger in October 2004 than it was in July 2003.4 With the introduction of other blog-hosting platforms such

Evolution of Blogs (Global) 1999

Pyra Labs launches Blogger – a public blog plaorm

2003

2004

2008

4 Mn

133 Mn

2011

2018

180 Mn

> 400 Mn

Esmated number of blogs worldwide explodes Live Journal Google buys Blogger and expands the plaorm

Wordpress New Blogging Platforms

Typepad

emerge and expand rapidly:

Figure 2.1  Evolution of Blogs (Global) Source: Author

Tumblr

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  11 as LiveJournal and WordPress, the blogosphere became an extremely wellpopulated corner of cyberspace, with Technorati listing 133 million blogs in 2008 and Nielsen’s last listing suggesting that the number of blogs has grown from 36 million in 2006 to over 180 million in 2011.5,6 One of the biggest challenges for a researcher studying the blogosphere – whether in India or worldwide – is the paucity of authoritative quantitative data on blogs, or indeed, any form of user-generated and user-driven social media.7 Typically, all web monitoring and reporting agencies appear to be focused on studying blogging from a consumption perspective and not from a production perspective. These agencies tend to look at blogging and the consumption of blogs from a market potential perspective (i.e. reach of a blog in terms of audiences, page views, time spent). Internet statistics on blogs are also categorised accordingly because the focus of reporting entities is primarily commercial. Because of this, such surveys tend to focus on characteristics such as geographic location, revenue generated, and advertising potential. Comscore and Nielsen are among the top two reporting agencies for Internet statistics in general. In addition, there are many independent sites that monitor and publish both numbers and results from surveys about Internet usage, social web adoption, blogs, blog posts, and so forth. For example, Pew Internet Research publishes both quantitative and qualitative data on Internet usage with a primary focus on North America. Internet World Stats tracks and displays the number of blog posts for every single day. The blog post “meter” on their site shows the numbers as they are added (2.2 million posts on an average at any given time). Technorati has consistently monitored and published data on the blogosphere for almost a decade by publishing an annual “State of the Blogosphere” report since 2004 that tracks growth, trends, and usage of blogs. Technorati also maintains a directory of blogs that has 1.3 million blogs divided by category. However, these are self-registered blogs and perhaps constitute a small percentage of all existing blogs. There are a few different ways that blogs tend to be categorised, but perhaps the most popular and simplest categorisation is the division between filter blogs and personal blogs.8 Filter blogs are primarily focused on filtering (news/information) content by providing links to news stories and articles of interest related to politics, technology, and current events by drawing from both traditional media outlet sources, and non-traditional ones like Internet articles and other blogs. Some commentary is provided, but the filter blog primarily collates and annotates relevant content from around the web. Filter blogs are less personal in nature and tend to concentrate on providing knowledge or information on a chosen subject such as politics, technology, or finance (Wei, 2009; Chen, 2013). In contrast, personal blogs tend to concentrate on the blogger’s thoughts, feelings, and observations while also linking to similar blogs or other Internet content (Chen, 2013; Herring et al., 2004). The growing research interest

12  Mapping the Indian blogosphere in blogs has resulted in the personal blog being described in different ways, with general agreement on certain characteristics: a personal blog focuses on the daily life, personal thoughts, and feelings of the blogger, they are frequently updated, have fewer links than filter blogs, and tend to concentrate on non-fictional or “true” content (Miller and Shepherd, 2004; Herring et al., 2004; Lövheim, 2005). As the popularity of blogging has grown and several niche genres of blogging have become widespread, it has become necessary to categorise the thousands of blogs in other ways as well. While filter blogs have come to be categorised as “public” blogs because they tend to focus on communicating primarily non-personal information to a larger “public” audience, personal blogs have become associated with “lifestyle” blogs that may focus on specific interests or hobbies, including food, fashion, travel, photography, or parenting. Some of the categories that Technorati uses are Technology, Business, Entertainment, Lifestyle & Living, Sports, and Politics, whereas IndiBlogger’s categories include Computers/IT, Nation/ Politics, Business, Science, Social, Lifestyle, and Sports. In all, IndiBlogger and Technorati list over 40 categories. These categories extend across both filter and lifestyle blogs. Even a cursory examination of such grouping shows that categories may overlap, and that there is an inherent bias in the ways some of these blogs are categorised. For instance, business, technology, sports, and politics, which are areas that have traditionally been considered a part of the “public” sphere,9 tend to be categorised as “public/filter” blogs, whereas travel, food, health, and family/parenting, which have traditionally been considered a part of the private domain (and mainly associated with women), are lumped under the single category of “personal/lifestyle.” Further enhancing this public/private versus man/woman binary is the fact that men are more likely than women to write filter blogs, while a larger number of lifestyle bloggers are women (Herring, 2000; Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Pederson and Macafee, 2007). Most bloggers use a handful of popular blogging platforms to host their blogs. Blogger, Typepad, WordPress, and Tumblr are the biggest platforms that offer both free and paid services. None of these blog-hosting companies provide public access to their directories (which could offer more information on categories, gender distribution, and geographical location). Recent reports have shown that Tumblr is well ahead of the pack, with an increase of 25 million blogs every six months and current estimate of over 400 million blogs in existence.10 WordPress lists its total number of blogs as 56.6 million for 2015,11 whereas another source puts the numbers at 76.5 million for 2018.12 Blogger and Typepad do not provide even that information.13 Some bloggers may register their own private HTML blog websites. These cannot be counted unless they register themselves on a directory. Further, it is important to recognise that even these scattered statistics do not give us an accurate picture. While data tell us the general geographical locations of

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  13 these 180 million blogs, we have no way of knowing how many of these are active and how many are dormant or abandoned. It is also near impossible to judge the nature (public or personal) and content of these blogs, unless they are self-declared. The Indian blogosphere For this project, “Indian blogosphere” is defined as the entire corpus of blogs written by Indians (people of Indian origin and/or who identify themselves as Indian) in India and in the rest of the world. While early blogs were written primarily in English, there has been an expansion in the blogosphere in general and the Indian blogosphere in particular as blogging in other languages has begun to take off. The growth of the Indian blogosphere mirrors the expansion of the larger universe of blogs around the world. Indian professionals in the United States were among the first to take to the new technology, with their work profiles in universities and information technology (IT) companies allowing them both the access and the technical skills to start and maintain blogs. (Gajjala, 2010) While exact dates for the early period of blogs are hard to come by, newspaper reports in the general press, as well as the “desi press,” noted the presence of influential Indian

Indian Blogosphere Beginnings

Now

(early 2000’s)

(2018-19)

•

US Origins

•

Worldwide presence

•

English language blogs

•

Growing Indian language blogs

•

Technology-focused content

•

Diverse content categories

•

Blog Count: No Recorded Stats

•

Blog Count: est 500K ac‚ve blogs

•

Popular Bloggers: • Om Malik (GigaOm) • Rafat Ali (Paid Content) • Amit Agarwal (Digital Inspira‚on) • Manish Vij (Sepia Mu‚ny)

•

Emergence of Blog Aggregators: • Blogadda.com • Indiblogger.in • Enewss.com • Indianbloggers.org

Bloggers by Age Group (2017) 45 + 35-45 7% yrs 14%

18-25 yrs 25%

25-35 yrs 54%

Figure 2.2  Indian Blogosphere Source: Author

Blogs by Language (2017) English (88%)

Indian (12%)

Hindi (43%) Tamil (27%) Other (30%)

14  Mapping the Indian blogosphere bloggers as early as 2004. Om Malik, a business journalist, started his blog GigaOm in the United States in 2001 as a space to collect and share his unpublished articles. In 2008, Forbes named him one of the “Top 25 web celebrities,” and Technorati and PC Magazine listed his blog as in the top 100 blogs worldwide. Rafat Ali of the United Kingdom started his blog PaidContent in 2002 as a way to show his work to potential employers. PaidContent has grown into a full-fledged media company that still maintains its blogging roots. Other successful early bloggers are Anil Dash (in the United States), and Amit Agarwal (in India). The connection between technology and tech-savvy Indians has also been highlighted by both journalists and bloggers. Melwani (2008) notes that most of the successful blogs by Indians are technology focused. She quotes blogger Rafat Ali: I would say it’s kind of natural, because the technology people are usually the early adopters in this, so that was the low hanging fruit, so as to speak. . . . After technology, politics is the second one that took to blogging in a big way. (2008, p. 3) And Indian bloggers were right there with their own political blogs. The founders of desi group blog Sepia Mutiny were already well-established bloggers by the time they set up the group blog. As young (and secondgeneration) Indian Americans, their blog attempted to address the gap in mainstream American journalism of responsible reporting on South Asian affairs. Manish Vij, founder of both Sepia Mutiny and Ultra Brown, also started blogging in the early 2000s. Digital Inspiration, a technology-focused blog by India-based Amit Agarwal was started in 2004 in Mumbai. It won “Best Technology Blog award from ‘Indibloggies 2006” and was rated 40th most popular blog by Technorati in 2008. Amit Agarwal also runs an extremely well-rated directory of India-based Indian bloggers.14 Amit Verma, senior editor at Mint, maintains two popular blogs on Indian journalism and the Indian economy.15 Even as technology and politics were popular topics for blogs that helped gain visibility, greater career opportunities, and money/funding for their founders, other topics of interest were beginning to make their presence felt in the Indian blogosphere. In addition to those already cited, Melwani (2008) lists some early popular blogs by Indians including UberDesi, Pickledpolitics, DesiPundit, Jabberwock, The Middle Stage, Pass the Roti, filmiholic, and Passion for Cinema.16 Melwani also notes by name popular bloggers including journalist Siddharth Varadarajan who writes on politics and current affairs, Laksh Khamesra who focuses on Bollywood and cricket, and London-based blogger Neha Viswanathan and emphasises that these are just a sample of the thousands of blogs powered by South Asians. In addition to the availability of blogging services such as the ones mentioned previously, blogging platforms provided by Indian service providers such as Rediff and

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  15 Sify have also encouraged the growth of blogs in India. The opportunity to monetise blog content through Google’s “AdSense” platform further helped the growth of blogs in India and abroad.17 Despite the presence of many influential and popular bloggers in the blogosphere (both located in India and abroad), low levels of PC adoption and Internet penetration in India, and the emphasis on English language skills, has hampered the growth of blogging in India. Blogging as a phenomenon was slow to take off in India owing to a variety of technological and cultural factors. Until a few years ago, Internet penetration in India was low (relative to the size of the population) and active Internet usage was even lower. However, the number of Internet users and their usage of the medium have grown at a frenetic pace in the past five years. From 60 million in 2009, the total number of active Internet users in India grew to 213 million in 2014 and 481 million in 2017. Recent data compiled by IAMAI show that India has approximately 500 million Internet users, with the majority concentrated in urban India (295 million) and a lesser proportion in rural India (186 million). These numbers show that while Internet penetration is more than 50% in urban areas, it is only about 20% or less in rural areas. Due to these low levels, blogging has remained primarily an urban activity. It is estimated that the number of active Indian blogs could be anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000.18 Of these, the blogs that have a broad reach among Indian Internet audiences are very small in number, and those too manage to achieve readership primarily among a niche, urban demographic. Indian blogs have a lower readership (relative to population) in contrast to the broader reach and appeal that many popular blogs enjoy in the United States. For instance, blogger Rohit Pradhan notes:19 A blog with a daily readership of 1500 to 2000 would be considered fairly successful in India; in the US, in contrast, the superstars measure their readership in hundreds of thousands.20 A small group of blog aggregator sites in India have helped gain visibility for bloggers of all kinds. Blog aggregator sites are essentially directories of blogs organised by content genre, location, popularity, and other meaningful parameters. These directories are primarily built through the process of blog owners self-registering their blogs, and because this requires volitional acting on the bloggers’ part, most of these directories capture only a fraction of the overall blogs that exist across India. Discovery of blogs on these directories is possible through both “site search” as well as through category browsing. There are more than 80 categories of blogs on the Indi­ Blogger site ranging from “Computers & IT” to “Politics & News” to “Lifestyle.”21 Most of these aggregator sites also act as curators of these blogs and highlight those that stand out in one way or another. The four largest blog aggregators in India are Blogadda.com, indiblogger.in, enewss. com, and indianbloggers.org.22

16  Mapping the Indian blogosphere One should also note the role of language barriers in the evolution of an Internet-based media practice such as blogging. The Internet has historically been an English-intensive medium. While India is estimated to have over a hundred million English speakers, that figure is only about 10% of the total population, thus leaving a large number of Indians unable to access the Internet and the blogosphere. Software and hardware tools to publish in regional languages have been slow to grow and are not available broadly. However, Indic language transliteration tools introduced by companies like Google and virtual keyboards for Indic languages developed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and other software developers have aided in the growth of blogs in Indian languages.23 A recent study also shows that total number of blogs written in Indian languages has grown from 8% in 2011 to 12% in 2013.24 Other studies have shown that the fastest growing markets for blogs in the world are for non-English language blogs such as in Spanish, Mandarin, and Hindi.25 Although the technological and cultural barriers to blogging appear to be diminishing, the rapid rise of social media (particularly Facebook and Twitter) was expected to erode the blogger base in India. However, Internet surveys and personal observation over the course of this research project suggest that the blogging community is actively leveraging social media platforms to promote blogs. The BW|IndiBlogger report indicates that 47% of bloggers were promoting their blogs on social networks – with 46% of those using Twitter and 28% using Facebook for promotion. Contrary to popular reports of a few years ago,26 one can assert that Facebook and microblogging sites such as Twitter and Instagram have in fact fuelled the reach and popularity of blogs. Between 2012 and 2013, there was 48% growth in readership of blogs in India.27 While the Indian blogosphere is dominated by men, there has been a slight improvement in the number of women bloggers: From 22% in 2012, women bloggers now constitute 25% of overall bloggers. The survey also found that 54% of all bloggers are within the 25–35 age group.28 Commercial possibility is another major motivation for blogging – both in India and abroad. Certain content genres lend themselves well to monetisation possibilities. Blogs that cover technology, finance, consumer goods, automotive products, and so forth are among the blogs that are heavily monetised and maintain regularity in publishing. Very often, companies and brands themselves ghostwrite blogs, either asking designated employees to write on specific topics or hiring writers (now called “social media experts”) to write on their behalf. Dean (2010a) notes the entry of corporate entities into the blogosphere with misgiving. She sees this as market expansion and diversification and states that “far from inaugurating a new creative, postmonetary commons, media practices like blogging and social networks ease the paths of neoliberal capitalism” (p. 38). Despite concerns with regard to the corporatisation and monetisation of blogs, as well as predictions of the

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  17 blog’s demise, the blog format seems to continue to have appeal to users and readers. At this juncture, it would be apropos to provide some answers to the question that is often raised while studying digital or popular culture: What is the relevance of studying a medium or technology that feels fleeting and that may soon be replaced by newer technologies? This query is certainly applicable to a study such as this, as blogs are seen as passé in the context of ever-emerging newer social media platforms. The answer to this is three-fold. First, in terms of sheer numbers, the number of blogs on the Internet continues to grow rapidly. While social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest (also Flickr, Photobucket, and Vimeo) garner huge attention due to constantly emerging technological innovations and eye-catching celebrity accounts, blogs continue to be a major form of communication and content sharing on the Internet. For instance, while early bloggers had only a few platforms like Typepad or Blogger, now bloggers can choose from a wide array of blogging platforms including Tumblr, WordPress, and Squarespace. In 2011, Nielsen reported over 180 million blogs worldwide,29 whereas some statistics currently put the number of blogs on Tumblr alone as over 440 million. WordPress states that users make more than 40 million blog posts and 60 million comments a month on just the WordPress platform. These numbers do not take into account the number of blogs on many other less well-known platforms, which themselves run into a few hundred million. These and other statistics suggest that far from being “dead,” blogs continue to be popular, numbering in the hundreds of millions.30 Second, the long-form text cum audio-visual content creation that the blog medium allows cannot really be matched by other social platforms. While microblogging continues to capture the popular imagination with “insta-photos” and 280-character soundbites, long-form content is still an attraction for users everywhere. Twitter’s long “threads” and Facebook’s “notes” are two early examples (currently, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook allow users to post longform “stories”), of how users seek long-form options and how social media companies try to accommodate those requirements. Just as authors continue to write novels despite many other forms of entertainment, the blog will likely endure, despite newer technological innovations as long as users seek information in larger, more in-depth portions. Finally, and most important, the theory, methodology, and general critical analysis approach to researching blogs undertaken here can be similarly applied to the study of other digital platforms. As Lister et al. (2009) state, focusing our critical attention on only “new” media technologies would be shortsighted and absurd. Rather, they suggest that we take stock of how we engage with new technologies, what constitutes “newness” and what social practices may develop around such technologies. Similarly, they recommend that we draw on theoretical and analytic ideas from a variety of sources and time periods – as this research project has done – and use those theoretical

18  Mapping the Indian blogosphere frameworks to understand current media phenomena and practices. Thus, a study such as this, both offers an introduction to studying digital cultures in the context of Indian society and hopefully shows the way forward for researchers to study other media technologies using a similar methodology and theoretical framework. Women and access to new media Before delving into an in-depth study of how women use new media to create spaces of community and support, it would be appropriate to address a larger concern. In recent years, the popular and academic conversation has been dominated by the abuse that women face online, yet a critical issue that faces Indian women and indeed women around the world is that of basic access. If there’s one thing about the Internet that rights organisations, consumer advocates, corporate entities, and development agencies agree on, it might be the fact that women’s access to the Internet and digital technologies is woefully lagging behind: The gender gap is “really worrying” and “closing it would open opportunities for everyone” (Harvard Business Review, Chakravorti, 2017).31 The 2016 Women’s Rights Online report sponsored by the World Wide Web Foundation reiterated that access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are powerful tools to empower women on issues of human rights, governance and education, while also providing increased access to healthcare, credit, and enhanced incomes. The study that surveyed 17 countries including Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, and the Philippines noted that overall “women were 50% less likely than men to be online, and 30–50% less likely to use the Internet for economic and political empowerment”32 The India-specific report, however, showed a much larger gender gap with a 17% score for women across India and 30% for urban women. Seshu (2016) documents in detail the factors that influence women’s use of Internet in India. Her overview addresses the concerns surrounding the issue and lists economic and political factors, as well as the regulatory and policy changes that have both enhanced and inhibited access by women to the online world. While addressing these very real concerns, it would be remiss of us not to look at the contribution of those women – certainly privileged in their access to new media technologies – who are making a difference and making a strong statement against the gender gap and the marginalisation of women in online spaces.

Personal blogs: research approaches This book focuses on the analytical possibilities of personal blogs as life narratives and gendered spaces of discussion and support. In this section, previous and current scholarly work on blogs, with a particular focus on articles that take a qualitative approach to personal blogs, are reviewed.

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  19 A glance at the range of studies focusing on blogs is an indicator of the importance of this Internet medium on popular and academic discourse (Hookway, 2008). Early research on blogging tended to concentrate on blogs that had come to notice through popular media outlets. Thus, early media reports focused on political and news-based blogs, citing them as influential in providing updated commentary and news to readers. The blogs maintained by these political bloggers were generally “filter blogs” and tended to be ideologically inclined to either the left or the right of the political spectrum. Rather than providing original content, what these bloggers did was to collect information from multiple media outlets and present them together on their own blogs. This allowed readers to find a wide variety of news and information (though not necessarily a wide range of opinions) in one place, something that traditional media outlets such as television, radio, and print were unable to provide (Smolkin, 2004). The influence of such filter/news blogs was particularly felt in the United States and the United Kingdom during the two Iraq wars (in 2003 and 2007) and also during US presidential elections (Johnson and Kaye, 2010; Adamic and Glance, 2005). As traditional media outlets sat up and took notice of the emergence of these blogs,33 researchers also began to study the role of such blogs in the mediascape (Graf, 2006; Johnson and Kaye, 2007; Perlmutter, 2008). Hence, much of the early research focused on these suddenly influential political/news/filter blogs. These studies looked at “A-list” or top-rated blogs to gauge blogger motivations, their journalistic or political influence, and credibility among readers (Ackland, 2005; Bruns and Jacobs, 2006; Tomaszeski, 2006; Ekdale, Namkoong, Fung, and Perlmutter, 2010). Additionally, blogs have been variously credited with reviving the concept of the public sphere, with being socially transformative, and encouraging a participatory/deliberative democracy (e.g. MacDougall, 2005; Wall, 2005; O Baoill, 2004; Kahn and Kellner, 2004 as cited in Hookway, 2008). While some of these studies focused on the role of blogs in furthering education (Huffaker, 2004; Kerawala, Minocha, Kirkupa, and Conolea, 2008) or in building new configurations of community (Blanchard, 2004; Wei, 2004), most early studies continued to concentrate on the credibility and influence of public blogs (mostly political/news) and the possible uses that the blogging medium could be put to. However, even as these public/filter blogs became important players in the genre of news gathering and dissemination, another kind of blog was emerging and fast gaining in popularity. In contrast to the filter blogs that were written with a “public” audience in mind, these were “personal” blogs, or “online diaries” where bloggers recounted personal anecdotes, thoughts, and experiences (Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Wei, 2009).34 Indeed, in a way, the original understanding of the blog as an “online journal” had come full circle, as personal blogs outnumbered the more well-known public blogs. For this limited literature review, 25 articles written between 2005 and 2014 that focused on personal blogs and took a largely qualitative approach

20  Mapping the Indian blogosphere were chosen. While several articles used some version of the survey method to isolate a sample or gather blogger responses, other studies were based on smaller convenience or snowball samples. This literature review also revealed that scholars from a range of disciplines have begun to take a serious academic interest in blogs and have used content analysis, textual analysis, and discourse analysis in order to arrive at a greater understanding of these digital spaces. The academic approaches included studies from the fields of psychology (Gurak and Antonijevic, 2008), history and archiving (O’Sullivan, 2005), anthropology (Reed, 2005), marketing (Dulnuan and Mena, 2012), literary studies (Mannur, 2012), information sciences and computer-mediated communication (Lu, Lin, Hsiao, and Cheng, 2010; Stavrositu and Sundar, 2012), and health education (Lynch, 2010). The most widely represented field of study in this sample of blog articles was, however, communication and media studies (e.g. Harp and Tremayne, 2006; Lopez, 2009; Van Doorn, 2011). A few studies also considered blogs as a research “tool”, suggesting ways to utilise blogs and blogging in social science research as a way to reach out to participants who may otherwise be unreachable or as a way to keep field notes in order to stay current and self-reflexive in ethnographic research(Mitra and Gajjala, 2008; Hookway, 2008; Olive, 2013).35 The two most frequently examined aspects of blogging in this review sample was the way in which blogs allowed for presentation (or representation) of the “Self’ and the ways in which blogging helped build community.36 Several studies investigated the ways in which a group of bloggers built community and interacted within it (Lynch, 2010; Masserat, 2008; McGaughey, 2010; Johnson and Kaye, 2010; Stavrositu and Sundar, 2012). For instance, Stavrositu and Shyam Sundar’s (2012) survey of personal bloggers revealed that a strong sense of community was built through the act of blogging and the commenting function of the blog and that this sense of community and a related feeling of agency promoted “psychological empowerment” to the bloggers. McGaughey (2010) explores how two popular German food blogs build community through the comments sections, sharing links to other blogs and articles, and blog “events” that draw in bloggers and readers alike to blog about their activities. However, attributes of self and identity emerged as the most important and recurring theme, where scholars examined different aspects of identity, including gender, race (Gajjala, Rybas, and Altman, 2008; Mannur, 2013), sexuality (Mitra and Gajjala, 2008; Van Doorn, 2011), transnational/global identities (Raman and Kasturi, 2014; Raman and Choudary, 2014), and diasporic locations (Mitra, 2008; Mitra and Gajjala, 2008; Marinescu, 2012; Hegde, 2014). Gajjala et al. (2008) use cyberethnography methods to explore how race and sexuality influence the production of self in cyberspace, while Van Doorn (2011) studies Dutch blogging practices in order to understand how matters of gender, sexuality, and embodiment inform and are informed by digital

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  21 media practices. Mannur (2013) studies two similarly structured food blogs to explore how race is manifested in these narratives through the presence (and absence) of racial references. Gender, in particular, emerged as an important theme in blog research, especially those that focused on personal blogs. While some studies looked at blogs written by both sexes such as the studies of diasporic Indian bloggers (Mitra, 2008), food and exercise bloggers (Lynch, 2010), or celebrity bloggers (Meyers, 2012), many of the articles reviewed tended to focus on issues of gender, either as a primary focus of interest or as an influencing factor. My observation was that while studies on blogging in general tended to focus on public or filter blogs largely written by men, when it came to the study of personal blogs, the gendered composition of the world of personal blogs was reflected in research about them. The review of articles, for example, included studies that examined gender inequalities in the blogosphere (Harp and Tremayne, 2006); the presentation of self among young adults, teenagers, and young women (Van Doorn, Van Zoonen, and Wyatt, 2007; Lu et al., 2010; Davis, 2010; Lövheim, 2013; Blinka, Subrahmanyam, Smahel, and Seganti, 2012); the troubled politics surrounding the term mommy bloggers (Lopez, 2009; Chen 2013); and the role of agency in the “psychological empowerment” of women (Stavrositu and Sundar, 2012). Lövheim (2013), in her study of popular Swedish women bloggers, summarises some preliminary research on personal/diary blogs written by women: Previous studies of young women’s blogging show that, as diaries, blogs can provide a safe space for self-expression as well as a possibility to keep a record of experiences and of the process of self-construction (Cadle, 2005; Bell, 2007). Also, the possibility to communicate with friends, manage relationships, and build communities makes blogs attractive to young women (Bell, 2007). At the same time, it introduces a dilemma concerning how to communicate in a way to build intimacy with friends as well as ensures social acceptance in a larger group of potential readers. (Lövheim, 2013, p. 4) Within these broader research interests, several smaller but no less important themes emerged. These include the challenges of sharing private information in a public forum (the public/private dichotomy), global versus local influences, and the differences between online and offline selves. For example, Lövheim’s (2013) study highlights the delicate negotiation between maintaining a sense of intimacy and personal connection with readers, while simultaneously grappling with the choices involved in sharing personal information in a public forum. She concludes that these young women bloggers both work within the conventions of a personal blog and challenge and renegotiate them (Lövheim, 2013). Blinka et al. (2012) do a

22  Mapping the Indian blogosphere comparative study of English and Czech blogs written by teenagers to examine how “dominant global online youth culture” influences teen bloggers in two countries. They discovered that while the English language bloggers tend to be more textual and personal in their writing, the Czech bloggers use more visuals in their posts and focus on the public aspects of the local culture. They conclude that geographical location plays a significant role in style and content of these teen blogs (2012, p. 277). In a similarly designed study, Davis (2010) examined the motivations for young women bloggers between 17 and 21 years old to conclude that they blogged primarily for self-expression and peer interaction. Looking at a completely different demographic, Lopez (2009) studies the phenomenon known as “mommy blogging,” which has come to denote a category of blogs written by women writing primarily about their children, their lives as women and mothers, and other things considered to be related to the life of a “housewife” – food, finances, parenting, schooling, hobbies, and so forth. Lopez documents the debate over the term mommy blogger, often used pejoratively, and discusses how a group of bloggers and blog readers turn it into a celebratory term by declaring that “mommy blogging is a radical act” (2009, p. 736). On the other hand, Chen (2013) offers what she labels a “techno-feminist critique” of the same term, arguing that the phrase is diminishing and patronising and isolates women who identify as “mommy bloggers” as being merely nurturers of young children and nothing else. She concludes that while the phrase is too entrenched in the lexicon to be erased, it is critical to raise awareness among women that the term is not value neutral and is in fact rooted in multiple discourses of power and patriarchy. Other approaches have studied women’s blogs from the perspective of migration and diasporic identities. Marinescu’s (2012) study looks at the personal blogs of immigrant Romanian women to understand “the ways in which women’s gendered identities are reconstructed by means of computer mediated communication at a transnational level” (2010, p. 62). Mitra looks at blogs written by diasporic Indians to examine how the “real” and the “virtual” merge to form “cybernetic space” where spatial identities of the diaspora are played out (2008, p. 459). Hegde (2014) studies a group of South Asian diasporic food bloggers who through their writing are building diasporic linkages and creating digital culinary publics that refashion and reimagine Indian cuisine for a transnational world. The global also plays out in the world of Indian travel bloggers that Raman and Choudary (2014) explore, as the writers position themselves as global citizens. Both Hegde (2014) and Raman and Choudary (2014) also note a subverting of Westernbased knowledge production through the growth and popularity of food and travel blogging by Indian bloggers. Just as Hegde studies food bloggers, so other studies look at different genres of blogs that focus on niche interests. For example, McGaughey (2010) uses textual analysis and Herring’s (2010) WebCA approach to examine aspects

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  23 of identity and community in two German food blogs, whereas Lynch (2010) does a systematic content analysis to study the perceptions of exercise and food among a community of “healthy food bloggers.” Meyers (2012) takes an active audience approach to investigate the role of “celebrity gossip bloggers” in allowing audiences to “talk back” (2012, p. 1022). Karlsson (2007) takes a different approach to the concept of audience, using reception studies as her starting point to uncover the “reading practices” adopted by readers of diary-style blogs. She argues that most studies tend to focus on the blog’s potential for reader interaction, ignoring more affective dimensions related to the way in which readers engage with the text. This aspect of emotional identification that readers feel with the bloggers is, according to her, as important as the possibilities for interaction. I agree with Karlsson that not enough work has been done with regard to blog audiences. My own observation of blog research has been that while there continues to be potential in studying the very many aspects and characteristics of blogs and the bloggers behind them, there is even more work to be done before we can understand how readers engage with blog content and the media practices that surround readers, commenters,37 and lurkers,38 with regard to blogs. As we have seen, a personal blog is a dynamic, constantly evolving “text” that documents the lived experience of the blogger. As such, it can be considered a more “authentic” cultural artefact of a woman’s life than some other media texts. The blogosphere has become a popular social space that creates new forms of self-expression, community building, and identity formation while cutting across geographical, cultural, and social barriers. If the Internet and its applications are an essential part of our postmodern, globalised world, then blogging is one possible way to help us make sense of it, by reconfiguring the ways in which we interact, articulate our “selves,” and build community. As social science and other related disciplines have begun to take an interest in blogs, new and interesting ideas about how users engage with the medium, as well as how researchers can leverage this popular medium, have begun to emerge. Drawing on previous research in this area, a primarily textual analysis approach is used in order to examine the ways in which the blogs serve as a space for both self-expression and community building. The broad research questions going into this study were as follows: • How do women bloggers perform and experience the “self” in the blogosphere? • How do notions of public and private play out in these online spaces? How do public and private intersect and overlap, and how does the personal become political and/or significant in this context? • How do the particularities of experience in these digital narratives relate to larger themes such as nation and citizenship, community and identity, and location and migration? How are these ideas articulated in these blogs?

24  Mapping the Indian blogosphere

Methodological approaches The Internet provides new media researchers an infinite amount of material to work with. The sheer quantity of web content and the enormous variety in technologies and capabilities, while providing an ocean of possible subjects or areas of study, can nevertheless be overwhelming in terms of choosing, designing, and implementing a research project (e.g. Dean, 2010a; Hookway, 2008). As an intriguing new frontier for accessing and collecting data, cyberspace offers both a plethora of possibilities and an array of challenges. Internet scholars such as Hine (2000, 2005), Herring (2004, 2010), Jones (1997), and Dean (2010a) have made important methodological and theoretical contributions to our understanding of the field, explicating the ways in which traditional research methods can be adapted and new methods crafted for online research (Hookway, 2008). Having chosen an area or topic to study from this vast array of choices, the next question the Internet researcher is confronted with is what research method to use? Different web technologies offer different aspects of study and therefore require different research approaches. As seen in the previous section, blogs alone offer many different options of study, and researchers have approached the subject in a variety of different ways on the basis of their research interests and academic backgrounds. (Blogs) provide a publicly available, low-cost and instantaneous technique for collecting substantial amounts of data . . . moreover, the archived nature of blogs makes them amenable to examining social processes over time, particularly trend and panel type longitudinal research. These qualities of practicality and capacity to shed light on social processes across time and space, together with their insight into everyday life, combine to make blogs a valid addition to the qualitative researcher. (Hookway, 2008, p. 92) Hookway (2008) lists some other characteristics of blogs that are relevant to social research: (1) the textuality of the blog allows the data to be instantaneously accessible without the need for recording and transcription, (2) enables access to populations that may otherwise be socially or geographically distanced from the researcher, and (3) the anonymity of the online context may mean that bloggers are relatively unselfconscious about what they are saying. With the emphasis on reliability and validity that is considered necessary for “good” research, it is hard for the researcher to choose a research technique while working with a medium that is so fluid and dynamic – rapidly changing in both form and function in real time. Further, would conventional research methods really work for such a rapidly morphing technology? Different researchers have gone about answering this problem in different ways. Some (e.g. McMillan, 2000, as cited in Herring, 2010)

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  25 have argued that traditional methods such as content analysis, when carefully and rigidly applied to new media content, can serve the purpose. While a few have argued for developing completely new methods of data collection and analysis, most recent work has sought the middle ground by taking conventional research methods and adapting them to new media. Herring (2010) identifies three main approaches that researchers have taken: content analysis, discourse analysis, and social network analysis. She argues that rigidly applying traditional approaches defeats the purpose of doing new media research since such approaches are unable to address the very features of new media that make it unique. Herring makes a strong case for an integrated, adaptive, and flexible approach that allows us to use techniques from different fields while adapting them in ways that address newer features/aspects of Internet content. She provides a model for doing so while simultaneously building flexibility and open-endedness into the model so as to allow for further developments in technology and usability. Here, I use her work to explain the methodological challenges of new media research and her WebCA model as a general framework for analysis. In addition to CA, which originates in the field of communication, Herring suggests using techniques borrowed from discourse analysis (which comes from the field of linguistics) and social network analysis (which is rooted in sociology). She broadens the meaning of “content” to include the “various types of information ‘contained’ in new media documents, including themes, structures, features, links and exchanges, all of which can communicate social, political and cultural meanings” (2004, p. 11). Herring’s (2004) computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA), which she describes as “language-focused content analysis supplemented by a toolkit of discourse analysis methods adapted from the study of spoken conversation and written text analysis,” is an example of adapting traditional methods of research in new and innovative ways. CMDA can be applied both quantitatively (with coding and counting) and qualitatively, though operationalising theoretical concepts in order to measure “language behaviours” – since computer-mediated communication tends to be conducted through linguistic means – may prove to be challenging (Herring, 2010, pp. 4–5). Social network analysis and its derivative, link analysis, can also provide useful techniques to study patterns of linking on the web. She cites several studies that use these techniques to study how links work within a certain computer-mediated communication environment. For instance, links are sometimes coded and counted in studies of web features (e.g. Bates and Lu, 1997; Dimitrova and Neznanski, 2006) and link destinations (the site a link connects to) have been coded and analysed in studies of credibility and/or political affiliation (Fogg, Kameda, Boyd, et al., 2002; Foot et al., 2003, as cited in Herring, 2010). Others have studied patterns of linking within and across websites in order to draw conclusions on issues such as academic quality and community formation (Thelwall, 2002; Gibson, Kleinberg, and Raghavan, 1998, as cited in Herring, 2010).

26  Mapping the Indian blogosphere There are several methodological challenges related to the study of web content. Primarily, these relate to defining units of analysis, sampling, and ethical issues. The dynamic and fluid nature of such content adds to the complexity, as the content can be moved, edited, deleted, redefined, and repositioned with little effort. This ease of altering content is one of the more attractive features of web content for users, but also adds to the challenges the researcher confronts. Researching the blog Often, a research project will naturally present the researcher with a logical unit of analysis – a single newspaper, a television episode or newscast, or a particular show. While identifying similar “natural” units of analysis in web content is also possible – for instance, a website or webpage – the “limitlessness’ (my term) of the Internet can sometimes make websites about the same topic either a single page or several hundred pages long. Also, the “boundaries” of a website can be sometimes be hard to define, with hyperlinks creating a further problem. Some researchers have addressed this problem by looking only at the homepage of a site and using the rest of the site as the context for the analysis (e.g. Bates and Lu, 1997; Herring et al., 2005). This might work for certain kinds of sites but may not work as well for social media sites or blogs. It’s a constant challenge therefore for web researchers to identify and define the ideal unit of analysis for their research. The dynamic and constantly changing nature of the web means that new pages are continuously being created while others are either shut down or dormant. For the researcher to choose a sample that represents the whole becomes not only a problem for representativeness but also an issue for random sampling, since there is no way of determining the total number of pages (even on a given topic) on the World Wide Web. Web indices are sometimes used to pick samples, but the problem remains the same as earlier as there is no way that a particular index can guarantee that it lists all extant sites. Web crawlers, which collect data by following links from one site to another, can offer us snowball samples, but never a truly representative sample or complete picture. Theme-based indices can sometimes be used to pick a purposive sample. Whatever the method finally chosen, it is important to recognise and clarify the limits of such samples before conclusions are drawn after analysis. Another related challenge is deciding the frequency of sampling to get an accurate (or at least representative) sense of the site. While most websites tend to be updated regularly, the time between “regular” updates can vary widely. For instance, the general health site of a hospital might be updated once in a month, a technology blog might be updated once a week, and a news website might be updated daily or even hourly. While the web is in general considered a public forum of intentional use, there are several grey areas with regard to ethics that researchers need to

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  27 consider. The main issue is how conventional notions of public and private play out in the online context. Email conversations tend to be looked on as private, though it is a well-known fact that these can be easily mined (or hacked) by tech-savvy people. Similarly, comments, confessions, and statements made in private discussion forums are considered private as well, though these too can be easily accessed, both by outsiders with technical knowledge or by members of the group who already have access.39 In the case of personal blogs, where private information is often shared with an implicit audience but on a public forum, the question the researcher has to answer before embarking on research is if the material “academic fair game” or is authorial consent required? The positions on this question primarily fall into three groups: those who assert blog material is entirely public, and therefore “fair game” (e.g. Walther, 2002 as cited in Hookway, 2008), others who argue that since blog posts are sometimes written for a private audience, they should be treated as such (e.g. Elgesem, 2002), and a group who takes a middle position, arguing that it is important to take into account the bloggers’ own position on the matter as each might construe it differently (e.g. Waskul, 1996). Cyberspace, and blogs in particular, is thus simultaneously “publicly-private, and privately-public” (Hookway, 2008, p. 105). The strongest argument, however, seems to lie with the first group (e.g. Herring, 2004; Hookway, 2008; Walther, 2002) since the “authors” have written the posts with the intention that it be read by others and with the knowledge that the blogosphere is a public and widely accessed space, it can therefore be regarded as a public document and be cited without permission. Hookway (2008) further points out that a blogger who does not want to make content public has the option to keep it password protected, and therefore a blogger who does not do so is fully aware that it is a public document. While this is the position most researchers take (including this researcher), the issue is not always black and white as, for instance, when dealing with content produced by young people who may not always realise that persons other than those they intend to address can also access and read what they have written. Herring points out that even if a researcher intends to seek permission from the “authors,” this can sometimes be impossible since contact information is not always provided on these sites.40 Blogs present a particularly fascinating genre of web content, exemplifying some of the fundamental complexities and characteristics of web texts. In common with other web documents, the multimodality (textual, photo blogs, audio blogs, and video blogs or vlogs) of a blog poses interesting challenges. In addition, the comments feature of a blog gives rise to what can be called “conversations” between bloggers and readers. This aspect, as well as the blogging convention of providing links to other blogs on the sidebar (which has also been considered a “turn” in the conversation by some researchers), blurs the boundaries between a regular HTML webpage and an interactive discussion forum. The multiple conversational elements in a

28  Mapping the Indian blogosphere blog, as well as the features (photo, links, video, audio, text) of a blog, are what make blogs both challenging and interesting to study (Dean, 2010a). While many researchers have applied traditional content analysis methods of coding to blogs in order to better understand the fundamental nature of these web documents, Herring (2010) contends that “this surface approach is unable to capture the trajectories of hyperlinks from blogs to other websites or even the nature of link destinations, which is important to understanding the function and meaning of links.” Further, she argues that it is also important to take into account the “stylistic and linguistic strategies used to construct entries and comments” (2010, p. 9). It is these limitations that have encouraged blog researchers to expand the methodological paradigm to better suit their needs. For example, Williams, Trammell, Postelnicu, Landreville, and Martin (2005) studied the 2004 US presidential election by looking at the content in the Bush and Kerry campaign blogs. They not only coded thematic content related to war, health care, and the economy but also used link analysis to study the number of hyperlinks, the ratio of internal to external hyperlinks, and hyperlink destinations. Similarly, Tremayne, Zheng, Lee, and Jeon (2006) used social network analysis to analyse incoming links in relation to thematic content in order to study the amount of interaction between liberal and conservative war bloggers. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of the nature of “conversations” within and between blogs, Herring et al. (2004) followed the links from randomly selected blogs from one blog to another to create a snowball sample that was then plotted as a social network diagram. They concluded that conversation between bloggers (even those blogging on similar topics) was minimal, refuting the idea that the blogosphere was “actively conversational.” A study of Kuwaiti war blogs by Ali-Hasan and Adamic (2007) also reached a similar conclusion. However, Efimova and De Moor (2005) found the opposite in their study of an extended cross-blog conversation. Studies such as these have combined content analysis with social network/ link analysis to better understand their subject. Other blog researchers have taken a different approach and used techniques borrowed from linguistics in addition to content analysis in order to gain insight into their chosen subject of study. These studies have looked at frequencies of certain words to draw conclusions about the gender of the writers, whether a blog was a filter blog or personal journal, the levels of emotion displayed in blogs, and so forth. Under the broad-term web content analysis (WebCA), Herring offers a “methodologically plural paradigm” that includes the many methods that researchers have used including link analysis drawing from social network analysis (Schneider and Foot, 2004), theme/feature analysis drawing from traditional content analysis (McMillan, 2000), and computer-mediated discourse analysis – drawing from discourse analysis (Herring, 2004). She also makes room in this model to add other techniques that may be required

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  29

Herring’s WebCA Model Web Content Analysis

Image Analysis

Theme Analysis

Feature Analysis

Link Analysis

Exchange Analysis

Language Analysis

Other Methods

Figure 2.3  Herring’s WebCA Model Source: Author

as the genre and the technology continue to evolve. For instance, in her model, she separates image analysis from feature and theme analysis since she believes that “the interpretation of visual content can benefit from methods drawn from iconography and semiotics” (2010, p. 11). This umbrella model seeks to take into account the many present and future requirements of blog research while still categorising itself under a broad definition of content analysis. This study explores the texts that women generate as they reflect on and recount their personal everyday experiences. It is important to note that such a study cannot seek to generalise women’s experiences, since gender intersects with many other factors including caste, class, and religion. Standpoint feminism recognises the multiplicities of experience, and in this project, I examine the narratives generated by a group of Indian women bloggers who are rooted in the specificities of their life experiences. Drawing from the idea that feminist research begins from one’s own viewpoint and experience (Smith, 1987; Rayaprol, 1997), it is important for the researcher to locate oneself within the research context. My personal interests and viewpoint as a graduate student and member of the diaspora (for a limited time) were what initially led me to encounter, then explore, the blogosphere. My social class and educational background are similar to that of the women bloggers in this study. Following Harding (1991) and others, I believe that self-reflexivity enhances the value and validity of the research. My methodological approach for this research project is multi-pronged and uses qualitative tools of inquiry. The cultural studies approach considers any cultural product or practice as a text” that can be read. Thus, I use textual analysis as a method to read my chosen media “text,” the blog.

30  Mapping the Indian blogosphere While I focus a great deal on the written content of the blog, I also take into account the other elements of a blog (such as images, layouts, themes, features, etc.) to consider the blog in its entirety. Fursich (2009) points outs that textual analysis has come under some attack by scholars such as Philo (2007) for not taking into account the totality of the communication process. By focusing on content alone, he argues, the contexts of production and audience reception are not taken into account. Fursich, on the other hand, argues that media content (and popular culture in general) necessitates stand-alone interpretation for its value as a site of struggle for meaning and ideological negotiation in hegemonic contexts. Despite many advantages of large-scale research projects that integrate moments of production, context, and reception, only independent textual analysis can elucidate the narrative structure, symbolic arrangements and ideological potential of media content. (Fursich, 2009, p. 2) Data collection and analytic process An initial extensive exploration of the Indian blogosphere, especially those written by women, was undertaken at the beginning of the research project. After deciding to focus on personal blogs written by women, the task became to find some way of defining a specific “web sphere” (Schneider and Foot, 2004; Herring, 2004) based on a predetermined set of guidelines.41 This initial process was overwhelming, as the sheer number of blogs that one encountered at every new click quickly started to feel unmanageable. Other researchers have remarked on this as well. The multiplicity of voices; the staggering amount of textual and visual data; and the intricate network of hyperlinks, comments, and cross-posting can be overpowering and anxiety inducing (e.g. O’Neil, 2005 cited in Hookway, 2008). Hookway cites Baudrillard (1988) and Jameson (1991), who describe the disorienting and anxiety-provoking effects of postmodern spaces: forms which they argue disable the individual’s capacity to map oneself cognitively and perceptually in space, removing totality and a sense of the whole from one’s grasp. (2008, p. 98)42 As a preliminary step in the research process, I began to explore the “Indian” blogosphere by checking a few popular blog aggregator sites such as Blog­ Adda and IndiBlogger. I was aware of the popularity of personal blogs that focused on design, art, photography, and food. I explored each of these mini webspheres and finally chose a set of food blogs written by Indian women. I also began to focus my attention on blogs written by women of the diaspora, as those blogs had been historically among the earliest blogs written

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  31 by Indians (Gajjala, 2010) and had also been part of my own introduction to the blogosphere. Additionally, one of the most interesting discoveries for me as I explored the Indian blogosphere was the blogs that discussed issues of gender. These, then, were the three sets of blogs I chose to study: blogs about gender issues, blogs from the diaspora, and blogs about food. Throughout this process, I made notes of the kinds of topics that were addressed, the kind of comments that were generated, the category heads, the tags, links, layout, and features of these blogs. For an in-depth study, nine blogs that had been running for at least two years, posted frequent updates, and seemed positioned within a larger network of blogs were chosen. While the topics initially felt diverse and scattered, it eventually became clear that underlying all three were some commonalities and also some specific themes that appeared and reappeared to varying degrees in many of the blogs being studied. For each category of blogs that were chosen for this project, several blogs in that category were read over the course of a year. This allowed me to get a general sense of the larger web sphere so that the final sample of blogs could be better contextualised within that web sphere. Each blog was monitored closely for a six-month period, but during which time all posts within the time frame were subjected to a closer reading and the other features of the blog, such as comments, links, and awards, were also analysed. An important aspect of the research process was to take detailed notes as I navigated my way through the chosen set of blogs. Using Herring’s WebCA model as a loose framework, I used my notes to provide a “thick description” of my observations. Throughout the process, I was studying the theory and other scholarship that would ground my analysis and understanding of the “text” I was “reading.” Additionally, the nine bloggers were contacted and interviews were conducted through email and/or phone with seven of the bloggers. Specifically, the approach that was taken with regard to units of analysis, sampling, and ethical issues are the following: Sample: As previously discussed, it is near impossible to pick a representative sample in the context of web content. Indices such as BlogAdda and IndiBlogger and others are not comprehensive indices by any means, and any sample will necessarily be either a purposive or snowball sample (or both). For this project, a combination of purposive and snowball sampling was used, where one blog led to other blogs through the blog rolls on some of the blogs. Units of analysis: Since this analysis utilises a more qualitative approach than traditional content analysis does, two main units of analysis were adopted for this research project. One, an individual blog in its entirety, and two, individual posts. This two-pronged approach is necessary as it is important

32  Mapping the Indian blogosphere to first look at the larger picture (of the whole blog) to see how the blogger positions herself and how she fits into the larger context of that genre, and second, to study individual entries and the comments surrounding them to understand how language, pictures, and comments come together in specific instances to create meaning within that larger context. Ethical issues: While the grey areas of using content from personal blogs are somewhat complicated, the approach taken here was that personal blogs written by adults and available in the public sphere can be considered public documents and can therefore be used as objects of research as they are within the public domain (Hookway, 2008). The following chapters will focus first on the theoretical frameworks used to ground the analysis (Chapter 3) and then focus on the analysis of the three topic webspheres chosen for this research project. Chapter 4 will examine blogs written by Indian women that focus on issues of gender, and the everyday experiences of being an Indian woman. In Chapter 5, I explore the world of the diasporic blogger, blogging about issues of identity, belonging, and citizenship. Chapter 6, the final topic chapter, focuses on food blogs to observe the concerns and themes that arise from seemingly simple conversations about food. Chapter 7 will draw the threads together and provide an overview of the larger themes that run through the narratives, as well as suggest future lines of research.

Notes 1 MUDs (multi-user dimension), and MOOs (mud, object oriented) are virtual environments that can be very large and detailed. In a MUD, the user moves about (either by typing directions or using the mouse to point in the direction desired) and interacts with other characters (other users) to explore the environment, form friendships, converse and debate. MOOs allow users to build their own additions such as rooms or objects (furniture or talking pets in addition to interacting with other players). For more information, see: www.siue. edu/~dsawyer/CMC/MM.html. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 2 The word “blog” is attributed to Peter Merholz who used the shortened word on his own weblog. The words blogger, blogspot, and the use of blog as both noun and verb developed within Pyra Labs as a way to describe this new technology and its application (Blood, 2002; Herring et al., 2004). 3 For an easy-to-read history and timeline of blogs and blogging, see: http://nymag. com/news/media/15971/, www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/03/a-brief-historyof-blogging/, and www.creativebloq.com/web-design/history-blogging-51411626. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 4 State of the Blogosphere, October 2004: www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000245. html. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 5 Technorati’s annual State of the Blogosphere report (published since 2004) provides an extensive array of blog-related statistics such as content categories, demographics, gender distribution, and geographical locations. See www.sifry. com/alerts/2008/09/technorati-state-of-the-blogosphere-parts-3-and-4-howand-how-much/. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 6 www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2012/buzz-in-the-blogosphere-millionsmore-bloggers-and-blog-readers.html. (Last accessed October 15, 2015).

Mapping the Indian blogosphere  33 7 The exceptions to this would be corporate-owned social media forums like Facebook and Twitter, which are carefully monitored (and monetised). 8 Some authors add a third category – topic blogs. These would be blogs that focus on a specific topic, like technology, finance, or automobiles (e.g. Blood, 2000; Herring et al., 2004). However, other topics like food, design, and fashion tend to be categorised under lifestyle or personal blogs, so the categories are often overlapping and unclear. 9 I examine the public/private dichotomy in relation to blogs in greater length in the next chapter. 10 See www.softwarefindr.com/how-many-blogs-are-there/ 11 WordPress Site: https://wordpress.org/. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 12 www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/ 13 Tumblr, a photo-blogging platform that allows users to share pictures along with small captions, numbers its accounts at 76.5 million. However, for the purposes of this project, I am looking at only those blogging platforms that are primarily text based. With the rapid pace of innovation in this industry, newer kinds of platforms are constantly being introduced. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, and Pinterest are just a few of the social networking platforms that have been introduced in the past few years. 14 See http://indianbloggers.org/. Most of the information in this section is taken from Melwani (2008) unless otherwise stated. 15 http://indiauncut.com/(current) and http://indianeconomy.org/ (last updated in 2011). (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 16 UberDesi.com, Pickledpolitics.com, DesiPundit.com, jaiarjun.blogspot.com (Jabberwock), middlestage.blogspot.com (The Middle Stage), www.filmiholic. com, www.passtheroti.com, and www.passionforcinema.com. (Last accessed July 10, 2015). 17 Google AdSense is a programme that allows website owners and bloggers to easily monetise their web properties through advertisements algorithmically served by Google’s software platform. Typically, the owner of a blog or a website signs up with AdSense to allow the latter to display advertisements on the web pages of his or her blog or website. The company in turn pays the site owner every time an advertisement is either seen (impressions) or clicked (clicks) on by the reader. Google’s “intelligent” algorithmic software ensures that only relevant advertisements based on the content of the blog/website are displayed. 18 Internet in India 2018 Report by IAMAI: www.iamai.in/media/details/4990 19 Pradhan currently blogs at rohitpradhan.com and is also a blogger on Indian Nationalinterest.in. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 20 www.livemint.com/Home-Page/WaPrbshnSaqcM39XcaI2uJ/A-decade-onIndian-blogs-remain-mostly-urban-niche.html). (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 21 www.indiblogger.in/. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 22 For a more detailed review of articles about the state and future of the Indian blogosphere, see Desai (2015). 23 For a first-person account of the growth of the Hindi blogosphere, see http:// nullpointer.debashish.com/bhasha-blogs-indic-blogs-in-the-indian-blogosphere. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 24 State of the Indian Blogosphere in Business World’s The Marketing Whitebook, 2014–15. 25 An article citing statistics from the popular blogging platform WordPress stated that the platform is currently available in 51 languages including Persian, Albanian, Icelandic, and Gaelic, and that in 2014, non-English downloads of the platform exceeded English downloads for the first time. http://torquemag.io/13surprising-wordpress-statistics/. (Last accessed April 24, 2019).

34  Mapping the Indian blogosphere 26 www.niemanlab.org/2013/12/the-blog-is-dead/. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 27 A Comscore report: India Digital – Future in Focus, 2013 showed that blogs as a category had a broader reach among internet audiences in India than in China. 28 BW|IndiBlogger Survey: In State of the Indian Blogosphere in Business World’s “The Marketing Whitebook 2014–15.” 29 www.nielsen.com/in/en/insights/news/2012/buzz-in-the-blogosphere-millionsmore-bloggers-and-blog-readers.html. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 30 www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/, https://digital.com/blog/wordpressstats/, and www.statista.com/statistics/256235/total-cumulative-number-of-tumblrblogs/. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 31 See, for example: https://sputniknews.com/science/201810211069069436-womenbarred-from-internet-access/ and https://hbr.org/2017/12/theres-a-gender-gap-ininternet-usage-closing-it-would-open-up-opportunities-for-everyone. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 32 https://webfoundation.org/research/digital-gender-gap-audit/; see also www. statista.com/statistics/491387/gender-distribution-of-internet-users-region/. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 33 See, for example: BBC: Role of the blog (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_ depth/4092611.stm) and Beating the western drum (www.theguardian.com/ media/2008/sep/15/blog.politics). (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 34 The 2008 State of the Blogosphere report published annually by Technorati indicated that personal/diary blogs outnumbered filter/news blogs 3 to 1. http:// searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2053445/technorati-releases-state-blogosphere-2008-report. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 35 This use of blogs is akin to Rybas and Gajjala’s (2007) explication of cyberethnography as a research method, where the researcher becomes a participant in the virtual space she or he is studying. 36 This finding again recalls Silver’s comment of Identity and Community as being the “twin pillars” of cyberculture studies. 37 “A ‘commenter’ is someone who makes isolated comments. These days, the word most often refers to people who post comments on blogs and news websites.” From: http://grammarist.com/usage/commentator-commenter/. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 38 This is a term typically used for members of online communities who observe but do not publicly participate. The term is pejorative, drawing from the verb “to lurk,” but recent scholarship has argued for the value that such observers provide by acting as a “gathered audience” that contributes “a mode of receptiveness that encourages others to make public contributions.” Crawford suggests using the concept of “disciplines of listening” instead of “lurking,” arguing that it reframes the behaviour as “receptive and reciprocal.” (Crawford, 2009, p. 527) See also Zhang and Storck (2001) and Preece, Nonnecke, and Andrews (2004). 39 Gajjala’s (1998) cyberethnography of a women’s discussion forum of which she was a member explores in great detail the ethics and methodologies involved in such a research project. 40 My personal experience has been that authors may not always respond to researcher queries either intentionally or unintentionally. 41 Herring (2004) uses Schneider and Foot’s (2004) concept of a “websphere,” which is described as a “hyperlinked set of dynamically defined digital resources spanning multiple Web sites deemed relevant or related to a central theme or ‘object’ ”(Herring, 2004, p. 6). 42 Baudrillard (1988) and Jameson (1991) as cited in Hookway (2008).

3

New media studies and gendered narratives

The body of scholarship that has developed since the Internet was invented is large and diverse. Scholars from many fields have attempted to understand, organise, and analyse this new communication technology. The Internet and its associated technologies and capabilities have not only forced us to rethink earlier ways of thinking about and studying societies and people but also radically changed how we behave and interact in both our offline and online worlds. In the past two decades, as “new media” have developed and grown rapidly, so too has the field of academic study that is interested in these technologies and the social and cultural practices that surround their use.

Virtual communities and online identities The word cyberspace was coined in 1984 by author William Gibson in his science fiction novel Neuromancer. Hailed as the beginning of “cyberpunk” writing, the novel won many awards and left all those fascinated with the new technologies of the Internet with a name and a metaphor for the new “virtual” spaces that transcended physical boundaries of both time and space. This image of the Internet as the electronic frontier caught the imagination of activists, authors, and administrators with its imagery of the “Wild West” and of adventurers seeking new possibilities and “going where no man has gone before” metaphors. That much of this took place in the United States was not a coincidence. Since then, the academic study of cyberspace or the electronic frontier has become a new chapter in communication studies (Gunkel and Gunkel, 1997; Kitchin, 1998; Silver, 2000). Silver (2000) describes three stages in the development of scholarship that looks at the growth and development of cyberspace and its role in society: popular cyber culture, cyber culture studies, and critical cyber culture studies. Popular cyber culture refers to the early period of writing about the Internet (late 1980s and early 1990s) that was primarily celebratory and descriptive in nature. The writers sought to educate the public about the Internet and cyberspace while espousing a utopian rhetoric that saw it as the answer to a host of societal and world problems. The second stage that

36  New media studies and gendered narratives Silver identifies is what he calls cyberculture studies; while still maintaining the frontier metaphor and descriptive focus, many academics began to think about issues related to new media, realising that these new communication technologies required a rethinking of many fundamental ideas. For instance, Silver quotes cyber-scholar Stone (1991) as saying that while interactions in cyberspace may still be social, and people may meet “ ‘face’ to-face,” the meanings or definitions of meet and face have changed (Stone, 1991, as cited in Silver, 2000). The third stage that Silver describes is the attempt to understand the changing nature of our interactions with people and society in the context of the ubiquitous presence of these media in our lives. The field has grown and diversified exponentially since Silver described his three stages, as new forms of Internet technologies invade our lives in rapid succession and enable newer and newer forms of being and doing. As these fields have grown and new scholarship emerges to explain and/or describe it, some broad areas (or sub-fields) that new media scholars now study are visual communication, gaming, and social media. Since this study with its focus on blogs falls into the area of social media, the following discussion will focus on concepts and ideas elaborated by scholars working in the area of social media and society. Some of the main areas of interest in this sub-field are the concept of self and identity and how they are constructed or displayed online, the possibilities for building and maintaining virtual or “imagined” communities, the changing (or constant) nature of interaction and connection, and the varied determinants and meanings of “sociality” itself (e.g. Bruns, 2015; Couldry, 2015; Papacharissi, 2015a). One of the earliest people to write about digital communication technologies and credited with coining the term virtual community, Howard Rheingold (1993) explored the social and political implications of the new online networks of people communicating through the new communication technologies. In his book Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (1993, 2000), Rheingold reflects on the possibilities that computer-mediated communication has for creating an online public sphere and thereby affecting the nature of democratic discourse. Though sometimes criticised for being utopian in his outlook and technologically deterministic, Rheingold nevertheless made an important contribution to our understanding of the possibilities of new media. The Habermasian concept of the Public Sphere and the possibility of the Internet acting as a new public sphere is an aspect that Internet researchers have engaged with since its earliest beginnings. Poster (1997) argues that in contemporary democracies, older spaces of political discussion such as coffee houses, the town hall, the public square, or the union meeting have been replaced by media, especially electronic media. Where then does the public go to interact, discuss, and form public opinion? Poster studies the emergence and functioning of MUDs (multi-user domains) and MOOs (MUD, object oriented) and sees them not only as examples of the new forms of

New media studies and gendered narratives  37 postmodern public spheres but also as an instance of a space that can transcend traditional hierarchies such as gender (1997). The public sphere, as Habermas (1973) described it, is a democratic public sphere that would allow critical reason to prevail and result in public accord. This conception has been criticised by post-structuralist and feminist scholars such as Fraser (1990). These critiques question the “patriarchal, logocentric, and bourgeois” underpinnings of Habermas’s conceptualisation of the public sphere and extends it to include political discussion by all oppressed and marginalised groups (Poster, 1997, p. 218). Tsaliki (2000) extends Fraser’s feminist approach in exploring the possibilities of a public sphere in the context of computer-mediated communication. Arguing that Habermas’s concept was a highly gendered one, which assumed “that men were uniquely equipped to take part, while women were better suited to domestic life” (2000, p. 407), Tsaliki stresses the need to recognise a multiplicity of public spheres (rather than a single one as Habermas does) and drawing from recent feminist discourse, emphasises difference over equality. Like Poster, Tsaliki retains the concept of the public sphere while calling for a major redefinition of it. Benedict Anderson’s (1983) concept of “Imagined Communities” is another useful idea to apply to the study of the Internet. He focuses on the rise of modern nationalism and asserts that the defining concept of the modern nation state is as an “imagined political community” rather than a geographical location (183:49, emphasis mine). Appadurai (1996) draws from Anderson’s concept and applies it to mass media in the age of globalisation: Part of what mass media make possible, because of the conditions of collective reading, criticism, and pleasure, is what I have elsewhere called a “community of sentiment” (1990), a group that begins to imagine and feel things together. As Benedict Anderson (1983) has shown so well, print capitalism can be one important way in which groups who have never been in face-to-face contact can begin to think of themselves as Indonesian, or Indian, or Malaysian. But other forms of electronic capitalism can have similar and even more powerful effects, for they do not work only at the level of the nation-state. (Appadurai, 1996, p. 8) These concepts developed by scholars from various fields help us in better understanding the current mediated world we inhabit. With regard to the self in the context of cyberspace, Donna Haraway’s work on cyborgs is among the most well-known feminist work on humans and their relationship to machines. Inspired by feminist science fiction, which often presents ungendered or gender-free scenarios, Haraway defines a cyborg as a “cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” and calls it

38  New media studies and gendered narratives “a creature in a post-gender world” (1991, p. 2). She calls for a space of digital political action for women. Through the imagery of the cyborg, Haraway makes the case that technology allows women and in fact all alienated groups to escape the confines of not only the physical but also of traditional notions of identity. In doing so, she challenges traditional Marxist–feminist notions of gender, equality, and identity and argues for a new feminism that is based on “affinities.” Turkle’s research (1995, 1996) on the relationship between humans and computers has contributed greatly to our understanding of the way identity is shaped in cyberspace. A central consideration in this area of work is the blurring of boundaries between what is real and what is virtual. Turkle addresses this and the cultural, sociological, and psychological implications of this blurring. In her research on the online communities of “multi-user domains,” she points to the fact that as our “machines” allow us to create multiple versions of ourselves in cyberspace, these machines become extensions of ourselves in a way that has both positive and negative repercussions on our lives. Other researchers have also been fascinated by the divisions between our online and offline worlds. For instance, Nichols (1988) draws from Walter Benjamin to explore the idea of “the work of culture in the age of cybernetic systems” and feels that the virtual enters into the real significantly by simulating, and altering, our relation to our environment and mind thus making a real–virtual binary counterproductive to work with. Manovich (2006) uses the term augmented space in order to describe a digitally connected world where the real and the virtual supplement each other in such a way as to render the intersections untraceable. Similarly, Jordan (2009) explores the “hybrid space” where a person’s identity, experiences, and life possibilities begin to integrate physical and virtual facets of existence so that consciousness is – to some extent – shared between an offline physical and an online virtual self.1 Extending Butler’s (1990) notion of performativity into cyberspace, Gajjala argues for an acknowledgement of performativity, enactment, and production in the formation of cyber-identities in both online and offline contexts. Her work examines emerging subjectivities at the intersection of virtual and real, local and global to extend the discussion on the supposed empowerment of women in cyberspace and take into account the very real issues of access and hegemony in a global economy (Gajjala, 1999, 2003).

Social media and society As the pace of new innovations in social media technologies accelerates, the challenge for the researcher is to not only keep up with the technologies and their related practices and products but also to stay on top of the research and the new insights that are constantly emerging in the academic literature. The sense of being outdated or overtaken as one races to catch the wave – to use Lister et al.’s (2009) metaphor – can be real and unnerving in any area

New media studies and gendered narratives  39 of study, but more so in the shifting landscape of new media scholarship and within the area of social media research. In this section, I outline some emerging patterns and threads of interest that scholars studying social media are following. As social media have embedded themselves deeper and deeper into our daily lives, the undoubted issue that occupies researchers is the consequences of this ubiquitous embedding. Social media researchers are questioning the effects or repercussions of the kind of sociality promoted by these social media technologies, since their effect can be felt not only on our personal lives but also on our professional choices, our political viewpoints, and our consumption practices. As Bruns (2015) points out: By now, there can be little doubt that social media are having a profound impact on societal processes, from political debate to everyday communication and from the media ecology to the national economy. (2015, p. 2) Couldry (2015) highlights this normative turn of questioning among researchers, citing recent work by fellow scholars such as Turkle (2011), Mejias (2013), and Van Dijk (2013) who have each in their own way asked probing questions about the pressures of a newly defined sense of “social” obligation, our relationship to and engagement with socially mediated content, and the ethics of social media companies involved in these processes (Turkle, 2011; Mejias, 2013; Van Dijk, 2013, as cited in Couldry, 2015). Interestingly, one of the key aspects that occupies scholars of social media is the meaning of the term social media itself. Papacharissi (2005, 2015a) questions the term, as she believes it is misleading, and implies that other forms of media are perhaps anti-social or asocial. These scholars argue that media has always been social and therefore the term does not adequately describe the phenomenon.2 Bruns (2015) elaborates on the idea, explaining that while technically all media can be considered “social,” only this new subset of media are fundamentally defined by their sociality. Further, while historically the social aspects of media have always existed, the most recent of these technologies “have come to enable a sociality of a different order of magnitude” (2015, p. 2) The concept of “sociality” thus comes to be questioned and debated, as researchers ask: What is it for media to be “social”? What is the difference between earlier media technologies that promoted sociality, and the ‘social media’ that define its meaning in contemporary society? Who constructs the meaning of “sociality” in the context of a media environment that collapses the roles of consumer and producer? And, finally, what should be the role of media institutions in the construction of the social (Couldry, 2015, p. 1)? A key concern of critical researchers has always been to investigate the political economy of a media process or technology. In the case of social media, a primary concern is with the corporate-driven nature of social

40  New media studies and gendered narratives media platforms. As Couldry (2015) and others ask: What is the role of these corporations in defining sociality, and in constructing the parameters of how it should be performed, described, and measured, and crucially, what are the economic imperatives that fuel these definitions? For instance, Van Dijk (2015) calls for a multi-layered examination of the techno-cultural and socio-economic aspects of this “culture of connectivity” and makes a link between the specific social-cultural-economic aspects of these technologies and the Silicon Valley–based companies that introduced these platforms (2015, p. 1). Similarly, Boyd (2015) locates historically the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies such as social media platforms in the techno-culture of the Bay area of the post “dot-com crash” era and highlights the connection between these platforms and the larger capitalist enterprise. While once viewed as a set of technologies built in resistance to the ugliness of the dot-com era, social media is now intertwined with neoliberal capitalism and data-surveillance. (Boyd, 2015, p. 2) The ethics of corporate-driven agendas and their link to the economic concerns of profitability are the ominous undercurrents that run through the seemingly innocent stated goal of greater sociality among people and groups. The scale and ease with which these digital technologies (and their corporate handlers) can monitor, collect, and reveal personal data have become a matter of concern to both researchers and increasingly to non-researchers as well. Recent examples of surveillance and thinly veiled attempts to expand their reach have been met with concern from many quarters.3 As Van Dijk (2015) explains: As techno-colonialism is tightening its grip on the world’s developing continents, it becomes urgent to critically assess not just “what happens” on the Internet or in social media, but to analyze and penetrate the various layers of the system’s underlying conditions – its economics, politics, and technological dynamics. With the borders between technological, cultural, and political organization becoming increasingly fluid, there is more need than ever to rearticulate the relationship between “social,” “media,” and “society.” (2015, p. 2) Techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufecki has become a media celebrity of sorts as her warnings about the potential harm that unregulated and behemoth technology companies may misuse user-generated data in unethical ways seem to have been realised. The Equifax data breach and the FacebookCambridge Analytica scandal are just two instances where the concerns that digital scholars have been warning about have come to pass.4,5 Tufecki’s (2014, 2017) recent work addresses both the potential and the harm of

New media studies and gendered narratives  41 unregulated social media, showing how the same technology can be used for and against people, society, and social justice. A further aspect of social media that is of particular interest for this project is the distinction between the technological capabilities of a medium in conjunction with the social practices that form around it and the affective connection that we as users make in these contexts. While a technology’s capabilities determine the parameters and extent of what can be done with it, its success as a social medium is dependent on a host of socio-cultural factors.6 Further, as Bruns (2015) points out, the eventual uses a medium is put to “are never simply pre-determined by technological features alone – they are co-created, co-evolved in the interplay between technologists, operators, and users” (2015, p. 1). How we as users engage with the medium, the socio-cultural practices we develop around them, and the affective connections we make with them are key to a nuanced understanding of what social media have come to mean in our lives. Papacharissi (2015b) notes: Newer media follow, amplify, and remediate (that) tradition of storytelling. They permit meaning-making of situations unknown to us by evoking affective reactions. Tuning in affectively does not mean that reactions are strictly emotional; they may also be rational. But it does mean that we are prompted to interpret situations by feeling like those directly experiencing them. (2015b, Prelude, para. 8) Thus, the role of affect becomes key in our engagement with social media, and emerging research is deeply concerned with the affective possibilities of online media (e.g. Dean, 2010b; Papacharissi, 2015b). These aspects of social media are of particular relevance to the personal blogs being examined in my study, as will become clearer in the following chapters. Blogging is a social media technology that has its own set of social practices that have built up over time. The narratives generated by these bloggers are imbued with a sense of immediacy and, for the reader, an empathy that directly corresponds to the idea of affect as these scholars describe them. As Papacharissi (2015b) explains: Technologies network us but it is narratives that connect us to each other, making us feel close to some and distancing us from others. As our developing sensibilities of the world surrounding us turn into stories that we tell, share, and add to, the platforms we use afford these evolving narratives their own distinct texture, or mediality. (2015b, Prelude, para. 9) The ensuing discussion and analysis will, I believe, give us greater insight into the texture and mediality of the personal narratives of the bloggers in my sample.

42  New media studies and gendered narratives

Feminist standpoint theory This research project on the digital narratives of their everyday experiences generated by women bloggers emerges from the idea that understanding the everyday lives of women is important. Sociologist Dorothy Smith was among those early researchers who argued for a sociological inquiry that included women not as objects of study, but as subjects. Labelling this approach as sociological inquiry from the “standpoint of women,” Smith explains: When we take up the standpoint of women, we take up a standpoint outside this frame (as an organization of social consciousness). To begin from such a standpoint does not imply a common viewpoint among women. What we have in common is the organization of social relations that has accomplished our exclusion. (Smith, 1987, p. 78) Sandra Harding (1991), in arguing for a feminist epistemology, distinguishes between feminist empiricism and feminist standpoint theory. Feminist empiricism critiques the “sexist and androcentric” biases prevalent in research agendas (primarily biology and the social sciences) appearing at multiple levels of the research process – in the identifying and defining of the scientific problem, at the level of research design, through the collection of data and its interpretation. Scholars subscribing to this view argue that this is just “bad science” and call for a more rigorous implementation of the rules and principles of scientific research. While they are critical of existing (or older) models of research as excluding women and gender issues from scientific inquiry, they do not advocate a change in the methods of research other than a stricter application of the rules of empirical research. The name “feminist empiricism” emerges not as a specific name for this approach to science, but as a way to distinguish it from the subsequent emergence of feminist standpoint theory approach (1991, p. 111). Harding elaborates: Women’s different lives have been erroneously devalued and neglected as starting points for scientific research and as the generators of evidence for or against knowledge claims . . . human lives are not homogenous in any gender-stratified society. Women and men are assigned different kinds of activities in such societies; consequently, they lead lives that have significantly different contours and patterns. (1991, p. 121) Feminist standpoint theory argues for a research agenda based on the perspectives of women themselves. Giving importance to women as “social agents in the production of knowledge,” Rayaprol (1997) points out that standpoint feminists believe that the experiences of women are valuable

New media studies and gendered narratives  43 resources for analysis, and it is women themselves who can (and should) throw light on what these really are. In this view, scholars believe that knowledge is grounded in and emerges out of experience, and for this reason, women alone can be agents of this knowledge (1997, p. 36). She cites Rosaldo: [W]oman’s place in human social life is not in any direct sense a product of the things she does (or even less a function of what, biologically she is) but of the meaning her activities acquire through concrete social interactions. And the significances women assign to the activities of their lives are things we can only grasp through an analysis of the relationships that women forge, the social contexts they (along with men) create – within which they are defined. (1980, p. 400, emphasis mine) While the activities – “the things she does” – of a woman are important, even more important are the meanings she makes of them by sharing, commenting, and discussing thoughts and feelings in the context of her everyday life. Feminist standpoint theorists, while arguing for a more central place to be given to women’s experiences, recognise that it is impossible to make claims of a universal standpoint of women. Smith (1987) asserts: Women are variously located in society. Their situations are much more various than the topics we recognize somewhat stereotypically as women’s topics would suggest. Their position also differs very greatly by class. Even among housewives, who appear to share a universal fate, there are rather wider differences in the conditions, practices, and organization of housework and the social relations in which it is embedded than our studies and the ways in which they have been framed would allow. (1987, pp. 85–86) Mohanty (2003) reiterates this acknowledgement of the differentiation of experience: Third world women’s writings on feminism have consistently focused on the idea of the simultaneity of oppressions as fundamental to the experience of social and political marginality and the grounding of feminist politics in the histories of racism and imperialism. (2003, p. 52) Similarly, Rayaprol (1997) reminds us that there can be “multiple standpoints located at the intersections of class, caste, race, gender, and religion” (1997, p. 36).

44  New media studies and gendered narratives Research for women that has emancipatory goals occupies an important place in the larger sphere of feminist research. Traditionally, studies have looked at issues of women’s labour, violence against women, domestic abuse, and so forth, and these are vital to the broader goal of gender equality. However, Rayaprol argues that there is a tendency to use this kind of research to portray women as only victims. Giving a place (and voice) to women’s everyday experiences in the academic sphere of feminist research presents an important alternative narrative of women’s agency as opposed to victimologies. My research project seeks to understand women’s experiences as they themselves see it. I am interested not only in the activities, thoughts, and ideas that make up their lives but also, as Rosaldo (1980) notes, in the meanings they themselves make of these experiences. By studying the personal blogs of articulate women as texts and cultural artefacts, I am placing the narratives of personal experience at the centre of the larger project of exploring gendered subjectivities.

Women and writing As an entry point into the study of women’s blog narratives, it becomes useful to explore some theoretical concepts with regard to women’s writing. Women’s writing can fall under many categories – fiction, non-fiction, and personal narratives – but all these can give us valuable insights into women’s experiences and the meanings they make of them. Later in this section, I discuss some theoretical ways in which women’s writing has been studied in order to better locate my own analysis. I draw primarily from three sources for this explication, Tharu and Lalita (1991), Mohanty (2003), and Smith and Watson (2010), to provide a theoretical and political framework for the study of women’s writing, specifically in this case, personal blogs written by Indian women. Writing – whether by a man or woman – tends to fall into the two broad categories of fiction and non-fiction. While there can be many different genres within those categories, I draw from Tharu and Lalita’s landmark work on women’s (fiction) writing in India, which contextualises the feminist project to “recover” women’s writing that had hitherto lain unrecognised and unappreciated back into its place under the sun. They trace the trajectory of the history of feminist criticism while examining the implications that a largely Western perspective brings to the discussion surrounding women’s writing. I then turn to Smith and Watson (2010) who provide similar academic rigour to the history of women’s autobiographies or the preferable term life narratives. Smith and Watson’s explication of life narratives is a useful way to look at blogs, and Tharu and Lalita’s work shows the way in framing women’s writing within an Indian context. Finally, Mohanty (2003) places women’s writing within a political, feminist framework that addresses the multiple subjectivities and viewpoints from which Third World women may be writing.

New media studies and gendered narratives  45 In the introduction to Women Writing in India, Tharu and Lalita discuss the history of feminist criticism and the largely Western, feminist project of recovering women’s writing from “a lost tradition of women’s literature” (1991, p. 13). They argue that these feminist projects made significant contributions to re-evaluating the significance of women’s writing, and also shaped a new discipline, a new field of study – women’s writing – where one did not exist before. However, the authors point out that these feminist projects nevertheless framed the larger concerns of women within a white, middle-class, Western perspective, and while these feminist movements questioned and sought to overturn institutional structures that aided and legitimised by patriarchy, other structures of domination such as class, race, or colonialism went unquestioned by them. By framing as natural and universal, the particularities of experience of the Western, middle-class female, these feminist projects rendered invisible other female subjectivities. Other contradictions which had their source, say, in patriarchy as it was historically constituted by class, by colonialism, or by caste, which would have shaped the subordination of a working-class woman in India . . . and determined her selfhood or subjectivity were simply not addressed. Besides, even the contours of what might be more strictly defined as gender subordination was so normatively invoked that they could not accommodate other histories that shape the contours of desire or of power. (1991, p. 32) Through their project, which involves archival research to locate and translate women’s writing in 13 Indian languages spanning a time period of 2,500 years, they seek to place these writings within the ideological context of the specific time frame, to be read, not as monuments to be placed within a pre-existing canon, but “as documents that display what is at stake in the embattled practices of self and agency” (1991, p. 36). They caution the reader to not automatically assume that these literary texts are authentic or “real experiences of real women” in any universal or normative sense simply because they are written by women, and they remind us that women writers may be as complicit in some of the ideologies of the time as men are, and that even when they do address gender issues (which may not always be the case), they may do so at the expense of other marginalised identities based on caste, class, or religion. While Tharu and Lalita are referring to a historical compilation of women’s fiction writing, these observations are nevertheless relevant to any academic study of women’s writing, be it fiction or non-fiction, autobiographical, anecdotal, journalistic, historical, or contemporary. Mohanty (2003) addresses a different kind of women’s writing at a different time and place, yet reiterates some of the things that Tharu and Lalita highlight.

46  New media studies and gendered narratives Writing is itself an activity marked by class and ethnic position. However, testimonials, life stories, and oral histories are a significant mode of remembering and recording experience and struggles. Written texts are not produced in a vacuum. In fact, texts that document Third World women’s life histories owe their existence as much to the exigencies of the political and commercial marketplace as to the knowledge, skills, motivation, and location of individual writers. (2003, p. 77) Mohanty is talking here of the (token) inclusion of Third World women’s narratives into Western academia and that mere inclusion cannot suffice as evidence that hegemonic subjectivities are being destabilised. Rather, the way in which these narratives are read, located, and theorised will determine the part they play in the larger context of academia. After all, the point is not to just record one’s history of struggle, or consciousness, but how they are recorded; the way we read, receive, and disseminate such imaginative records is immensely significant. (2003, p. 77) A useful entry point into the study of personal blogs is through the academic discourse surrounding the history of women’s diaries/journals/autobiographies. Blogging, a form of up-to-the-minute life writing that new Internet technologies have facilitated, can be seen as an extension of earlier forms of life narratives such as diaries, journals, or autobiographies. This is a natural extension since blogs share many of the features that are characteristic of diaries or journals. Blogs written by women become particularly interesting from this angle, given the historical marginalising of female biographers from early times. Smith and Watson (2010) explain how the genre of autobiography was elevated to literary status, while simultaneously marginalising other kinds of “life writing” as having less value. They count slave narratives, narratives of women’s domestic lives, coming-of-age narratives, and travelogues among those thus diminished in value. So, at the outset, they start by suggesting the use of the term life writing or life narrative as “more inclusive of the heterogeneity of self-referential practices” (2010, p. 4). They note that women’s narratives were among those considered of less value because of the subjective, individualistic nature of the narratives. By ascribing greater value to what were considered the more universal and objective writings of men and by identifying autobiography with individual greatness, all other forms of life narratives, especially the personal life narratives of women, were ignored and marginalised. Smith and Watson note: The gendering of the representative life as universal and therefore masculine meant that narratives by women were rarely examined; and on those rare occasions when their narratives were taken up, they were

New media studies and gendered narratives  47 accorded a place in an afterword, a paragraph, a note – in marginal comments for what were seen as marginal lives. Or their achievements were defined through normatively feminine terms. (2010, p. 203) Feminist scholars have worked to reverse this marginalisation and there is an increasing awareness in academia of the value in studying women’s life narratives. Smith and Watson’s work elaborates on the ways in which the theoretical work on life narratives by women have contributed to a greater understanding of women’s life issues. They put forward the view that women’s autobiographical practices need to be seen as both an articulation of women’s life experiences and as a source for articulating feminist theory (2010). Diaries in particular were considered to be repositories for memory, a way to record experiences and thoughts that could be looked back upon in the future. Excerpts from diaries written by women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and even earlier, also suggest that contrary to popular thinking, diaries were not always considered to be private documents. While they were probably kept private during the time that the diarist was keeping it, it was often clearly indicated that that the writer intended that it would be read at some point in the future. This notion thus challenges the simplistic “private or public?” question and concludes that diaries are “personal works with an undefined audience” (O’Sullivan, 2005, p. 63). Mohanty (2003) explicates the importance of writing – both history and the experiences of everyday life – to the larger feminist project, and especially to feminist epistemologies as they relate to Third World women. She posits that the process of remembering and writing is not merely valuable in its ability to correct the “gaps, erasures, and misunderstandings” of conventional, patriarchal histories, but also that the practice itself works to form self-identity and a political consciousness. Writing often becomes the context through which new political identities are forged. It becomes a struggle and contestation about reality itself. If the everyday world is not transparent and its relations of rule . . . work to obscure and make invisible inherent hierarchies of power (Smith, 1987), it becomes imperative that we rethink, remember, and utilize our lived relations as a basis of knowledge. Writing (discursive production) is one site for the production of this knowledge and this consciousness. (2003, p. 78) Accordingly, several streams of social science have acknowledged the importance of women’s writing in general and the particular significance of women’s life narratives. The quotidian, descriptive nature of diaries/autobiographies/life narratives holds immense value for the researcher (Bunkers and Huff, 1996; O’Sullivan, 2005) looking for experiential documentation.

48  New media studies and gendered narratives Historians have long recognized the diary’s merit as a window onto the past and an exceptional source of information for the life and times of a particular diarist. . . . Sociologists mine diaries for material concerning social structures and relationships, anthropologists read them for their candid cultural insights, and literary scholars regard them as legitimate narrative forms worthy of study in their own right. Today’s on-line diaries hold potentially the same evidential value, provided that they are preserved and archived for the benefit of future researchers. (O’Sullivan, 2005, p. 54) Noting the similarity between traditional “pen and paper” diaries and personal weblogs, researchers from across fields have begun to study the many and varied dimensions of possibilities that blogs offer to users and researchers. As new technologies allow for new practices of self-representation, Smith and Watson ask: When such virtual self-recording is for unknown communities, how is self-presentation, and indeed self-experience, changed? In what ways is the previous reliance of life narrative on a stable self with recognisable features thrown into question? (2010, p. 183) Referencing these and other scholars who seek to bring women’s writing into academic focus without essentialising women’s experiences by foregrounding the contexts in which of each of the narratives (whether fiction or life narrative) are written, Lopez notes: [I]t is important to continue to ask how this exclusion manifests itself in unexpected ways, as it is critical to assess the ways that women express themselves and make their voices heard. If the Internet provides a forum for the broadcasting of women’s voices and the community to support that voice, then we should be paying much more attention to the work that is happening on these websites. (2009, p. 736)

Theorising the “everyday” Towards the mission of recognising women’s “everyday” experiences as valuable resources for academic study, in this section, I explore some theoretical approaches to the concept of the everyday. Specifically, I once again draw on Dorothy Smith’s (1987) work on feminist sociology, and also introduce Michel de Certeau’s (1984) concepts of “strategies” and “tactics” that can help us understand how people negotiate the everyday. Finally, I draw

New media studies and gendered narratives  49 on some of Erving Goffman’s (1959) ideas with regard to the “presentation of self in everyday life.” Dorothy Smith’s concept of the everyday in terms of a feminist sociology is a useful entry point in developing an understanding of the everyday. As noted earlier, Smith (1987) critiques sociological paradigms that privilege patriarchal views of society and argues for a view that takes into account the standpoint of women. In making a case for the importance of studying the “everyday world,” Smith explains the problems associated with looking at the everyday world as a phenomenon, which she believes serves “to seal it off as a discrete phenomenon within the sociological universe” and “constitute it as an object of the sociological inquiry and isolate it” (1987, p. 89). She introduces the word problematic as an alternative: The concept of problematic is used to relate the sociologist and the sociological inquiry to the experience of members of a society as knowers located in actual lived situations in a new way. . . . What I have done in using this term therefore, is to shift it out of its ordinary place within a scientific or philosophical discourse and treat it as a property of an actuality lived and practiced. (1987, pp. 91–92) Smith critiques Goffman and others for isolating the everyday and insists that sociological inquiry should take into account the everyday experiences of people and the ways in which they interact and understand their experiences within their social context. She draws our attention to the value of the everyday experiences of women within a “local” context that is an inextricable part of the larger social structures of power – what she calls “relations of ruling” – that may be invisible, but that nevertheless organise it. The everyday world is that world we experience directly. It is the world in which we are located physically and socially. Our experience arises in it as conditions, occasions, objects, possibilities, relevances, presences, and so on . . . locating the sociological problematic in the everyday world does not mean confining the inquiry to the everyday world. Indeed, as we shall see, it is essential that the everyday world be seen as organized by social relations not observable within it. (1987, p. 89) Thus, even as we recognise the importance of the everyday experiences of women as a valuable resource for academic inquiry from the standpoint of women, we need to view these experiences within the social context and social relations that underlie them. In The Practice of Everyday Life, De Certeau (1984) attempts to outline the way individuals unconsciously navigate their way through their day, whether it be eating, walking, reading, or talking. He distinguishes between

50  New media studies and gendered narratives “strategies,” which are associated with institutions and structures of power such as governments and corporations, and “tactics,” which are what people use in order to make their way through these strategic constructions. Through this work, De Certeau sought to address what he saw as a gap in social science – to look at the way people appropriate the traditions, symbols, language, and practices to their own uses in everyday situations. De Certeau resists our commonsense conception of everyday practices, people’s ways of operating or doing things as being merely obscure background of social activity, instead he attempts to produce a body of theoretical questions, methods, categories and perspectives to make it possible to articulate our everyday practices. (Godelek, 2012, para. 1) In addition to the delineation of the difference between strategies and tactics, De Certeau makes a case for looking at people, not as passive consumers, but as users. In effect, he is drawing our gaze away from the producer and the product, to the users and the procedures or tactics of consumption. De Certeau’s most famous example is that of a city plan or layout. While the roads, traffic rules, signs and signals, designated shopping, housing, and parking areas are examples of the “strategies” that are devised and set out by government and corporations, the myriad ways in which people actually use this layout – taking shortcuts, cutting through parking lots, loitering in different spaces – are “tactics” to negotiate their way through those strategies. The idea of the active audience emerged in the 1980s (e.g. Hall, 1980),7 which challenged the notion of the audience as a homogenous mass that passively consumed and imbibed hegemonic ideologies transmitted through commercial mass media. Rather, these new perspectives recognised that audiences can, and do, critically engage with mass media texts to create alternate or subversive meanings based on their own life experiences, that differed from the hegemonic or intended meanings. However, the new interactive technologies that Web 2.0 enables have given the term new meaning. Production and consumption occur simultaneously and synergistically, completely blurring the line between producer and audience/consumer. The new producer–consumers use “new media technologies that enable them to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 136). This does not mean that the traditional commercial media is in any way diminished or undermined. On the contrary, these new “produsers” (Bruns, 2008) often draw from and feed back into these same commercial networks. Nevertheless, the shift from passive to active and from consumption to “produsage” (Bruns, 2008) is a significant one. These ways of resisting hegemonic constructions and actively engaging with media content are in fact the “tactics” referred to by De Certeau. Meyers (2012) points out that while framing the audience as active is necessary in order to understand the varied meanings that people make from their media

New media studies and gendered narratives  51 use, it is also important to recognise that this activity is confined to consumption and that traditional media forms allow corporations to still wield considerable power in conveying the hegemonic meanings as the dominant ones. Manovich (2009) applies De Certeau’s concepts of “strategies” to examine the ways in which people engage with new media. He points out that increasingly, our use of new media tools has caused a shift in the equation between strategies and tactics. The appropriation of symbols of counterculture into commoditised products available for mass consumption is one way in which tactics were appropriated and converted into strategies by corporations. Manovich gives the example of youth subcultures such as hippie, goth, hip hop, and rap that have been commoditised in this way. However, he recognises a larger, more fundamental shift in this balance that has been catalysed by new media technologies, where tactics have become a part of the strategy of new media corporations. New companies creating and adapting technologies to facilitate user generated content (e.g. Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, and YouTube) have been continuously in the news for the last decade. Through these applications, the everyday tactics of hundreds of thousands of users become publicly available media content. De Certeau considered the tactics of people to be mostly invisible and ephemeral. Manovich points out, however, that “what was ephemeral, transient, unmappable, and invisible became permanent, mappable, and viewable” with the new social media technologies (2009, p. 324). Social media platforms work in ingenious ways to allow users to document, present, and “map” their everyday activities into capture-able, recallable, quantified media content that is then accessible to all users of the platform. In contrast, as everyday tactics become a part of the strategy of new media companies, strategies fill in for tactics, as users are given a semblance of autonomy by having unlimited storage capacity, changing privacy settings, adding widgets, and in general being given myriad ways in which to customise their everyday (online) lives. Today, strategies used by social media companies often look more like tactics in the original formulation by De Certeau while tactics look like strategies. Since the companies that create social media platforms make money from having as many users as possible visit them . . . they have a direct interest in having users pour as much of their lives into these platforms as possible. Consequently, they give users unlimited storage space for all their media and the ability to customize their online lives . . . by expanding the functionality of the platforms themselves. (2009, p. 325) Manovich cautions against assuming that tactics and strategies have completely switched places, as audience/users continue to utilise “tactical creativity” in the process of creating new web content (2009, p. 326).

52  New media studies and gendered narratives Despite Smith’s critique of Goffman, his work comparing people’s daily face-to-face interactions with dramatic performance provides some useful ways at looking at the way people “perform the self.” The theatrical metaphor is used in several different ways in order to explicate how people behave and interact in everyday social situations. He uses many different aspects of the theatre, in his comparison. For instance, Goffman (1959) applies the concept of “front stage” and “back stage” to human interaction which he likens to “performance”. As in a play, while on stage (front stage), the actors perform in a particular way, adhering to a script and certain prescribed conventions as they know that they are performing and being watched by an audience. Back stage, however, they can be more themselves, and do not need to “play a role” for anyone’s benefit. Similarly, in everyday social interaction, people adopt a certain persona and follow prescribed conventions (based on the specific social setting) in their interaction with others. This then, becomes their front stage. In the privacy of their homes, however,8 or when alone, they may not need to be as vigilant or particular about playing out their social roles. This then becomes back stage. Goffman also uses the metaphors of “characters,” “costume or appearance,” and “setting” to extend his idea. In the context of these “performances” that people engage in, two further aspects come into play: the conventions or social rituals of the interaction need to be known and adhered to in order to put up a successful performance and some strategic choices – Goffman (1969) calls this “strategic gamesmanship” – have to be made in order for the person to present an “idealized” presentation of self. I have suggested that a performer tends to conceal or underplay those activities, facts, and motives which are incompatible with an idealized version of himself and his products. In addition, a performer often engenders in his audience the belief that he is related to them in a more ideal way than is always the case. (1969, p. 48) This method of looking at the way people behave and interact in social situations provides some useful ways to understand blogging. Bloggers “perform” their identities through their style of writing, choice of topics and the issues they choose to raise in their posts, and through the photographs and other audio-visual “extras” they select to publish on their blogs. They also employ strategic gamesmanship in order to present an “idealized self” and follow the social conventions of the blogging world in order to present a successful “performance” (McGaughey, 2010). Bloggers can be considered to “perform” in two ways: First, the blogger performs the act of blogging – that is, writing, maintaining a blog – as a way to articulate the self. The process of writing about oneself or issues close to one’s heart and presenting it in the blogosphere allows the blogger to “create” herself in a space where nothing existed

New media studies and gendered narratives  53 before – literally, writing oneself into existence. This aspect speaks to the issue of identity on the Internet. The second way in which the blogger performs is in her interaction with other bloggers and readers. The participation in each other’s blogs (and lives) by commenting on other’s posts, responding to comments on one’s own posts, and participating in memes and contests builds a sense of community and allows the blogger to belong to that virtual community. The theories and ideas outlined previously, especially with regard to the patterns of behaviour and everyday practices that relate to media use, help us understand how we use media in our everyday lives. Couldry (2012) argues for an understanding/interrogation of media as practice – as something that people actively do. He outlines four characteristics/features of “practice” that are advantageous to understanding media: (1) regularity of action; (2) the sociality of “practice” – being embedded in a social context or convention; (3) additionally, “practice” is related to human needs (we put certain things into practice because we need them), and as relates to media, these could be practices influenced by human needs such as “coordination, interaction, community, trust, and freedom.” He cautions that there is no “simple mapping” of needs onto practices, but that needs shape/influence/inform the media practices we adopt; and (4) finally, by linking media with practice, we are taking into account a capacity for “action,” allowing us to think “normatively” about media (2012, p. 34). Such a media sociology is interested in actions that are directly oriented to media, actions that involve media without necessarily having media as their aim or object; and actions whose possibility is conditioned by the prior existence, presence or functioning of media. (2012, p. 35) An approach to media as practice allows us to move beyond privileging either a media text or a media institution and asks us to look at mediarelated practice to question what people (individuals, groups, institutions) are doing in relation to media across a whole range of situations and contexts. Couldry is asking for us to look at “everyday life as practice, as the interweaving of multiple forms of life, including practices of representation, interpretation, and reflection” (2012, p. 37). Hegde (2011) explains that approaching media as social practice “enables a reading of the constitution of everyday life, the workings of power, and the production of individual and collective identities.” Further, she contends: The cultures and practices developed around media forms provide an analytic space from which to observe how the global is performed, reproduced, and contested within the material specificities of everyday life. (2011, p. 6)

54  New media studies and gendered narratives Following Hegde, I place this project within that same analytic space that she describes, as blogging becomes a practice that generates narratives in the context of the specificities of everyday experiences. The discussion in the following chapters draws upon these perspectives to theoretically ground the analysis of the three categories of personal blogs in this study: blogs about gender issues, blogs from the diaspora, and blogs about food. These ideas will not only inform analysis but also provide theoretical frameworks and concepts to better understand and explain the “themes” and patterns that I identify in these narratives.

Notes 1 Juul (2011) develops the concept of “half-real” in the context of video games, where both aspects of real and virtual or fictional may apply. 2 Papacharissi (2015a) nevertheless admits that the term has become so mainstream that it cannot be ignored or abandoned and that she and others continue to use for convenience. Van Dijk (2013) suggests the alternative term connective media. 3 One such example is Facebook’s introduction of the supposedly “socially responsible” project Internet.org. Ostensibly a straightforward attempt to provide Internet access to disadvantaged populations, both media scholars and the popular media have questioned the hidden profit-based agenda implicit in its use. See, for example, Van Dijk (2015) and www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/19/ facebook-criticised-for-creating-two-tier-internet-with-internetorg-programme 4 See www.forbes.com/sites/nickclements/2018/03/05/equifaxs-enormous-databreach-just-got-even-bigger/#c2237d853bc5. (Last accessed June 4, 2018). 5 See www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-keptfacebook-data-models-through-us-election. (Last accessed June 4, 2018). 6 Witness, for instance, the spectacular success of Facebook, over similar, early entrants such as MySpace and Orkut. 7 Other scholars such as Radway (1984) and Ang and Couling (1985) have also engaged with this idea, though in different contexts and to differing degrees. 8 The issue is further complicated, as one may not be “back stage” even at home. Even within the home, people may also be expected to play the part of parent, wife/husband, or daughter/daughter-in-law, and so forth. In that sense then, perhaps people are always on some stage or other.

4

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace

feminisms in cyberspaceEveryday feminisms in cyberspace

Blogging about gender

I blog about the everyday life of an urban Indian homemaker and her reactions to what’s happening in the world around her. So I blog against violence and intolerance, and against our use of tradition, culture and religion to justify anything that common sense might refuse to accept; I write against gender bias, (a lot of this), and our biases against girl children even in educated families; against all stifling stereotypes, about my kids, pets and family, my domestic helpers, my neighbors and friends, and animal rights and politics etc. And about my blogging experience :) – (The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker: “About Me”)1

Recent developments in new media have seen the growth of what has been termed “online feminisms” or “networked feminisms” (Tsaliki, 2000; Van Zoonen, 2011; Fotopoulou, 2014) that use Internet technologies in innovative ways to address gender issues. The concept of cyberfeminism emerged as a response to the overt gendering of Internet technologies as masculine and was partly inspired by Donna Haraway’s (1991) Cyborg Manifesto. Cyberfeminists, then, choose to use Internet technologies as tools to address gender issues at many different levels through a feminist lens. Radhika Gajjala, whose work on cyberfeminism and digital diasporas has been central to this discourse, explains cyberfeminism thus: There are several approaches to cyberfeminism. What all cyberfeminists share is the belief that women should take control of and appropriate the use of cybertechnologies in an attempt to empower ourselves. Cyberfeminists seek to use internet technologies and to create spaces online that are empowering to women. We believe that the Internet is a feminist issue and are interested in possibilities for activism and research on it. (Gajjala, 1999, p. 617) Across the world, there have been several different campaigns that have leveraged the Internet and its technologies to not just connect but also politically organise themselves against sexist attitudes, actions, policies, and social structures. Networked feminisms include something as simple as

56  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace online photo campaigns that may go viral to using Twitter and Facebook to actually organise a political/public intervention on the ground. An example of a global photo campaign that went viral was the “I need feminism because” campaign on Tumblr (a photo-sharing site) that invited both men and women to post pictures, signs, or quotes explaining why they thought feminism was important.2 Campaigns with more real-world consequences include the one in response to the American conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh’s derogatory remarks regarding a woman student who had given testimony before a Congressional committee. The activists forced corporations to withdraw their sponsorship of Limbaugh’s shows and the radio host was forced to apologise.3 There has been some media criticism of online activism, especially those around gender issues, portraying online feminisms as primarily symbolic, as being about “talking and sharing” rather than an any “real” action. Activists have, however, taken exception to such media responses, pointing out that feminists have always networked and organised, and while social media may have helped take it to the next level, networked feminism both online and offline is about catalysing change on the ground.4 Cyberfeminism (Hawthorne and Klein, 1999; Gajjala and Oh, 2012), another term used with reference to women and new media, focuses on ways in which the theory and practice of feminist politics can be adapted to online environments (Paterson, 1996). Though sometimes dismissed in the popular media as “hashtag activism,”5 feminist activism online includes critiques of gender inequalities in cyberspace, examining the complex relationship between women and technology, and working towards designing and building more just and equitable online spaces (Gajjala, 2003). The blogosphere is one such site of feminist activism, and this chapter explores some instances of how such feminist concerns are articulated in the everyday.

Online feminisms: the Indian context There are several examples of online feminist spaces in India. Some of these are set up as public virtual spaces to either address women’s issues in general, a specific area related to women’s issues, in support of a special cause related to women, or as a response to a particular event that may have taken place. Examples of such online spaces/campaigns include websites, online social media campaigns, and group or public blogs.6 These online feminist spaces, then, are examples of cyberfeminism in India. The people behind these blogs and websites are identifiable by name, and are using the Internet, social media, and the blog as a way of creating and defining a virtual public space in order to express their views. Two recent feminist projects that have used social media and the blogosphere effectively are the “Blank Noise” and the “Why Loiter” projects. Blank Noise was started in the city of Bangalore as a public art project by Jasmeen Patheja, a student of design as a response to the sexual harassment that women face in public spaces. Since then, the movement has spread to

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  57 different cities and its many campaigns are organised and run by volunteers. This group of activists/participants/volunteers use social media and the blogosphere in innovative ways to share stories, build participation for public interventions, and gain visibility for their activities and, by extension, their feminist politics. Some examples of recent campaigns by Blank Noise have been “I never ask for it” (which invites people to post/share photographs of clothes they were wearing when they were sexually harassed/ assaulted) and the “Meet to Sleep” campaign that encourages women to take a nap in public parks, as a way of reclaiming public spaces for women.7 Building on a public research project on women’s access to public spaces by researcher–activists, Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade (2009, 2011), the Why Loiter Movement was instituted by a group of women inspired to take to the next level the ideas developed in the research through public interventions. Through a blog, Facebook page, and Twitter hashtags, they have created a virtual political movement that invited the public to post pictures of their “loitering” in public spaces.8 We suggest that concerns regarding safety for women are articulated in a language of exclusion and premised on the elimination of other marginal citizens. . . . So long as women’s presence in public space continues to be framed within the binary of public/private and within the complexly layered hierarchies of class, community, and gender, unconditioned right to public space will remain a fantasy . . . we make a case for loitering as a fundamental act of claiming public space and ultimately a more inclusive citizenship. (Phadke, Ranade, and Khan, 2009, p. 186) Inspired by these early campaigns, new ones are born regularly. Some examples are Take Back the Night–Calcutta, Meet to Sleep, I Never Asked for It, cross-border collaborations such as Why Loiter (Pakistan) and #Girls­ AtDhabas. Some campaigns have grown organically, whereas others have developed around a specific event (e.g. #HappytoBleed) or spin-offs like #GirlsPlayingStreetCricket. Online magazines and Facebook pages such as Feminism in India frequently run campaigns focused on information gathering and knowledge sharing. A recent example was their #ChalkfullBullying, which crowdsourced information on gender-based bullying by peers and teachers in schools. These and other campaigns are examples of the ways in which Indian women are utilising the “virtual public sphere” (Tsaliki, 2000; Papacharissi, 2002) of cyberspace to examine, explore, share, and publicise concerns regarding gender among themselves and others. Personal bloggers who write about gender are also part of this larger landscape of online feminisms. These bloggers use the medium of the personal blog to write about their experiences, thoughts, and feelings but articulate these everyday experiences through a feminist lens, without overtly claiming to do so. While their articulations of the everyday are rooted in both

58  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace the particularities of their experience and the local “here and now,” their concerns speak to larger issues faced by women all over the world and draw on feminist scholarship in both direct and indirect ways. However, in contrast to the activists/researchers mentioned previously, these bloggers tend to be anonymous and prefer to use pseudonyms in their blogs. Personal information is extremely limited, and names, locations, and photographs are virtually non-existent. As noted previously, early blog research focused on public and filter blogs and tended to see personal blogs, and the women bloggers who form a significant portion of personal bloggers, as unimportant for research. This is changing as more and more scholars are beginning to see the value of women’s writing on the Internet as an important resource for research. My research focuses its attention on such blogs in order to examine the ways in which the everyday is articulated, arguing that these narratives are important sources of feminist epistemologies. In this chapter, I focus on Indian women bloggers who write predominantly about gender. What sets them apart from other personal bloggers is the feminist frame within which they place their narratives. These bloggers write from different points of view and in different styles, and they draw from varied life experiences. What they have in common is an abiding concern for women’s rights and issues and a strong point of view that they share with their readers. The content on these blogs includes posts written by the bloggers themselves, emails for advice sent in by readers, and comments in response to the posts and emails. Together, what emerges is a dynamic document of the everyday written by women in the context of their lived experiences. Feminist sensibilities intersect with everyday experiences to provide a frame for these narrative documents. Here, I examine the ways in which three bloggers articulate the everyday issues that confront them through a feminist lens. Through the posts, comments, and emails, the women in this blog community are examining, discussing, deconstructing, and addressing the structures of patriarchy and the specific and systemic difficulties faced by Indian women.

Blog Profiles: Blog 1: Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker (http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/) Tag Line: My life and everything that touches it Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2008 Blogger: Anonymous Location: Undisclosed – somewhere in India The blogger is anonymous and is referred to only as Indian Homemaker or IHM. Her location is undisclosed, and it is hard to make a guess based

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  59 on the very little information revealed in her posts. Except for pictures and the name of her daughter, IHM does not post photos, names, or any personal information about anyone –family or otherwise. Contrary to what the tag line might imply, the blog is far from a personal disclosure of the details of her life. Rather, it is a platform for her thoughts and feelings about issues related to gender, justice, and equality. She uses her experiences as well as current events and emails from readers as a springboard to discuss and debate many ideas that relate to feminism. Image: A basic black-and-white scheme with black text on a white background. The buttons on the header are simple white letters on a black background. A photo header (banner) that changes every few minutes. This is the only place where IHM displays personal photos. The photos are of her daughter who passed away tragically a few years ago. There are icons for two different awards – the blog awards that she gives in her daughter’s name, and another called the Joru ka Ghulam, or JKG, awards (the word loosely translates to “hen-pecked”) award. Since one of the stated interests of the blogger is photography, there are occasional image-only posts with only a line or two of text to contextualize. Theme: Women’s rights, patriarchy, rape, laws that protect women, and so forth. Provides the text or links to articles, news items, or audio and video material related to women’s issues that are in the news. Some tags she uses are marriage, rape, gender stereotypes, and joint family. Feature: Under the banner are simple white on black buttons that offer information such as “About Me,” “Rules for Commenting,” “Archives,” and “Contact Me.” The sidebar is long, with categories, awards, a blogroll, list of recent posts and recent comments, social media buttons (Twitter and Facebook) and a “top rated” comment list. In addition, there are buttons for the Tejaswee Rao blog awards and the JKG award. Link: Most posts have multiple links to news sites, television programmes, reviews, or posted video links. The comments often reference these links as well as adding others. Other bloggers reference both IHM’s posts (by adding a hyperlink for it) or other links that she has posted. Exchange Analysis: IHM is the centre point of a vibrant community that garners an average of 70 comments and counter-comments from the readers over the first two days. She posts emails from readers (both regular and those who have stumbled upon the site while looking for answers) who ask questions of IHM and the community. In fact, several emails specifically ask for suggestions from the IHM community. Language Analysis: She blogs on the average three times a week but often posts every day. Her posts are text intensive with only an occasional photo-only post. IHM’s posts are comprehensive and hard-hitting, written in language that is lucid and straightforward. Her writing has a minimalist style that nevertheless gets its point across forcefully. Each

60  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace post is liberally sprinkled with quotes from articles, news items, movies, or advertisements, and her writing often acts as a link between those links and quotes. While this is a personal blog and the personality and passion of the blogger come through clearly, it also acts as a meta-journalism site, because of the extensive amount of research she does and the many links she provides. She also writes longer posts stating how she feels in response to an email sent by a reader, and she occasionally participates on a comment thread that a post might generate. Here, too, her language is precise and to the point and the posts come across as a heartfelt, well-researched journalistic article or magazine editorial. Blog 2: Scribble Happy (http://musingsofanunknownindian.wordpress. com/) Tag Line: Musings of an unknown Indian Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2011 Blogger: Anonymous Location: Chandigarh and Mumbai This blog is also written by a blogger who prefers to keep her name anonymous. However, apart from the city she lives in, she does not reveal too many personal details such as names of family members. Her posts do come across as personal. However, as she talks about incidents and anecdotes from her life (carefully filtered so as to reveal no personal information), she sometimes uses them as an entry point to a discussion about gender issues. Image: The design and layout is simple and neat, using a black-and-white colour scheme and a single photo of flowering trees as the banner. Some posts that are informational have non-personal photos. Theme: Personal, anecdotal, gender issues, and commentary on society. Tags include dowry, Ideal Indian Woman, girl-child, Hindu weddings, and good Indian sons. Feature: Two small links for “Home” and “About” are placed in white on the black background border of the banner photo. To the right of the post are small headings for recent posts, archives, and search. Also there is a place to sign up for post updates and email the blogger. Finally, there is a list of category headings (such as “Feminism,” “Nature,” and “Pet Rants”) and a button showing the blogger as a member of the “IndiBlogger” group. Below the banner, the text and buttons are placed on a simple white background, making for a pleasant and uncluttered look. Link: Only a few links in the posts and comments.

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  61 Exchange Analysis: The comments section is smaller than the other two blogs but lively. Comments average ten per post, and she responds to almost all comments. Her posts have been linked in IHM and vice versa. So while the blog circle is not as large as some others, it nevertheless acts as a good conversational space. Language Analysis: This blogger writes in a casual, easy-going style and posts about issues that she is interested in – primarily gender related – and also about her personal life. This blog is also text intensive, though occasional posts may have more photos if she is describing a place or event she has attended. She averages about two or three posts a month. The tone of the posts is less journalistic and more anecdotal. Even posts that address strongly feminist issues are written in an accessible style. Blog 3: A Desi Girl’s Guide to Relationship Survival (http://girlsguidetosurvival.wordpress.com)/ Tag Line: Own your relationships. Don’t let them own you. Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2010 Blogger: Anonymous Location: Undisclosed Image: This blog follows a black, white, and pale yellow theme. Here, too, the header is a simple photograph of a woman’s feet. Theme: She refers to herself as Desi Girl or DG and blogs almost exclusively on relationship issues dealing with women. Her tags include desi women, desi parenting, desi marriage and in-laws, and desi dating. The focus is on “relationships” as the tag line indicates. Feature: A small, black banner against a yellow backdrop feature a search button on the right and the tag line “Own your relationships. Don’t let them own you.” on the left. The title of the blog comes next, in bold, black letters against the yellow background. Below that, in equally bold, though slightly smaller, text are buttons for “Home,” “About,” “Archives,” “About the Blog,” “All about Relationships,” “DG’s Radar,” “DG’s 30 day Rant,” and RSS (feed). Completing the banner section is a photograph of a woman’s feet standing in a garden. To the right are more links to the “About” and “Relationship” pages, as well as a blogroll, categories, and a tag cloud. The bold, black-on-yellow colour scheme is quite strong and in a way reflects the intensity of the subject matter of the blog as well as of the blogger herself. Link: Provides occasional links and cross-references other’s posts. Exchange Analysis: This blog has quite a large following, though not always visible in the comments. It averages about ten comments per post. The blogger interacts through email and phone calls in addition

62  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace to posts and comments. From her posts, it seems as if her interaction with her community of readers is far more personal and intense than the other two blogs. Language Analysis: She averages about two posts a month, though the time between posts might vary from a few days to a few weeks. The posts are long, completely text intensive with no photographs. She writes extensively about sensitive issues like abuse, suicidal tendencies, and premarital sex in a very straightforward and personal manner. Her style comes across as honest, sincere, and mildly abrasive. The general tone of the blog is service oriented, as the blogger has taken on a counselling role for her readers.

Renegotiating the public/private distinction One of the key issues that arises with the study of personal blogs is the public/ private dichotomy. At its most basic level, a blog is a personal account of thoughts and experiences that is available for public reading. In short, it is a public document of a private life. However, the terms public and private cannot be used without acknowledging the considerable scholarship that addresses this opposition. The notion of the public/private dichotomy is a problematic one that scholars have grappled with for decades and at various levels (Pateman, 1983). According to Mohanty, “A number of feminists have analysed the division between production and reproduction, and the construction of ideologies of womanhood in terms of public/private spheres” (2003, p. 142). The distinction is considered to have emerged originally in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when nation-states began to be formed and ideas of sovereignty contributed to the concept of a distinctly “public realm.” Shortly thereafter, in response to totalitarian monarchs and parliamentary bodies asserting the right to legislate on all matters, an effort was made to carve out “private spheres” (most notably with regard to personal property and religious beliefs) in order to protect these aspects of life from state interference (Horowitz, 1982). However, it was notable that though there was an effort to delineate some aspects of life into a private sphere, those aspects too continued to be the responsibility of the men of the household. From these beginnings, the terms public and private have come to be used both to refer to the distinction between state and society and to the distinction between non-domestic and domestic spheres. Women have been regarded as “by nature” both unsuited to the public realm and rightly dependent on men and subordinated within the family. . . . As feminist scholarship has revealed, from the seventeenth-century beginnings of liberalism both political rights and the rights pertaining to the modern liberal conception of privacy and private have been claimed

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  63 as rights of individuals; but these individuals were assumed, and often explicitly stated, to be adult, male heads of households. (Okin, 1998, p. 118) Traditionally, then, women have been relegated to the private, domestic spheres related to the home, family, food, and children while men have occupied the public sphere, most often associated with the workplace, government, economy, public spaces, and so forth. This has been echoed in social science research, where a male-centred approach has been applied to subjects related to everything from economics to sociology. This dichotomy between public and private as relating almost exclusively to the worlds of men and women tends to be portrayed as universal and unshakeable and even oppositional. Feminist scholarship identifies and critiques this dichotomy by arguing that this separation has worked to maintain male dominance over women’s labour and bodies. They argue that by keeping issues of sexuality, family, and labour in the realm of the private and domestic, women have been rendered powerless and their contributions minimised and delegitimised. The women’s movement has sought to dismantle this divide by asserting that “domestic, private” issues are in fact shaped by “public” factors of politics and power. Dorothy Smith (1987) links the historical emergence of capitalism with the development of a new kind of network of social relations that is external to the local terrain. She explains how the growth of capitalism created a new domain that was outside of the “particularities of personally mediated economics and social relations” that was the norm earlier. Capitalism thus led to an expanding political/economic arena with larger numbers of anonymous buyers and sellers interacting in the marketplace. This “extralocal medium of action” and the accompanying impersonal and universalised forms of action became “the exclusive terrain of men, while women became correspondingly confined to a reduced local sphere of action organized by particularist relationships” (1987, p. 5). A similar historical shift is noted in the work of Partha Chatterjee (1989), who traces the historical progression of the ideologies developed by nationalists in colonial India to build (and maintain) two distinctly differentiated spheres of the public and the private. The process of the formation of the private sphere as an indigent alternative to western materialism is, in a sense, instituted at the beginning of the nineteenth century and comes into its own in nationalist discourse which sets out to establish, as Partha Chaterjee points out, a series of oppositions between male versus female, inner versus outer, public versus private, material versus spiritual. (Sangari and Vaid, 1989, p. 10) However, it is important to note that this patriarchal project is linked with the differentiation of social class as well. Banerjee (1989) shows how the newly

64  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace emerging “middle class” Bengali woman was differentiated by creating an identity for her that was defined by its oppositional position to women from communities of lower economic status. For instance, these middle-/upperclass women were slowly restricted from entering certain kinds of public space – “street, marketplace, fair and festival” and further prevented from associating with women who participated and performed in various popular cultural forms of music/theatre/dance and so forth. Where previously, these cultural forms were jointly enjoyed by women of all social/economic classes (and therefore cutting across caste lines as well), now upper-/middle-class women were segregated from both these spaces and these women. It was a way to confer on these women (and by extension, their men) the privileged status of middle/upper class and simultaneously confine these women to very tightly drawn domestic spaces and private spheres. Sangari and Vaid liken this to Victorian England, where similar patriarchal processes “pushed the middle class woman into the seclusion of the private sphere as a mark of class status and superiority” (1989, p. 11). More recent scholarship has acknowledged that it would be a mistake to ignore the multiplicities of experience with regard to both men and women, and that it is important to factor in issues of class, culture, identity, race, and caste (in the case of India) while studying gendered spaces and experiences. As Mohanty points out, experiences of the public/private distinction are different on the basis of social/economic class (this also intersects with caste in the case of India) of the women. This is not surprising given that, as noted previously, the very formation of the middle classes was through the oppositional/ differential construction of public and private spheres: The ways in which these women should or should not behave, the spaces they could or could not inhabit, and the cultural (and linguistic) forms that were deemed appropriate or inappropriate, as compared with women of other social classes. In the Indian context, this plays out in the ways in which upper-middle class women (or upper-class women) are more rigidly bound by the lines drawn between the two spheres, while lower caste women (or women from lower economic classes) are subject to more public intervention in their private lives.9 As part of this larger narrative of public and private lives, Phadke et al. have noted that “respectable women” who do access public spaces develop a veneer of purpose, in order to be seen as legitimately inhabiting that space. Women’s access to public space involves a complex series of strategies involving appropriate clothing, symbolic markers, bulky accessories, and contained body language designed to demonstrate that despite their apparent transgression into public space, they remain respectable women, essentially located in the private. (Phadke et al., 2009, p. 189) The feminist slogan of the 1970s, “the personal is the political,” is inextricably linked to the history of the feminist critique of the public/private

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  65 dichotomy. Nivedita Menon (2012), for example, explicates how citizenship, though supposedly a public identity, is in fact regulated by the supposedly private patriarchal institution that is the heterosexual family. Feminist thought thus recognizes the patriarchal family as the basis for the secondary status of women in society, and hence the feminist slogan – “The personal is the political.” That is, what is considered to be “personal” (the bedroom, the kitchen), has to be recognized as completely submerged in power relations, with significant implications for what is called the “public” (property, paid work, citizenship) – it is therefore, “political.” (2012, p. 35) Feminists have argued against the public/private distinction, claiming it an artificial dichotomy that prevents women’s oppression from being acknowledged and addressed by relegating it to a supposedly “private” sphere outside the realm of, say, governmental intervention. According to Williams (2001), feminist scholars have a complicated relationship with the very notion of privacy. First, as stated previously, they argue that the personal is the political. By this, they mean that issues related to the home, family, children, sex, and so forth that have traditionally been considered to be exclusive to the private sphere are nevertheless embedded into a society where “the relations of ruling” (Smith, 1987) – or, in other words, the institutional structures that society is based on – are inherently patriarchal and related to issues of power. Second, that feminists demand greater government involvement in women’s matters such as those related to domestic abuse, child support, and sexual harassment. These interventions are required in order to protect women from oppressive ideologies and practices of power that are unfair to them. Simultaneously, however, feminists have also argued for “privacy” from public/governmental intervention in matters such as women’s reproductive rights. Williams clarifies: This seeming contradiction emerges from the mistaken idea that “political” means the same as “government” or “public,” when in fact to say that the personal is the political is to say only that private life is implicated in networks of power. (2001, p. 5) To summarise, the feminist critique of the public/private framework calls into question the automatic assumption of a clear distinction between these two spheres. Further, it labels the dichotomy itself as a “hierarchical, sexualized and gendered binary order” (Bargetz, 2009). Focusing our study on the private (or the personal) by arguing that the private is political runs the risk of reinforcing the dichotomy. Bargetz argues that the problems of the public/ private dichotomy can be addressed by using the concept of the “everyday”

66  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace because everyday life includes both public and private issues. Taking the everyday as problematic makes it possible to include spaces, actions, and attitudes that are supposedly private and therefore excluded from main- and mainstream concepts of the political without reproducing the public/private dichotomy by concentrating on either of the two spheres. (2009, para. 18) It is clear from the preceding discussion that the public/private dichotomy is a framework that feminist scholars strongly contest. The genre of the “personal blog,” documenting the lives and thoughts of the blogger, is particularly of interest, as it is, by definition, a paradox of sorts. The journal or diary, which is traditionally considered a personal log or account of a person’s thoughts and feelings and a documentation of their lives, in its online avatar, is available for reading by anyone – friends, family, or strangers – in other words, available for public consumption. One of the aims of my research is to analyse the ways in which the highly contested framework of “public” versus “private” is renegotiated in the context of the personal blog. A personal blog renegotiates the meanings of “public” and “private” in ways that are perhaps characteristic of the blogging medium. While this would be the case whether a man or a woman wrote it, studies show that more women use the blog genre to talk about their personal lives than men (Lenhart and Fox, 2006). By definition, then, a woman’s personal blog brings traditionally domestic and women-centred topics into the “public” sphere by the simple act of documenting an experience, thought, or feeling and publishing it via a public blog. The Internet has long been associated with spatial metaphors. Beginning with the word cyberspace (Gibson, 1984) terms such as electronic frontier, World Wide Web, and blogosphere all draw on spatial imagery to lend substance to our understanding and perception of an otherwise abstract entity. It is no surprise, then, that with regard to the blogosphere, further spatial metaphors can be used to aid our conceptualisation of blogs. Hodkinson and Lincoln (2008) compare the personal blogs written by young people in their teens and twenties to their bedrooms, contending that these young bloggers imbue their online journals with the symbolic and practical properties of their individual offline personal spaces. They identify several apparent similarities between these online and offline spaces and illustrate the value of the metaphor in understanding online habits of young people. In a previous project on transnational women bloggers, we have used the metaphor of the private living room or salon to describe the relationship that a blogger may have with her blog. Just as one would decorate the room with furniture, art, and colour in the form of accessories and walls, the blogger chooses the design, the banner, the colours, and the fonts in order to “construct” a virtual room into which the reader is invited. Much as one would receive a personal visitor into the private confines of one’s home to discuss matters of a personal nature, so does the personal blogger invite her readers

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  67 into the virtual space of her blog to sit down and share thoughts, ideas, and confidences (Raman and Kasturi, 2014). While this metaphor might be applied to most personal blogs written by either men or women, I show here how this is particularly noticeable in the context of the gender-focused blogs that are the subject of my analysis. These women take subjects that have traditionally been either taboo or discussed only amongst one’s closest circle of friends and family and insert them into a conversation that is open to anyone who is interested. Topics once relegated to an intimate circle of women and to the deep recesses of one’s home and heart/mind are now being pulled into the light of day to be aired and addressed in an environment that they feel is non-judgmental and supportive. While the platform of the personal blog allows the public in by building a community of like-minded people, it nevertheless acts as a safe and nurturing space akin to one’s private living room. This characterisation of the blog as a space in one’s home was reiterated by a few bloggers in this sample. While comparing the blog with popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, one blogger said, “It was a clear thing, that it was your space. It’s like your home, an extension of your home.” In contrast, she felt that though social media was probably a “safer” space because the audience primarily consisted of friends and family, it still felt more open and “public” than one’s personal blog (Interview). A personal blog has the ability to document the everyday happenings and thoughts of the blogger, and these blogs work very well to not only document the gender issues that the bloggers encounter but also serve as a forum for other women (bloggers and non-bloggers alike) to raise, discuss, and debate issues that may or may not be discussed in the public sphere. The contribution of these blogs is to introduce and debate ideas related to gender in a personal (and often passionate) way, something that would not be as easy in a more commercial media space such as a magazine, newspaper, or television program.10 In contrast, the personal blogs in this study are not sponsored or otherwise monetarily obliged to any organisations or companies. Editorial decisions are – ostensibly – made by the blogger herself, rather than a professional editor who might have to take into account multiple considerations before publishing content. A blogger explains: I started the blog because nowhere else (could I find) such views being discussed. It’s a place where you can discuss all the things that are important to you. To discuss issues that are important to us. (Debate) issues that are believed by the general population – from things like “Women drivers are terrible” to “rape is provoked.” (Indian Homemaker: Interview) Issues such as sexuality, sexual violence against women – both within and outside of the home – emotional and mental violence against women by

68  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace family members and outsiders, or issues related to (supposed) cultural norms surrounding women’s behaviour are all discussed frequently on these blogs. For example, Desi Girl writes a detailed post about child sexual abuse – defining it, explaining what can and cannot count as offenses, and informing how to look for physical symptoms and behavioural indicators to judge whether a child is being abused. She explains the differences between the myths and facts associated with it and ends by giving sources for her information and further links for readers looking for more information. This post generated 29 comments; a commenter writes: Hi, I registered with the site just so that I could comment on this article. . . . I love that you have written about this all too “taboo” topic . . . high time people talk about it and acknowledge the damage it does to the hapless children . . . my husband had been abused by his own mother for years and carried/s? huge guilt thinking he was to blame . . . the ill effects are life altering and last forever if untreated. (Commenter “nowittyusernameleftforme” in response to blog post “Recognizing child sexual abuse”) Desi Girl responds: Welcome to GGTS, a safe space. First step to recovery is to accept this bad thing happened and then seek help how to heal. Please seek appropriate help for your partner and let him know it was not his fault he was a child and responsibility lay with the adults. But now he is a grown up and if he doesn’t seek help then responsibility rests with him. Please share this message of hope with anyone who may benefit. Peace, Desi Girl (Response to comment on blog post “Recognizing child sexual abuse”) In a post titled simply “On Abortion,” Scribble Happy debates (essentially with herself) the pros and cons of abortion. She explains how she and her friends were “vaguely pro-life,” probably because of their Catholic school upbringing, and describes her shift into the pro-choice camp as she becomes an adult. She then confronts the female foeticide issue and tries to balance the concerns she has with its enforcement (or lack of it) with the legality of abortion. She finally concludes: So I am all for bestowing personhood on a fetus in anti-sex-selection ads, as also making use of loaded terms like bhroona-hatya, as long as they evoke horror and dissuade even a single parent from going for sexselection – even though I am aware that a twelve week fetus is far from being a person. I am totally bugged by suggestions that those who abort female fetuses because they want no daughters should not be blamed, that they are actually only victims of vicious societal restrictions and so

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  69 on. Of course they must be blamed, caught and punished. Anything and everything that adds more muscle to the PNDT Act and leads to better implementation is in order, because as far as I see, this is nothing less than a war being waged against women, and war-like situations demand drastic measures. If thinking so makes me any less of a feminist so be it.11 (Scribble Happy: Blog post “On Abortion”) The 22 comments in response to this post similarly debate the many tricky aspects of supporting pro-choice agendas unconditionally and are an example of the articulate and passionate, yet nuanced, levels of intellectual debate that can take place in such forums. As often happens on Indian Homemaker, the conversations around various “taboo” topics takes the discourse to a different level – first, critiquing the more controversial “taboo” aspects of patriarchy and of Indian cultural norms, and then, critiquing or analysing that critique itself – a meta-critique of sorts. Generating 56 comments, a post on IHM titled “Letting an outsider see or comment upon our imperfections is washing dirty linen in public?” does exactly this. The blogger refers to previous discussions among her readers regarding the positives and negatives of commenting on evils in Indian/ Hindu society in front of an international audience/readership. IHM posts a series of questions addressing this concern: Letting an outsider (including immediate neighbours and extended family) see our perceived or real imperfections is seen as washing dirty linen in public. Domestic abuse is often suffered silently for the same reason. There were objections to Slumdog Millionaire for the same reason. Indians also avoid discussing health problems, specially mental health conditions, for the same reason. . . . Do you think it is wrong to make observations (including critical observations) on cultures that we are not a part of? So are we wrong to comment upon chopping of noses of women who dare escape unhappy marriages in Afghanistan? Or upon malechild preference in China? Or flogging and ban on driving for women in Saudi Arabia? (Indian Homemaker: blog post “ . . . washing dirty linen in public”) Multiplicities of experience The link between social class and the public/private distinction is an important correspondence both in the context of feminist scholarship in general and with reference to the current project that examines the blogging phenomenon from a critical standpoint. Mohanty (2003) points out that we need to distinguish between the ways in which white, middle- and upperclass women experience the public/private distinction as compared with the ways in which it is experienced by working-class women and women of

70  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace colour, who, she argues, have always been subject to public intervention in their private lives. This would hold true in India as well, where middle-/ upper-class and upper caste women, while experiencing many of the negative aspects of Indian patriarchy, may still be in relatively privileged positions compared with women of the working class. More recent scholarship has acknowledged that it would be a mistake to ignore the multiplicities of experience with regard to both men and women and that it is important to factor in issues of class, culture, identity, race, and caste while studying gendered spaces and experiences (Sangari and Vaid, 1989; Mohanty, 2003; Menon, 2012). Domestic violence is a universal phenomenon – it cuts across class, caste, race, religion . . . (but) what is the lived experience of a domestic help? The degree and nature of abuse is different . . . (Desi Girl: Interview) As seen previously, the topics of discussion on these blogs often reveal a keen awareness of socio-economic class and the intersection of social and cultural norms with class. For instance, in a post titled ‘What has class got to do with Domestic Violence?’ Desi Girl writes a long piece about the advantages of what she terms “middle class privilege.” She explains how, in response to a post on Indian Homemaker, she enters into a “to and fro commenting marathon” and then decides to move the conversation to her own blog. When a commenter on Indian Homemaker asks the question “Middle class privilege? Where does class play a role here? The situation of women is the same in every strata of society,” Desi Girl responds without mincing words: This is your middle class privilege speaking. How can you and the domestic help you employ have same issues. Some of your issues could be similar but never same. . . . You wake up every morning. Jump in the bath for a quick shower the running water in the tap refreshes you . . . You dress up in a crisp saree, salwar kameez or business suit that may be you did not iron yourself. You have breakfast at the table that is made on LPG stove. Then you pick car or scooter keys and zoom out of the door. . . . Now about the domestic help . . . or the female construction worker who constructed the building where you sat and typed this comment. She wakes up before the sun rises because she has to find some privacy . . . to relieve herself. Then to clean herself and have some drinking water for the family she has to wait in line at the community tap . . . she either depends on kerosene stove or fuel wood that she has to find in the concrete jungle . . . (Desi Girl: Blog post “What has class got to do with domestic violence?”)

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  71 In Scribble Happy, the blogger posts a review of the movie English Vinglish: I found myself introspecting as I watched Sridevi’s character tolerate veiled and not-so veiled barbs, over her lack of proficiency in English, from an insensitive husband and a daughter who had a permanent sneer pasted on her face. Good heavens, I thought, I hope I never hurt my mother like that! (Scribble Happy: Blog post “English Vinglish”) This was followed by a comment thread that discussed the way the main character (actress Sridevi) was treated by her family for her poor English that in turn led to a conversation about the treatment of those who speak “convent school” English versus native Hindi speakers with poor Englishspeaking skills. In response to comments, Scribble Happy says: Actually I think most people don’t mind it so much when ribbed for their Hindi. Being ridiculed for poor English is a different matter – people are likely to be hurt by it, because it carries implications of class, educational and economic background etc. (Scribble Happy: Blog post “English Vinglish”) Blogger Desi Girl is more blunt in her handling of the class issue: Each one of us is blogging from a standpoint. The middle class is taking (their) personal reality as the ultimate reality. When there were water protests in Narmada – no one talked about (those women). Only when something happens to the middle class . . . (Desi Girl: Interview) Indian Homemaker handles the class issue differently. When she is accused of complaining about superficial issues when there are more serious concerns for women (like rape, domestic violence, and dowry deaths) by a commenter, she responds by questioning if the commenter finds it necessary to dismiss the “small” issues because it’s more “convenient” for him to do so? Regarding this line of questioning, IHM comments: What makes some people expect women to overlook some issues that directly concern them, in their everyday life, until some other issues (which may also concern them, either directly or indirectly) are dealt with? . . . Is it because the “more important issues” concern “other people”, and the commenter is not inconvenienced by the changes that acknowledging them requires? It’s so much easier to read about crimes committed on “other people” than to be reminded that they must do their share of housework. (Indian Homemaker: Blog post “. . . more fundamental issues facing Bharatiya Naaris?”)

72  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace IHM quotes the questions the commenter has posed and answers each one in turn. For example: Commenter

“Sanket”: While you are worried about not being the end (sic) of sexist jokes, many more women are burnt alive by their in-laws over dowry. IHM: Connected issues. Sexist jokes make light of misogyny, gender bias and social issues that lead to domestic violence and bride burning. Commenter: Before we start worrying about the first world like problems of Indian Women how about trying to fix some of the more fundamental issues facing Bharatiya Naaris? IHM: Don’t you think that every step forward helps the entire society? In general, each positive action makes taking the next one a little easier for others? (Indian Homemaker: Blog post “. . . more fundamental issues facing Bharatiya Naaris?”) Some examples of other topics that are explored on these blogs include the media coverage of middle class rape as compared with coverage of sexual violence on poor rural women, how lack of financial independence prevents women from making decisions about their own lives, and how middleclass women are often forced to choose between career advancement and marriage/family.

Identity: performativity and portrayal of self Judith Butler’s (1990) theory of performativity argues that identity formation (in this case with reference to gender) is something that has to be “performed” to come into being. Like Goffman (1959), Judith Butler (1990) uses the metaphor of performance and the theatre to describe how humans behave. As a feminist theorist, her work explores similar ideas in the context of gender studies. She is particularly known for developing the concept of gender performativity. Butler sees gender as an act that has been rehearsed, much like a script, and we as the actors make this script a reality by performing these actions or roles over and over again. For Butler, the distinction between the personal and the political or between private and public is itself a fiction designed to support an oppressive status quo: our most personal acts are, in fact, continually being scripted by hegemonic social conventions and ideologies. (Felluga, 2011) Butler sees gender not as an expression of what one is but as something that one does. Gender thus is a cultural construct that is mediated/negotiated

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  73 within a disciplinary framework that forces individuals to act in certain prescribed and stylised ways that, when repeated over time, attain a “natural” status and become established as fact. With regard to her theatrical metaphor, Butler points to its usefulness, yet distinguishes between the make-believe world of theatre and the very real world with associated consequences where gender is to be “performed” in prescribed ways. As described in the previous chapter, the act of blogging can be considered “performance.” In this genre of blogs about gender, the concepts of identity and performativity play out in other interesting ways as well. While a personal blog allows a woman blogger to display a version of herself that she may not otherwise exhibit, a blog that focuses on issues of gender exaggerates this performative sense of self, as the blogger simultaneously both performs her identity (gender and otherwise) and critiques popular constructions of gender performativity. A close reading of the posts in these blogs show that the bloggers are articulate, self-reflexive, and very aware of current events. Their writing also reveals a broader liberal, progressive outlook that extends beyond the feminist concerns that are central to the blogs. These are basic feminist ideas. Global or local, it’s all the same because basic problems (for women) are the same everywhere. Patriarchy is everywhere. But this is not natural or innocent or obvious. Otherwise there wouldn’t be matriarchal or matrilineal societies. It (patriarchy) is to help certain people, to profit those people. If this doesn’t change, then nothing will change. If 50% of the population (women) have to live like this . . . (Indian Homemaker: Interview) Though the language used in these posts and discussions do not reflect theoretical writings about performativity and gender, many of the same ideas are reflected in these posts and underlie the discussions these women have. This was reiterated by the bloggers in the interviews I had with them, as quoted previously and here: Violence against women is a human issue. (We are) deconstructing academic theories . . . breaking it down into very simple language. (This is) emotionally challenging work. Some (posts) take eight or nine hours to write. I was going through abuse and I was looking for information . . . I couldn’t find it . . . I wanted to create an information base where people can find the information they need. This is not leisurewriting for me. (Desi Girl: Interview) A post on IHM discusses a popular email that was doing the rounds on the Internet sent in by a reader. In an article titled “Interesting Facts about

74  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace Men and Women,” an anonymous author uses something he calls “human brain analysis” to write a purportedly scientific article about the differences between men and women. IHM goes through each of the items on this list – each explicating a crucial difference between men and women – deconstructing each of them to show how patriarchal agendas are embedded in the text. The blogger introduces the topic first: Not sure where it originated, but a lot of people seem to feel that these are “General Facts”. Please note how it is all made to sound scientific and well researched. And then goes on to quote and deconstruct the supposed “facts” listed in the document: PROBLEM SOLVING: If a man have [sic] a lot of problems, his brain clearly classifies the problems and puts them in individual rooms in the brain and then finds the solution one by one. You can see many guys looking at the sky for a long time. If a woman has a lot of problems, her brain cannot easily classify the problems. She wants some to hear that. After telling everything to a person she goes happily to bed. She does not worry about the problems being solved or not. In response to this, IHM comments in a lighter vein: Another attempt to reinforce a stereotype. Fact is men need to communicate as much as non-men. Commenting on another numbered item in the document, she notes: Patriarchy favours financially successful men. And Patriarchy expects women to see their husband’s extended family, father’s neighbours (before marriage), husband’s neighbours’ aunts’ third cousins (after marriage), etc. as their world (ghar sansaar). . . . Also, the relationships women are permitted are controlled by the patriarchal role they are playing. (Indian Homemaker: Blog post “Patriarchal stereotypes and Human Brain Analysis – Men vs. Women . . . ”) These observations, while often strongly worded, are not without their own kind of humour. In response to another item on the list that says, “Women talk a lot without thinking. Men act a lot without thinking.” IHM comments dryly, “So nobody thinks.” In another instance, a post titled “Ten more ways to be better wives and daughters-in-law,” uses an article from the Times of India (sent in by a reader) to critique the behaviour that women are expected to display in these traditional roles. IHM quotes from the article that suggests that a newly married woman should have a “Positive Attitude” and “Be Attentive” to her motherin-law and further quotes the author of the article as saying, “If she prefers to sit around being waited on hand and foot, then enlist your husband to help prepare meals and clean up.” In response to this suggestion IHM states:

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  75 Why does a healthy adult expect to be “waited on hand and foot”? Because when she was going through many hardships in her young life, giving up her happiness and personal freedom, she was told that’s the way it has always been, that’s a woman’s destiny and she was promised she could expect the same from her male child’s spouse. Why ask the daughter-in-law to continue the patriarchal tradition of sacrifice, unhappiness and misogyny? (Indian Homemaker: Blog post “Ten more ways to be better wives and daughters-in-law”) Similarly, one can find examples of gender roles and expectations of gender performativity being questioned on the Scribble Happy blog. In a post titled “The very chains that bind them,” the blogger talks about the resurgence of the popularity among young women, of festivals such as Karvachauth that encourage women to fast for the well-being of their husbands.12 Now, most of the world is patriarchal to a greater or lesser degree but Indian society trumps all others by being the only one which makes its women fast for the well-being of its men. Yep, it happens only in India. . . . Gender-based fasting is a very in-your-face symbol of female oppression. It sets in sharp relief the value attached to the male life in contrast to the disposability of the female life. Further down, she elaborates: I have spoken to many friends who fast on karvachauth, and most of them initially insisted they do it because they believe in it at some level. Believe in what? That their observing fasts would help their husbands live longer? Really? Ultimately many of them admitted to doing it because it was the done thing – they had seen everyone around them doing it since as long as they remembered and there is a certain comfort in conformism. Nobody wants to be branded a rebel or worse. (Scribble Happy: Blog post “The very chains that bind them”) She contextualises it by talking about similar practices observed in different parts of the country, examines its possible origins in history, and then returns to ruminate over the fascination it has for the “modern, well-educated, economically very secure women undertaking these fasts.” Without using Goffman’s ideas of self as social ritual, this blogger is identifying the elements of “strategic gamesmanship” and “dramatic performance” that Goffman (1959) described, in the practice of the Karvachauth ritual. Simultaneously, she is critiquing these aspects in the context of a contemporary Hindu ritual that she argues is a sexist practice. She further notes how a traditional practice is growing and adapting in ways that are, to her mind, even more worrisome.

76  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace These developments, I am sure, also owe themselves in part to the romanticization of karvachauth in Hindi movies like Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Baghbaan.13 Which brings me to what triggered this post. While I understand somewhat that married women fast because they cannot summon the courage to say no, what I do not understand and actually find alarming is the recent trend I have observed of unmarried girls fasting for their boyfriends. (Scribble Happy: Blog post “The very chains that bind them”) By stripping the custom down to its foundational beliefs regarding men and women, this blogger is critiquing a custom that her peers practice and that she herself experiences in her own life. This documentation of her life experiences along with her simultaneous reflections and critique of them is one of the reasons that these blogs make such interesting reading. The conversational style and intimate look into the personal world of the blogger draws the reader in, in a way that neither a researched journalistic article nor a scholarly op-ed piece perhaps could. This is feminism from the trenches, so to speak. This is a woman talking about her life and that of her peers as she sees and experiences it and being self-reflexive and articulate about the gendered codes and expectations that are imposed on women’s behaviour. This is an example of the meaning making that Rosaldo is referring to when she talks about “the significances women assign to the activities of their lives” (1980, p. 400). In this sample set of blogs, each blogger’s personality emerges clearly from the writing, a very real “discursive presence” (Mitra and Watts 2002): The passionate determination of one (Indian Homemaker), the hard-hitting straight talk of another (Desi Girl), and the quiet emphasis of the third (Scribble Happy). Another example of the ways in which these feminist bloggers critique gender roles is by subjecting traditional role models for Indian women to intense scrutiny. Scribble Happy does a series of posts on role models for women from Indian mythology, examining the stories of Sati, Sita, and Savitri. In the post about Sita, she says: It is telling that Rama should be hailed as the “best” man (purushottam) precisely because he placed duty above all else – the else including his wife. Equally telling is the fact that Sita is idealised as the epitome of the virtuous wife – the wife who faces the hardest of trials for her husband’s sake without complaint. These are indicative of just how well male supremacy is enshrined in the Indian tradition. (Scribble Happy: Blog post “Role Model # 3: Sita and The Idea of Virtuosity”) Indian Homemaker confronts gender performativity directly in a post titled “If you are a woman, do you consider yourself feminine – how important is that to you? Why?” This is another example of the kind of “meta-critique”

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  77 that is characteristic of this blog. The post comprises a series of questions that relate to the idea of femininity, including the following: How do you describe femininity? 2. What makes a woman feminine? . . . 4. What must she do to be seen as feminine? . . . 6. In what ways does being feminine make women’s lives happier? Does it give them more choices? . . . 10. Do you know women who are not feminine, how do you think their lives are affected by their lack of femininity? (Indian Homemaker: Blog post “If you are a woman, do you consider yourself feminine – how important is that to you? Why?”) This post generated 86 comments and became an active discussion among and between the blogger and her readers/commenters. Some comments were flippant, as in this exchange between a commenter and Indian Homemaker: Commenter

“Hitchy”: I dont know, why bother about such tags? I am what I am . . . it’s up to you to now decide if you think I am feminine or masculine?!” IHM: So you don’t care if women/men are feminine/masculine or not? Hitchy: What I think of others doesn’t matter na? I try best not to judge anyone and accept people on the face of it :) There are all sorts in this world! Tags/generalisations are unfair and should be avoided I think! (Indian Homemaker: Conversational exchange in the comments section of blog post “If you are a woman, do you consider yourself feminine . . . ?”)

Other commenters try to answer the questions Indian Homemaker sets forth in the post, as in this exchange: Commenter “Bride”: Q1. How do you describe femininity? A socially and culturally defined set of norms that define how a biological woman should construct herself. (I’m sure there is a proper dictionary and sociological definition. This is just what came to my mind). 2. What makes a woman feminine? Just off the top of my head – long hair, wearing certain colours, make-up that accentuated certain facial features, high heels, dresses or clothes cut a certain way, certain gestures, interest in certain hobbies. 3. How important is it for a woman to “be” feminine? Important to who? To Society, very important because fluid gender norms are scary. To me, not very.

78  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace 4. What must she do to be seen as feminine? See 2. (Conversational exchange in the comments section of blog post “If you are a woman, do you consider yourself feminine. . . ?”) Another example, where commenter “A.B.” responds to a comment thread between commenter “n” and the blogger: I often visualize people as Venn diagrams, where those various intersecting circles representing interests/traits etc. shift with time. I think we may have moments of what the world calls feminine and moments of what the world calls unfeminine. We are just humans in the end capable of all these traits. No? (Indian Homemaker: Comments in response to blog post “If you are a woman, do you consider yourself feminine . . . ?”) These and other comments are characteristic of the way discussions take place on this blog. Commenters are both solemn and flippant, yet the essence of the dialogue stays serious, as these (mostly) women and (a few) men debate what femininity means to individuals, groups, and society at large. The language is neither high flown nor overtly intellectual or academic, yet the topic is discussed from a feminist perspective, and the ideas being aired would be relevant in any academic context. This again is an example of how this online community builds consensus, while simultaneously providing the space for discussion and disagreement. Again, both Goffman’s concepts of “self as social ritual” and Butler’s arguments about gender performativity seem applicable here, as these women deconstruct what it means to be a woman in Indian society and discuss the performative aspects of womanliness as required by patriarchal structures in our society. In some sense, Goffman’s and Butler’s ideas both play into a very conscious unravelling (in these discussions) of the norms and rules that stipulate how a women speaks, dresses, and behaves. These bloggers are, in a sense, breaking down society’s mores and norms into Goffman’s (1959) concepts of Self as Social Ritual, Strategic Gamesmanship, and Dramatic Performance. Further, they’re also drawing on ideas of performativity both to critique existing patterns of conventional, socially expected behaviour, and making a conscious effort to reconfigure those patterns into more gender equal and (personally) liberating ones.

Gendered spaces, virtual geographies, and communities of support In certain contexts, the virtual space becomes more real than the “real” or (material context) providing space for women to say and do things that truly show who they are and what they feel, in a manner that may not be possible

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  79 in their offline, material lives. As Masserat (2008) argues in the context of Iranian women bloggers: This virtual space has become a tribute for self-expression and selfdisclosure; a place of interaction, dialogue, and critique; a new virtual public sphere that seems to be much more real, in its immediacy and accessibility, than all other existing public spheres. (2008, p. 237) This concept of “more real than real” can also be observed in this set of feminist blogs. The blogs seem to act as a kind of forum, a public space where women who feel passionately about gender issues can speak openly – airing their opinions, arguing the fine, or not so fine, points of a particular issue, and revealing aspects of themselves (their private lives and private thoughts) in a safe environment. Masserat explicates the Persian concept of duality with regard to women: Zaher or “outside self” and baten or “inner self,” where the outside self is used as a metaphorical veil to shield and protect the inner self (2008, p. 239). Susan Ossman’s analytic model of “three worlds” that she labels proximate, rational, and celebrated (Ossman, 2002) recognises that people’s day-to-day interactions influence the ways in which they make meaning of their lives and the ways in which they may think, choose, and act in certain ways. The point is that worlds collide, and hence there is a layering and selective application of these various criteria of measurement, proximity, and interactional contact. This leads to the construction of barriers between public and private spaces and constitutes relationships which are defined according to the dominance of particular worlds. (Ossman, 2011, p. 26) Like Goffman, she acknowledges the performativity of social interaction and articulation of self but focuses her model on the “outside forces” that shape behaviour.14 This duality works almost as much for Indian women as Iranian women. While the physical reality of Iranian women (being required by law to be veiled at all times outside the home) may be different for Indian women, Indian patriarchal notions of honour, family, custom, and modesty are almost as restrictive to Indian women as the physical veil might be (Chatterjee, 1989; Menon, 2012). The blog circle that Indian Homemaker, Scribble Happy, and Desi Girl are a part of becomes a form of gendered space where these three bloggers (and several other bloggers), as well as their readers and commenters, together form a community of support for each other. Indian Homemaker regularly posts emails from anonymous readers asking for suggestions, advice, or help from the community with respect to concerns or problems related to gender.

80  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace The blog circle or community thus becomes a mini-public sphere, a site for “deliberative democracy” that conceives online spaces as an extended public sphere, allowing greater citizen participation that is central to achieving a deliberative or “radical” democracy.15 This online gendered space becomes a safe haven for women to express themselves in ways that may not be possible in their material/offline lives. This carving out of a gendered space of support, solidarity, and safety can be considered a show of agency by the bloggers and their participating readers. We are a co-dependent culture. We don’t know how to express emotions. . . .(We know) abuse is wrong, but not how to deal with it. I wanted to create a safe space where people can find the information, the skills . . . I’m a survivor . . . We are sharing our experiences, our narratives . . . the community of bloggers is (like) a sorority. (Desi Girl: Interview) The members of this circle could be regular readers, lurkers, commenters, or bloggers themselves. Though one might assume that the readers and commenters are all women, this is not the case. Both Indian Homemaker and Desi Girl have regular male commenters. There are several ways of participating in the community. The simplest way is when regular and not-so-regular readers comment on the blog in response to a post. These commenters sometimes also have blogs their own, so reading each other’s blogs and cross-commenting occurs frequently. A second way of participating is when women send emails directly to Indian Homemaker asking for her opinion on a problem or situation that the person may be facing. Sometimes, they may ask her to post the email on the blog in order to solicit opinions and ideas from the larger group of readers in the blog circle. The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker appears to act as an anchor for this circle of bloggers and readers. It forms the centre point of a vibrant online feminist community that argues, discusses, agrees, disagrees, supports, and suggests with regularity and enthusiasm, thereby creating a dynamic community of supporters to all those who participate in it. There is a palpable sense of solidarity that pervades the conversation on this blog. The reason for starting a blog is not to change people’s minds, but to let others know that you are not alone. There are others who experience this, others who feel this, think this. I don’t like to tell others my opinion, rather to share what we all think and feel. We learn from each other. I feel very good about having a community. (Some days) writing on the blog was a lifeline.16 (Indian Homemaker: Interview) The vibrancy of this community comes through clearly in the comments section of each post that Indian Homemaker publishes. There is always

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  81 a long list of comments for each post, with many comments forming individual threads of discussion with multiple counter-comments. These individual threads of comments and counter-comments appear as nested comments, allowing readers to follow and comment on individual threads. There is a third mode of participating in the discussions on the IHM blog. This is facilitated by the “like” (thumbs up) button on each post and the “like” and “dislike” (thumbs down) buttons enabled on each comment and counter-comment. This allows a further set of readers to join the conversation – albeit anonymously – by making their opinions (for or against) known. Though subtle, this allows a larger number of readers to participate without actually having to write down their opinions in the form of a comment. The comment and counter-comment feature, as well as cross-referencing of each other’s posts, creates a complex web of interaction that, judging from the comments themselves and the email responses from those who have asked for advice and received it through the forum of the blog, is special and valuable to these women. A post about joint families on Indian Homemaker shows the multiple levels of interaction that this gendered space offers. In a previous post titled “Why Indians abort their unborn daughters,” the blogger writes a strong response to an article in the Mumbai Mirror advising Indian women on how to behave in their in-laws’ house. She quotes from the article and responds to several problematic statements.17 Another blogger in the circle responds to this post with a comment and a question: I find the entire concept of a joint family strange and artificial and would never like to live in one. I think of marriage as two adults coming together to form a new home and family of their own, rather than a convenient arrangement for guys where the girl moves in and marries his entire family, so to speak! . . . As an older and wiser woman, I want to know your opinion IHM, is it strange or wrong to think like this? (Commenter “Jottings and Musings” in response to blog post “Why Indians abort their unborn daughters” on Indian Homemaker) Indian Homemaker then writes the post “Joint Families and Indian Daughters” in answer to this question, prefacing it with the explanation: “This politically incorrect post is in response to Jottings and Musings’s question (in response to my post on Uttam Dave’s article.).”18 This post generated 102 comments, a majority of them over the first three or four days, but several more over the course of the next two years and the latest of them in May 2014. The comments on this post, for the most part, agree with the commenter and the blogger. Some examples of the kinds of comments:

82  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace As always a very wise response. I personally think that joint families are a very old-fashioned concept now. It is important for any individual to make their own homes by themselves- get away from the family mould and be your own person. It’s essential in terms of striking out, growing up and finally of evolving as an adult. (Commenter “@lankr1ta” in response to blog post on Indian Homemaker) Touched a nerve . . . am going to re-read and then comment. . . (Commenter “Imp’s mom”) This commenter later goes on to give a long response regarding the positives and negatives of living in a joint family based on her own experience and stressing that it will work only if members are allowed their privacy and everyone’s opinions are respected. Most comments, though, agree with the original email that the joint family system is unfair to women and that many of its supposed benefits often happen at the expense of the women. One self-identified older commenter gives reasons for why such a family system worked previously, and her comment is immediately taken apart by other commenters pointing to several “assumptions” she has made about the positives of the joint family system. The blogger participates in the discussion, commenting and answering individual comments, or conversation threads. Further on in the discussion, Indian Homemaker adds a hopeful note: jottingsandmusings, I know many, many girls, either only daughters or two sisters who are taking care of their parents. It’s a positive change, and what’s still better is that their husbands totally support them. Real life in India is very different from and much better than what we see in K-serials. Thank God for that! (Blogger Indian Homemaker, addressing a commenter on her blog post “Joint families and Indian daughters”) Again, what we see here is a liberal, progressive community using their lived experiences to deliberate on issues related to women’s lives. Most posts generate an average of about 70–80 comments over the course of one or two days. Popular comment threads average about 90% or more likes and about 10% dislikes. While most dislikes on a comment are often to do with a particular strong choice of words that the commenter has used, sometimes the dislikes are also about the substantive content of the post or comment. These “dislikes” are significant in the context of the community. This tells us that while this is a blog community of mostly like-minded readers, it is also attracting readers who disagree with some of the opinions expressed in this blog circle. It is important to remember too, that even those commenters who agree in general with the larger agenda of the blog

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  83 sometimes disagree among themselves on the finer points of certain issues. The blog is acting as a virtual space and providing a healthy environment for debate, discussion, and disagreement. If we take into consideration nonactive participants who follow the debate as “lurkers” or “listeners,” then the “gathered audience” (Crawford, 2009) of this blog can be considered to be significantly higher than the numbers indicate. Example: Scribble Happy writes a post regarding an incident involving the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, who was reported to have remarked that girls should not take offence at being called “sexy.” Local and national newspapers quoted her as having said: “Boys pass comments on girls terming them sexy but sexy means beautiful and charming. We should not see it in negative sense.”19 The furore this caused resulted in bringing both right-wing and left-wing groups together in criticising her. Interestingly, Scribble Happy seems to endorse the Chairperson’s position. She discusses the many uses of the term in contemporary usage and argues that the commissioner’s use of the word was innocuous, and the fuss being made by the media/ politicians/women’s groups over her remarks is misplaced and unnecessary. I’ll begin by admitting that I used to think that the job of the chief of National Commission for Women is ridiculously easy for all the perks and pay it gets you . . . the recent furore . . . has brought home to me the fact that the job ain’t a cakewalk – not all the time anyway. You may land in hot water for the most innocuous of statements. It’s a tough call to not offend anyone when you are required to make speeches all the time – it doesn’t help that the speeches have to be about women (and honour and sexuality and the works). Many a time the moral police pounces on you even for stating the obvious. (Scribble Happy: Blog post “Where women must always be shrinking violets”) The comments for this post show that opinion is divided, with some agreeing that the specific context in which it was used was non-offensive and others disagreeing. Indian Homemaker comments on this post – in her usual concise style: Actually she said if a girl is walking and four boys pass a comment and call her sexy, she shouldn’t find it offensive, so while there is nothing wrong with the word – “sexy”- I don’t think that a girl will like any kinds of comments – not even an innocent “Hello Madam”. (Comment in response to “Where women must always be shrinking violets”) Another blogger/commenter similarly disagrees and further elaborates on the situation by saying:

84  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace She was claiming that it’s okay for guys to comment on girl [sic] on the streets as “sexy”. That’s not only ridiculous (who’s she to decide that?) but also dangerous and making an already bad situation worse (as if street lechers need further encouragement to harass women!) . . . I think people reacting to it focused on the wrong side . . . debating about whether sexy is right or wrong. When will they realize that, that is not the point at all! (Comment in response to blog post “Where women must always be shrinking violets”) In the comments, Scribble Happy explains her position and her irritation at the (what she believes to be) over-reaction with regard to usage of a specific word, while the dissenting commenters try to explain the larger situation by clarifying the context in which it was used, arguing that comments passed by men on the street to a woman walking by are offensive and dangerous regardless of the specific words used. Scribble Happy seems to concede this point – though not explicitly – when she adds an updated “edit” to the end of her post: In retrospect, her speech wasn’t as innocuous as I initially believed . . . looks like she has managed to do the unthinkable by offending the moral police and the feminists equally. (Scribble Happy: Blog post “Where women must always be shrinking violets”) This post and the ensuing exchange is an example of the ways in which these women engage with gender issues. By debating the nuances of the word and the particular context in which the Chairperson has used them, the women are drawing attention to the small details that surround the articulation of feminism. This discussion is taking place at many levels. First, Scribble Happy mentions the incident surrounding the bureaucrat’s use of the word in a speech. She then mentions the backlash that the chairperson has received and expresses the opinion that the fuss is unnecessary, giving examples of the non-offensive ways in which it can be used. While some commenters agree, others (including Indian Homemaker) disagree, arguing that the chairperson was in effect condoning its use in the specific context of street harassment of women. Scribble Happy eventually agrees with their reading of the situation. At one level, the opinion expressed, the agreement and disagreement, the back-and-forth conversation, and the final consensus of sorts, is an example of the ways in which this blog circle discusses current events with regard to women’s issues. At another level, the intense discussion over the meanings that a single word used in different contexts can have, reveals a clear understanding of the ways in which language can be used against women. Finally, this is a telling example of the ways in which feminism is articulated in the

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  85 everyday by a group of women. A further interesting aspect emerges in this exchange – there is a distance that the blogger seems to create between herself (and by extension, perhaps the others in the blog circle) and “feminists,” a term she uses for the members of the protesting women’s groups. Her usage of the word implies that she doesn’t consider herself one. As with Indian Homemaker, both Desi Girl and Scribble Happy generate comments, though less than on IHM’s posts. The comments average about ten per post but are nevertheless passionately expressed. Scribble Happy responds to most comments on her blog, maintaining a sense of community and conversation with her readers. As with both IHM and Desi Girl, while most commenters are women, there are a few male commenters as well. Though relatively few, the comments often generate insightful discussion that indicates that both the blogger and her readers are socially and politically aware of the power dynamics that pervade their everyday interactions. While Scribble Happy maintains the casual atmosphere generated by the choice of name, GirlsGuide is a far more intense blog. The blog is set up as a counselling service, where the blogger answers questions and provides advice and counsel to readers. In addition to comments, there are references to private emails and phone calls to which she responds through blog posts, emails, and phone calls. Each blog has a different feel or atmosphere to it that even the casual reader can sense and can then choose an appropriate level of engagement. Rooted in the local, the issues these blogs address confront the everyday realities of Indian women. The topics that are raised, the incidents or situations that are mentioned, and the current events being discussed are all completely local. For example, comments made by political and other public figures excusing or condoning rape are frequently discussed on the blogs. There are links to news articles and embedded videos of news items and other audio-visual material. Yet, as Indian Homemaker points out, these specific issues are just examples or instances of larger issues that women around the world may face. For instance, a conversation about extended family members and the relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law discusses the larger issues of how women often feel the need to exercise control over the younger people in the family, especially daughters-in-law as a way of asserting their power within the family structure. It acknowledges that such issues are not limited to India/South Asia, and the post explains the psychology of such behaviour by using both specific (local) and general examples. The geographies at play here are working at multiple levels. First, the conversations are rooted in the local, by using local examples, discussing issues that women face in the local context. Despite this rootedness, there is an acknowledgement of the global issues as well. Another aspect of geography at play here is the physical location of the bloggers and readers. The

86  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace bloggers and readers/commenters in this study are located both within and outside India. They are most often Indian women, but sometimes Indian men, or women of other ethnicities who have some experience with Indian society and culture. For example, IHM sometimes posts emails and questions from nonIndian women seeking help or advice in dealing with Indian men. These emails often indicate a struggle to understand patriarchal (or other) Indian customs that these women have encountered in their relationships with Indian men. For example, IHM posts this anonymous email from one nonIndian reader: I am a Caucasian-American and had been dating an Indian man . . . He never led me to believe that he wasn’t truly “committed” to me or that our relationship was only “temporary.” We had briefly talked about . . . his parents and how getting them to accept me would be “his problem” and no-one would ever influence “his” decision. He admitted it would be a “mountainous task,” but always said he would take care of it. . . . when I indirectly gave him an ultimatum . . . he chose to end it with me because his parents would never accept me and he could never been (sic) happy if his parents were unhappy, which he claims would lead him to have a grudge on me. It seems a little sick that he is expected to sacrifice his life-long happiness, and is it me, or is he willing to do so? Does the control ever stop? I suppose only if the sons let it. (Indian Homemaker: Blog post “Is it safe to assume he loved his culture and tradition more than me?”) This post generated 98 comments mostly over the course of the following week. The commenters on IHM offered lots of advice about how to deal with the situation. Following are two: Coming to your ex-boyfriend, what he did was very cowardly and looks like he is not ready to be an adult. A large part of it is because he probably was never allowed to act like an adult his entire life. If culture and tradition were so important to him, he should have been clear about it with you from the beginning that the relationship would never lead to marriage. He led you on. But also realize that his fear about parents and ex-communication were probably very real. (Commenter “Clueless” in response to blog post “Is it safe to assume he loved his culture and tradition more than me?” on Indian Homemaker) The fact is that the guy knew from the very first day that he will never have the courage to present this girl as his partner to his parents. Maybe he was hopeful initially but he chickened out as the relationship

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  87 progressed. What prompts such guys to enter into relationships they perfectly know will never work out because of the false values ingrained in them? Lady, Be happy that you were saved on time. You are very lucky. Thank God that 20 years down the line, he will be a small, forgettable blip in your life. Go and find real love. (Commenter “Amit” in response to blog post “Is it safe to assume he loved his culture and tradition more than me?” on Indian Homemaker) Tagged under the phrase good Indian sons are a large number of posts dealing with issues that both men and women have with regard to family expectations especially revolving around marriage and choosing one’s spouse. IHM receives numerous emails from both women and men asking for advice in situations where they have chosen or are intending to choose a spouse who does not fulfil the race/caste/class boundaries set by their families. One post shares an email from a 25-year-old man who had earlier written for advice on how to get out of a forced engagement with a girl who did not want to marry him. He then writes a second email updating the group about the situation: Few days back I fought with my Mother and brother that I can’t marry anyone because of culture and standing. I am sorry for that, but I can’t marry a girl just because she is of same caste. Either I will marry of my choice or remain single forever. . . . Everyone in my family was fainted, angry. . . . Then again the same drama began, emotional blackmail, torture, crying, hunger strike etc etc. But this time I took firm stand by informing them that this is my final decision whatsoever you people react, I don’t care. My marriage is none of your business as far as my happiness is concerned. . . . Now my mother is not talking to me since last 4 days. . . . She made me clear in front of everyone that you do whatever you want and leave my house. . . . But I don’t want to go far away from my mother, I want her to be with me.20 (Indian Homemaker: blog post “Everyone knows when she decides not to keep relation, she will do that. . . ”) An early response to this email is made by commenter “A’: Any relationship you forge with another human takes the effort of two people to make it work. If one person decides to not make it work, then the relationship is not something that can be sustained. . . . I know that this is not the answer you wanted to hear, and I’m sorry. This was a risk you took from the start. I want to say that this is a worthy sacrifice, having the freedom to live your life as you please. . . . Tell her that she is always welcome in your life, but that she is the one ultimately choosing to not be there. This was her choice entirely, and

88  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace any lost relations that she gets as a result is something that is on her conscience. Not yours. (Comment in response to blog post on Indian Homemaker) This comment in turn generated several more (nested) comments including one from Desi Girl who refers the email writer to several of her posts on her own blog (Girl’s Guide to Survival) about emotional blackmail and how “desi sons” are manipulated by their mothers. The first comment by A received 48 “thumbs-up” and 18 “thumbs-down” while subsequent comments in the same comment thread also received several thumbs-down. The regular commenters go on to speculate why this is so and conclude that it was the work of a spammer or “troll.” In all these situations, the readers and commenters, no matter where in the world they are currently located, are articulating their experiences of Indian patriarchy in a global world. The physical location is both important – in that it provides a certain geographical/physical specificity to their life experiences as they are being articulated in this blog community, and unimportant – in that the participants are able to transcend local specificities in order to experience, describe, and confront larger gender issues. Finally, the virtual world of the blogosphere, and the community that comes together in the virtual space of the blogs, form what can be considered an alternative geographical space. The “discursive space” (Mitra, 2008) of the blogosphere creates an imagined geography of its own, a gendered space in which women’s issues can be raised, discussed, and addressed in a safe and supporting environment.

Conclusion These bloggers are articulating feminist ideas within the everyday contexts of their lives. Their posts (and the resulting comments) show how issues related to gender can be (and are) represented, experienced, and confronted through everyday acts of living. One of the things that stood out in the study of these blogs is that the bloggers never refer to theoretical ideas and almost never (I did not find a single instance in my sample) quote feminist scholarship in their posts to bolster their arguments or conversations. Yet the roots of the discourse playing out in this blog circle can clearly be traced to feminist scholarship and activism. The blogs seem to have a reciprocal relationship with larger feminist discourse: On the one hand, the larger feminist discourse that we are surrounded by (print, television, cyberfeminism) lends support and weight to the opinions and arguments that the bloggers are expressing, and on the other, the ease with which they adopt the key features/debates of feminist discourse and contextualise it within their everyday experiences stands testimony perhaps to the success of the feminist project. It is something that they have adopted seamlessly into their lives and draw from it in a very matter-of-fact, unselfconscious way.

Everyday feminisms in cyberspace  89

Notes 1 The three blogs introduced in this chapter were all last accessed on April 24, 2019. All blog posts quoted are archived in the blog archives. Interviews with the bloggers were conducted in 2015 over the course of several interactions by email, phone, and Google chat. 2 http://theineedfeminismproject.tumblr.com/. (Last accessed May 17, 2019). 3 www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/president-obama-criticizedrush-limbaughs-sandra-fluke-statements-jc-penney-pulls-out-36/. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 4 See, for example, “New ‘Networked Feminism’ Just Like the Old Networked Feminism: Organize or Die” www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-sive/new-networkedfeminism-ju_b_1370732.html?ir=India. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 5 A term coined to refer to the use of Twitter’s hashtag technology to “tag” a subject or title in Internet campaigns. Though hashtag activism has been criticised for its emphasis on outrage instead of actual engagement, there are also opposing points of view. See, for instance, “Hashtag activism isn’t a cop-out” www. theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/not-just-hashtag-activism-why-socialmedia-matters-to-protestors/384215./ (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 6 Some examples are the group blogs/websites UltraViolet, WomensWeb, and FeministsIndia (http://ultraviolet.in/; www.womensweb.in/; http://feministsindia.com/); the “pink chaddi” campaign and the more recent blog/Facebook campaigns Blank Noise, and Why Loiter (http://blog.blanknoise.org; http:// whyloiter.blogspot.in/). (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 7 For more information about Blank Noise and these other campaigns, see: http:// blog.blanknoise.org/, www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/ article3076827.ece, www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/Were-YouAsking-to-be-Eve-teased-in-That-Dress/2014/01/16/article2002064.ece1. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 8 Phadke (2014) “Loitering while Female . . .” in PlainSpeak www.tarshi.net/blog/ issue-in-focus-2-loitering-while-female/. (Last accessed February 14, 2015). See also: http://whyloiter.blogspot.in/. (Last accessed October 15, 2015). 9 For example, the khap panchayats in Haryana, whose primary agenda is to regulate and oversee caste marriages, have begun pronouncing guidelines for the way women should dress and behave; recently, they have forbidden use of mobile phones, riding on two-wheelers, and wearing jeans. See, for example, www.thehindu.com/news/ national/other-states/uttar-pradesh-community-panchayat-bans-jeans-mobilephones-for-girls/article6298539.ece. (Last accessed March 25, 2019). 10 The “grrrl zine” phenomenon is another example of feminists seeking alternative means of publishing explicitly feminist content. The movement emerged out of the alternative and punk music scene in the United States, and young women began self-publishing grrrl zines that also became “e-zines” with the advent of the Internet. However, like personal blogs, these represent alternative media spaces to commercial media spaces. While it is possible to find instances where magazines/newspapers/television do provide opportunities for personal narratives focusing on women’s issues, the content in these forums tends to be tied to larger editorial and financial agendas that indicate a certain commodification of said content. See, for example, www.grrrlzines.net/about.htm. (Last accessed October 25, 2015). 11 The many implications of the word feminist is being much debated in contemporary popular culture/media. This blogger too seems to use it in different ways – in this post, she uses it essentially to describe herself, yet implying that others may not think so. In different posts, she uses the word to describe women’s rights activists and seems to imply that she is not one of “them.”

90  Everyday feminisms in cyberspace 12 A day of fasting from sunrise until the rise of the moon at night observed by Hindu women from North India. It is romanticised and glorified in many Bollywood films. 13 These popular Bollywood films revolve around family relationships in North Indian households and have elaborate scenes showing the protagonists celebrating the Karvachauth festival. 14 Both Masserat’s and Ossman’s models overlap with Goffman’s categories but focus on different aspects of the social experience. 15 Another understanding of the virtual public sphere sees cyberspace as a space for struggle, supporting both the reproduction of dominant social relations and their contestation by excluded groups. I see these “feminist” personal blogs as forming a part of this discursive struggle. For more on this topic, see Dahlberg (2007). Also Dahlberg (1998, 2001). 16 Soon after I began following this blog out of personal interest, Indian Homemaker lost her only daughter in tragic circumstances. The outpouring of grief and support from her circle of fellow bloggers and readers was overwhelming and deeply touching. So much so, that I stopped reading completely because it felt too painful to participate (or even lurk). I returned to the blog only two years later, because I knew I had to include her in this study. I confessed this to her during our interview. 17 One such statement: “Certain men never let in their wives into finance matters for the sheer mistrust that she will surreptitiously send money and gifts to her biological family members.” The link to this article no longer works. Presumably, the article was removed from the website. 18 Jottings and Musings: http://jottingsnmusings.wordpress.com/. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 19 www.hindustantimes.com/jaipur/ncw-chief-terms-sexy-as-beautiful-inviteswrath/article1-817122.aspx. See also: www.linguistrix.com/blog/?p=546. (Last accessed October 25, 2015). 20 This email and several other emails and responses that IHM posts from readers indicate that her readers come from different regional and class backgrounds. The mix of what has been called “convent school” English and more “desi” English is refreshing and part of the value of such a forum.

5

Transcontinental journeys and transnational lives Blogging from the diaspora

We sit at a table crowded with spiced, steaming tea cups, a study in diversity. One whose bronzed, gleaming skin carries tales of her ocean-framed ancestors. Another, pale, fair, with whispers of ancient Persia in her veins, and the third, of the same people, her bloodline mapping the landscape of two great nations. . . . Between us, live roots and displacement. Among us, rock movements and plane rides and boat journeys from 1200 years ago. We are of people who have shifted. Whose sensibilities and histories have shifted. People who once belonged, then belonged again, spun in cycles of precarious identity. Ripped from their homeland by threat, under duress and desire to build a life beyond living.1 – (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Reheat, Serve”)

The study of diasporic populations is not a new one. For decades, scholars have been studying the movement of people across geographical and political boundaries and the meanings that can be made of these movements. Anthropologists, economists, sociologists, geographers, and linguists, among others, have all studied this phenomenon. While the term diaspora was earlier used to refer to members of a religious group or groups living as minorities in an exiled location (originally when referring to the Jewish Diaspora), it soon came to mean any group of peoples, linked usually by ethnicity, who lived outside their homelands (Mishra, 2007). Thus, the “African diaspora” resulting from slavery or “Indian diaspora” as a result of indenture. Though diasporas come about through various reasons (voluntary, forced, trade, war, or colonial imperatives), traditional diaspora theory views diasporic populations as stable and “fixed” in time and space. Despite these more standard, textbook definitions, the meanings that this word has come to denote have changed over the years. The term has come to mean more than isolated populations exiled in a country other than their own. Furthermore, scholars have noted that the term diasporic communities implies a homogenous group, and essentialises groups of migrants as sharing a similar ethnic heritage, when in fact there may be – and usually are – a great number of differences between and among the various ethnic,

92  Transcontinental and transnational lives regional, linguistic, and religious groups that make up these populations (Ong, 2003;2 Thapan, 2005). Scholars of diaspora now call for a shift from a focus on fixed and geographically isolated populations and locate diaspora studies at the intersection of globalisation, technology, and migration (Rajan and Sharma, 2007). In this chapter, I examine a group of blogs written by women of the Indian diaspora in order to complicate our understanding of diaspora with respect to the shifting meanings of migration, community, and the politics of location, from the viewpoint of these women.

Indian diasporas The term Indian Diaspora has come to be used in common parlance as a way to refer to the large numbers of “Indians” that live outside their homeland. In contemporary usage, “Indian” has come to signify not just a citizen of the nation-state of India but also those who trace their ancestry or ethnicity to the region that is now the nation-state of India. The term is misleading as it imposes a single homogenising term to an extremely diverse population. The different waves of migration that have taken place over the centuries from various regions of the subcontinent to different parts of the world, for widely differing reasons are all part of this complicated equation. The term Indian and the related South Asian (which are sometimes used interchangeably) require some unpacking and problematising before they can be used in this context. Like “Indian,” which implies a shared history, language, and/or culture, the term South Asian is used to refer to people who trace their origin to the Indian subcontinent and its immediate neighbours. While the term is popular in the context of US academia, it’s rarely if ever used in the region itself (Rayaprol, 1997; Braziel and Mannur, 2003). Further, because of the size and dominant position of India (both geographically and culturally) within the subcontinent, there is a tendency to conflate the terms. Countries that are included in this term (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal) are by no means similar, indeed, they have made very different socio-cultural and political choices as nation-states and in fact often resent being compared to India. “Any neat homogeneity of South Asian diasporas thus has to be constantly interrogated, as there are fractures within and without” (Dasgupta, Gupta, and Teaiwa, 2007, p. 29). While the Indian diaspora may be smaller than some other diasporic groups, the blanket term nevertheless implies a shared history of exile that is far from true. Mishra (2005) points out that we need to see Indian migration as consisting of two distinct trajectories, yet with a common defining sense of displacement from the desh or home country. “To explore the narrative of the Indian diaspora critically, we may want to read it as two relatively autonomous archives designated by the terms old and new” (Mishra, 2005, p. 13). Scattered over at least 70 countries around the world, the reasons for migration for these “Indians” are many and varied. Among the earliest Indian diasporic groups – the old diaspora, are descendants of indentured Indian

Transcontinental and transnational lives  93 labour – called girmitiyas – sent to replace slave labour in the colonial-owned plantations in countries as far flung as South Africa, Guyana, Trinidad, Mauritius, Fiji, and Malaysia.3,4 Engineered by the East India Company after the abolition of slavery, this was a way of ensuring high profits with cheap labour. While these are examples of forced migrations, several others left voluntarily either to escape from poverty and oppression or to seek a better life or greater business opportunities. Indian merchant communities in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and Singapore, as well as Sikh farmers who settled in California and Canada, are examples of communities that migrated in search of better economic opportunities. Many of these migrants ended up staying and often losing contact with the homeland. This was especially so in the case of those groups of people who went as indentured labour to the outlying colonies of the British Empire. Trading and business communities (e.g. wealthy Indians in Kenya, Singapore, and Mauritius), that were more well off continued to maintain ties with the homeland, through visits and, where possible,5 endogamous marriages across continents.6 It’s important to recognize, though, that except in cases where migrant workers were tricked or forced into leaving their homeland, the line between voluntary and forced is not always as clear as one would expect. The post–World War II era saw the formation of new diasporic groups such as the “twice migrant” groups of Fijian Indians in New Zealand and Australia and Indians from East Africa who were forced to flee to Britain.7 The US Immigration Act of 1965 changed the nature of sub-continental emigration when for the first time the category of “race” was removed as a discriminatory factor for the right to enter the country. This resulted in a new wave of migration by a different class of Indians from the subcontinent, seeking better professional, academic, and economic opportunities. These later diasporic groups would be labelled new, following Mishra’s (2005) distinction. Indian women were always a part of the migration process, even though early records and early diaspora research tended to ignore women’s contributions to the diasporic experience.8 Rayaprol (1997) points out those early studies often viewed women as wives of migrants, rather than as immigrant women in their own right.9 This positioning pushes women to the margins, and any study that takes this approach automatically relegates women to secondary importance. She notes that in those studies that did include women, the focus was on the economic aspects of women’s work rather than a cultural or sociological one. Further, the traditional (and contested) divisions between the public and private spheres served to render invisible the role of women in the domestic/familial sphere and only took into account10 – if at all – their contributions with regard to the public sphere, that is, as wage labour. But as feminist scholars (e.g. Smith, 1987; Pateman, 1983; Mohanty, 2003) have argued, the supposed division between the two spheres is an artificial one and activities in the economic sphere both impact and are impacted by activities in the domestic sphere and vice versa.

94  Transcontinental and transnational lives More recent studies, however, seek to redress this oversight by looking at women’s experiences in immigrant situations. Following feminist arguments (e.g. Harding, 1991; Lerner, 1979) about the value of taking into account women’s experiences, scholars of migration and diaspora are placing women at the centre of their research projects.11 Rayaprol (2011) notes that “research on women in the diaspora has not only come of age, but is now also an inevitable component of any serious work on the diaspora” (2011, p. 196). As globalisation becomes more widespread and ubiquitous, and the movement of labour and capital across borders changes the way people live, travel, and communicate, Indians of the diaspora continue to make their mark in a myriad ways on the global landscape. By focusing on the selfnarrated lived experiences of women of the diaspora, I believe this research project will contribute to the growing body of work that focuses on women and migration.

Digitally diasporic Historically, diasporas can be considered to have contributed to global interconnections. Whether forced or voluntary, migration has facilitated the linking of different peoples, cultures, and religions. Along with trade, it is probably one of the oldest means of connecting different parts of the world. Migration has facilitated the flow of ideas, commodities, goods, languages, and religions from one geographical region to another, be it intercontinental or transcontinental, creating political, cultural, and economic linkages across vast geographical spaces. That is, the correlation between migration and “global interconnection” has always been high (Held, 1999 in Ros, 2010). However, it cannot be denied that the advent of new communication technologies has changed the nature, meanings, and “logic” not only of diaspora but also of these global interconnections. This new age of communication technology – with text messages, emails, Skype, iMessage, FaceTime, Google Duo, forums, blogs, Internet telephony – changes the contours of the diasporic experience. Emerging work on digital diasporas (Everett, 2009; Brinkerhoff, 2009; Gajjala, 2013) shows that researchers have approached the study of this concept in many different ways. Some of these include the ways in which race is manifested or is invisible online, issues of access and the narrowing or broadening of the digital divide, and how diasporic communities create virtual communities for communication and information (Laguerre, 2010). Specifically, this chapter falls into the category of work that looks at the interaction between immigrants and Internet technologies or how diasporic communities build virtual communities for communication and information. Ros (2010) considers contemporary migration as an integral part of the information society and calls for a new model of the social organisation of

Transcontinental and transnational lives  95 migration within that framework. As new elements are incorporated into the reality of immigration because of new and emerging communication technologies, we must recognise the new issues that may emerge. For instance, new ICTs imply that there is now greater capacity for processing information, more capacity for interaction of people, and added capacity for flexibility in these interactions. Recent research has examined how these three aspects play out in different spheres of social organisation. Ros identifies migration and diasporic groups as an important sphere of social organisation in which to study these aspects of communication (2010, p. 23). Following Castells (1996), we can look at how the “space of flows” is transformed by new configurations of the time–space context in the sphere of migration. The re-characterisation of the constraints of time and space on the organisation of social activity can be usefully applied to the context of migration and diaspora. “As the meaning of place changes, the meaning of living in a place, separated from the original one, is changing for immigrants as well” (Ros, 2010, p. 26). One of the main implications for this reconceptualisation of time and space is the meaning of distance. Conventionally understood as a factor of a combination of time and space, “distance” is an important aspect of migration whose meaning changes in the space of flows. Migrating in this context creates a much more “continuous reality” and further blurs the meanings of “home” and “host” or “origin” and “destination.” We are forced to rethink the use of the concept of physical distance as a central and defining aspect of migration. Using Diminescu’s (2007) term the connected migrant, Ros asks the question: “Are time and space being transcended in social practice through the capacity of constant ‘from anywhere to anywhere’ contact? Can people and communities living apart now build an elastic, flexible terrain of time and place?” (Diminescu, 2007 in Ros, 2010, p. 26). In approaching some similar questions in specific contexts, Laguerre (2010) outlines three main preconditions for digital diasporas to emerge: immigration, connectivity, and networking. The first two are, of course, defining – a diaspora can exist only in the context of immigration, and IT connectivity is an infrastructural necessity. The third, networking – building and maintaining a group of contacts in order to form a virtual community – is what makes a digital diaspora operational, and hence is a precondition for the existence of a digital diaspora. Thus, Laguerre defines digital diaspora as: An immigrant group or descendent of an immigrant population that uses IT connectivity to participate in virtual networks of contacts for a variety of political, economic, social, religious, and communicational purposes. (2010, p. 50) Laguerre emphasises the connection between the virtual community and the geographical/physical aspects of a diasporic community, arguing that,

96  Transcontinental and transnational lives to the extent that these individuals participate in the everyday life of a diasporic enclave, their online activities necessarily contribute and influence the shape of the community of residence. In this sense, the virtual diasporic community is a cyber expansion and the other facade of the community of residence. For this reason, I conceive of the digital diaspora as the interweaving of the virtual and the real in the hybrid production of everyday life in an immigrant enclave. (2010, pp. 50–51) Consequently, while it is important to study digital diasporas to see the ways in which they have in a sense, transcended space and distance, it is nevertheless necessary to “locate” such a discussion in a specific physical/geographical space. It is also important to remember that digital diasporas emerge out of the intersection of new media technologies that enable heightened interaction and of transnational flows of labour and capital. Gajjala (2013) warns that even as virtual communities and digital diasporas are celebrated, we must not lose sight of the political economy of this phenomenon. She cites from Schiller (2000) to note that digital communication and finance is fuelled by global capitalism, whose objective is to support ever-growing networks of corporate power (Schiller, 2000, cited in Gajjala, 2013). Internet technologies have facilitated new ways of communicating and have redefined the ways in which we understand time and space. Diasporic communities, too, have used these technologies to form virtual communities to share experience, information, and ideas. “Digital diasporas” occur at the intersection of local-global, nationalinternational, private-public, off-line-online, and embodied-disembodied. In digital diasporas, a multiplicity of representations, mass-media broadcasts, textual and visual performances, and interpersonal interactions occurs. . . . Thus “Indian” digital diasporas occur within racially, geographically, culturally, ecologically, and socio-economically marked configurations of the local, which in turn exists within a power structure that conflates a certain specific sociocultural, urbanized way of living as “global.” (Gajjala, 2010, p. 211) Gajjala (2010) describes how the notion of an “Indian digital diaspora” emerges out of the historical moment when Indian programmers began to work for multinational corporations in locations both within and outside of India. The ease of communication with other professionals across time zones and transcontinental expanses was facilitated and indeed made possible by Internet technologies. Mitra (2008) notes how Internet communication technologies such as blogging transform the nature of the diasporic experience by allowing the migrant to continue to remain in contact with “home” unlike earlier migrants. Hegde (2014) relates the rise of blogging

Transcontinental and transnational lives  97 among Indian women to a similar moment of “South Asian diasporic mobility” when the global digital economy facilitates the movement of economic migrants across the world. She also points to the gendered aspects of this economic mobility, noting that exclusionary immigration policies often force highly qualified women to move as dependents of their spouses, rendering them unable to work in their respective professional fields (2014, p. 90). Following LaGuerre’s categorisation of the many manifestations of digital diasporas, one can note the existence of several of these categories within the Indian digital diaspora. Scholars have examined issues of access, the digital divide between the Third World and the First World, manifestations of race and gender in cyberspace, how immigrant communities attempt to influence policy in their home countries, how religion is practised and propagated online, how political activism is fuelled and financed, and how “communities of interest” are formed in cyberspace around many different affiliations including regionality, linguistic, and sexualities.12 The Indian diaspora discovers the blogosphere With regard to blogging, members of the Indian diaspora have been in the forefront of the Indian blogosphere because of their early access to Internet technologies and their professional skill set in programming and software (Gajjala, 2010). Currently, Indians (both diasporic and otherwise) run technology and financial blogs as well as blogs in all genres of the lifestyle category, including food, design, films, parenting, travel, and health.13,14 Among the earliest of these was the group blog Sepia Mutiny,15 which was started in 2004 by young second-generation Indians in the United States. Until it was shut down by its founders in 2012, it was an important forum for discussing South Asia–related issues, personalities, and current events among young Indian Americans. Other blogs such as SAJA Forum, DesiPundit, and UltraBrown also contributed to highlighting issues and points of view often marginalised by mainstream Western media.16 For instance, the 2006 Bombay blasts were covered extensively by several of these group blogs, providing regular updates, with commenters and readers offering help, condolences, and expressions of frustration and outrage.17 All of these blogs have a high readership and point to the need for both alternative sources of news and information and serve as communities of interest and discussion. The readers were/are primarily highly educated Indian professionals and students of the first and second generations. Manish Vij, founder of UltraBrown and co-founder of Sepia Mutiny, refers to this audience when he describes his popular blogs: Ultrabrown gets a high-end, tech-savvy audience with deep interest in the arts. We’re like the arts section in the paper with a news sidebar. Sepia is more mass-market with 10–15,000 visits a day. They’re like the front page with an arts sidebar.18

98  Transcontinental and transnational lives Popular women bloggers of the Indian/South Asian diaspora include Lactivist in Louboutins, Sheba’s World, Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas, and Within/Without, among many others. Some personal blogs such as Masala Mommas and Women Bloggers of South Asia act both as personal blogs and as aggregators of other blogs by South Asian women.19 For this chapter, I chose blogs that addressed the immigrant experience in one way or another. These bloggers tend to focus on aspects of the transnational, multicultural, immigrant life. Specifically, they tackle topics like race/ racism, gendered experiences, intersecting identities, and the many meanings of “home.”

Blog Profiles: Blog 1: Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas (http://orangejammies.com/) Tag Line: Because Orange Is the New Black Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2008 Blogger: Anonymous Nickname: OJ Location: Bay Area, California The blogger is anonymous and refers to herself as OJ, or Orange Jammies, and “Happy Hausfrau” in her posts about cooking. There are no personal photographs except one on the banner. This too is cropped so as to keep the identity of the person hidden. The posts are primarily a mixture of personal thoughts, ideas, recipes, and anecdotes. The blog has been awarded “Top Expat Blog: San Francisco” by “InterNations,” a global online community portal for expats in different cities around the world. The award icon is displayed in the sidebar. Image: Despite the references to neon and orange, the colour scheme for this blog is pink and white! The background is a polka-dotted pastel pink, with the blog title “Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas” in a basic, bold, black capitalised font. The banner or photo header is a close up head shot of a woman, presumably of the blogger herself. There is glimpse of a striped pink-and-white T-shirt that ties in with the colour scheme, and the woman’s face is obscured by a veil of hair. The effect is feminine, yet elegant, and conveys a modern aesthetic that is in keeping with the larger style of the blog. Theme: It’s hard to identify a single theme for this blog. The posts range from personal anecdotes (with personal details carefully obscured/ concealed), photo features, and poetry and stories to posts about

Transcontinental and transnational lives  99 travel, theatre, language, or people. The categories she assigns are unusual and playful as in “Scribblewick Papers,” “OJisms,” “Poetic Injustice,” and “Writing Out Loud.” However, the tags she assigns are more straightforward, for example, children, child sex abuse, anthropology, geography, violence against women, and women. These tags show more clearly than the categories the variety of topics she is writing about. Features: The sidebar is simple, with the same black font. However, the blogger displays a sense of playfulness here too with some unusual sidebar features as well as more common sidebar features renamed to go with the “OJ” or “Orange Juice” theme. For instance, the first heading on the sidebar is called “OJ’s Flavor of the Month/Minute/ Moment,” which is a category of posts about things that have caught her interest. These could be a designer watch, an art exhibit, or a body lotion. The email subscription feature is called “The Juice in Your Box” and the Archives section is called “Canned OJ.” Other sidebar features keep with the playful theme having titles like “When the Saints Come Marching In,” which is a widget that keeps track of worldwide visitors to the blog in real time. “Look What the Cat Dragged In,” “Stalker,” and “Vox Populi” are other sidebar features. Link: The links on this blog are not numerous. Posts may link to other posts by her or other bloggers in the context of what is being talked about. The sidebar has links to other blogs, YouTube links, a few websites, and a charitable organisation called India Helps and the Indian feminist site Ultra Violet. Exchange Analysis: The comments on this blog average about 12 to 15 per post. Most are regular commenters with occasional one-time commenters. OJ usually responds to comments in the comments section, and there is often a lively conversation within the group. Language Analysis: She averages two to three posts a month but has a devoted fan following. The language is smooth flowing and fluent, displaying an easy familiarity with the ins and outs of grammar, vocabulary, and popular usage. The posts are frequently funny, often laced with a wry self-deprecating humour. She posts a lot of original poetry, which again shows a mastery of language, and an ability to use it as a tool to convey meanings in varied ways. Often, her responses to comments are in verse. In addition, she draws a lot on her mother tongue – what she calls “Parsi-Gujarati” in her posts. These words, phrases, and sentences are referenced in posts about food, Parsi culture, or in posts that discuss the language exclusively. Though several posts are about serious subjects (e.g. domestic violence, sexual abuse), the overall “vibe” of the blog is funny, casual, and loaded with attitude.

100  Transcontinental and transnational lives Blog 2: On a Wing and a Prayer (http://awingandaprayer.wordpress. com/) Tag Line: none Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2008 Blogger: Anonymous. Nickname: Mom Gone Mad Location: A city in Norway This blogger refers to herself as “Mom Gone Mad” and in a few places as “Indian Mom” and to her husband as the “Viking.” She blogs about many things including parenthood, living in Norway, having an intercultural/interracial marriage, living abroad, and so forth. However, despite the anonymity she maintains, she does not keep the names of her children secret (one would assume that these are real given the way she introduces them). She also occasionally posts pictures of her kids and herself. Despite the clear boundaries she seems to have set in terms of what is and is not private, her posts come across as personal, heartfelt, and irreverent. The caustic/sarcastic humour seems to be her signature style. Image: The blog sports a moody black and white theme, with a dark grey black-and-white photograph of what looks like the reflection of trees in water. Over this is a white layer on which the black text is visible. The header is a black-and-white close-up photograph of two sleeping children who we can assume are hers. Small pops of colour are added with a pale blue sidebar (a default setting of WordPress) and a red, green, and yellow image of “nimbu-mirchi” (a traditional string of chillies and lemons considered to ward off the evil eye). Theme: Personal, anecdotal, parenting, reflections on everything from parenting and relationships to gender roles and cross-cultural issues. Tags include race, gender, culture, family, mothers-in-law, nonviolence, and conflict resolution, displaying a huge variety of topics. Feature: This blog is designed as a no-frills blog. The header has only three buttons: “Home,” “About,” and “Kudos R Us” (which is a list of blog mentions and awards from other bloggers). The sidebar includes a calendar, a blogroll (a list of blogs she likes), a list of recent posts, a category cloud, and a widget that lists real-time visitors. The individual features are creatively titled, for example, “The Vault” to indicate the Archives, “Hark, Who Goes There” for the visitor list, and “Wild Horses Couldn’t Drag Me Away” for the blogroll. Link: Only a few links in the posts and comments. Exchange Analysis: Comments average 20 per post. The blogger also responds to comments, but only once every ten comments or so. Some posts refer to comments or posts by other bloggers.

Transcontinental and transnational lives  101 Language Analysis: This is a personal blog in every sense of the word. While keeping a few details private – like names, town lived in, and so forth – this blogger writes personal posts about the many experiences she faces in her everyday life as a woman of the diaspora. The posts are often both deeply personal and reflective. Her language is fluent and casual with a sarcastic undertone that clearly shows her facility with the language. Posts average about four a month in the time period I studied, though posting has been less frequent in recent months. Blog 3: Within/Without (www.withinandwithout.com) Tag Line: none Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2004 Blogger: Neha Viswanathan Location: London, United Kingdom Image: This blog follows a simple black-and-white and pale blue colour scheme. The header is a close up photograph of filter coffee glasses (though this photograph may change occasionally), the title is a basic Times Roman font in black, and the buttons for “Home,” “About and Contact,” and “Header Art” are in simple white letters on a black background. Theme: A personal blog that addresses a variety of topics. The category list gives us an idea of the different subjects she tackles: “Family and Friends,” “Gender,” “Governance,” “History and Monuments,” “Media,” “Music and Art,” and so forth. Feature: A basic sidebar with a search option, a category list and an archive section. Link: Several of her posts provide links to other posts she has written, news stories, and posts by other bloggers. This blog does not feature a blogroll with links to other blogs, which is unusual in this category of blogs. Exchange Analysis: She refers to comments and posts by other bloggers, and there is a frequent cross-referencing between multiple posts. The blog seems to have a dedicated group of regular readers and commenters, but it’s hard to provide an average number for comments per post as the numbers vary widely. Some posts may have only five or six comments, whereas other may receive 20 or more comments. Language Analysis: This blogger writes in a clear, precise style that displays not only her facility with the language but also her love of words. She writes regular posts, including some that are poetry. While the language used is predominantly English, she does use references from other languages, primarily Hindi and Tamil, indicating yet again, the multiple “sources” of her identity.

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“Home” and the politics of location Migration has become ubiquitous as larger and larger numbers of people travel across national boundaries and build lives and homes in a variety of temporary locations other than their place of origin. In fact, even defining national boundaries and pinpointing “places of origin” and building identities based on these markers becomes a perilous project. The slipperiness of identities and political/cultural boundaries makes the study of diaspora, migration, and transnationalism a complicated enterprise. It is important for us to view migration and the diasporic experience as relational and processual rather than as a static “condition.” These scholars are also seeking to overturn the privileging of the diasporic relationship with the homeland in South Asian diaspora studies (Braziel and Mannur, 2003; Dasgupta et al., 2007). Instead of trying to understand the diaspora through South Asia or replicate the margin/center dichotomy, we wish to understand the relationship of these diasporas to the spaces they currently inhabit and what those relationships could tell us about the state and nation-building projects as well as migrants’ own efforts to make sense of their multiple displacements. (Dasgupta et al., 2007, p. 129) The spatial politics of “home” and “host” that are so central to studies of diaspora are further complicated by the contemporary version of globalisation that facilitates near instantaneous communication and travel, both aspects that constrained migrants of previous generations and, in a sense, exiled them from their “homelands.” The diasporic imaginary, a term coined by post-colonial scholar Vijay Mishra, refers to “any ethnic enclave in a nation-state that defines itself, consciously, unconsciously or through self-evident or implied political coercion, as a group that lives in displacement” (Mishra, 2007, p. 14).20 The contemporary migrant, however, may have different possibilities at her or his disposal, allowing one to traverse both time and space with a click of the mouse. Contemporary immigrants cannot be characterized as the “uprooted.” Many are transmigrants, becoming firmly rooted in their new country but maintaining multiple linkages to their homeland. . . . Migration proves to be an important transnational process that reflects and contributes to the current political configurations of the emerging global economy. (Schiller, Basch, and Blanc, 1995, p. 48) The shifting meanings of place that the blogosphere generates further complicate our concepts of place and location. For instance, drawing from Mitra (2008) refers to the Internet as a “discursive virtual space.” He argues that

Transcontinental and transnational lives  103 a collection of texts within a certain (specific) social and cultural context together may make up a discourse. Taken together, these discourses form a discursive space that can be examined to study the ways in which these texts and spaces produce meaning. Unlike physical/geographical space, the notion of the Internet as space is strictly metaphorical, and the Internet “is composed of discourses and inter-connected discourses can produce a ‘sense’ of place” (2008, p. 458). Extending this idea to the blogosphere, Mitra states that “the blog represents a unique form of discourse that represents the voice of bodies in space.” Bloggers writing in these spaces produce specific identity narratives that while expressing a voice in cyberspace are nevertheless rooted in real or physical space. This combining of the real and virtual in the context of the blogosphere creates what he terms “synthetic cybernetic space” (2008, p. 459). What is interesting about this space is that the discourses are produced by people who might occupy many different real spaces and their voices are tainted by the place they are writing from. Thus a blog carries traces of a real space while it produces the virtual discursive space. Those who interact with blogs, either by reading them or writing them, thus occupy a cybernetic space that offers the opportunity to dwell in a virtual space that is discursively produced while living in a real space very distant from the virtual space. (Mitra, 2008, p. 461) Mannur (2013) draws on Heidegger’s concept of “dwelling” where he distinguishes between inhabiting a space and dwelling in a space. To dwell in a space, according to him, is more than just inhabiting it; the use of the word adds a sense of comfort, of home, and a perception of belonging (Heidegger, 1971 in Mannur, 2013). Mannur extends this idea to a sense of community and further notes that the meaning of “dwell” also means to “think about” or ponder something. Thus, the discursive space of the personal blog, is endowed with both meanings of “dwell” – which is a sense of home and community as well as a place to ponder and discuss issues of interest (2013, p. 5). Mitra identifies different ways in which space is inscribed in the blog discourse of the diaspora: “Self-disclosed space,” “Referential space,” and “Absent space.” Analysing his sample of blogs from blog portal DesiPundit, Mitra clarifies that many bloggers do not reveal their location (self-disclosed) and the reader (and researcher) has to make guesses and draw conclusions from the cues and references in the text to get an idea of where the blogger resides. My own observation of the diasporic web sphere of women bloggers indicates a mixed attitude to self-disclosed space. While some bloggers may disclose their location, there are several bloggers who do not. Often, one could not even tell immediately if the blogger was diasporic. My observation has been that attitudes to self-disclosure of

104  Transcontinental and transnational lives place have somewhat changed over the last few years, though individual bloggers continue to make different choices on the basis of their personal experiences and comfort levels. Many of the early Indian bloggers (as noted in the section on Indian bloggers) were open about their names and personal information such as location and careers. While some continue to do so, others have begun to feel more vulnerable with the opening up of the blogosphere and the increase in trolling. As the amount of personal and professional interactions we have on the web grows, the “narbs” that we leave in our wake grow exponentially. Different bloggers react differently, some by being more open with information, and others by being less so. While it is difficult to make conclusive assumptions on which approach is more prevalent, my sample of diasporic bloggers had a mixed approach. Two out of the three blogs I studied had anonymous bloggers (though for a diligent reader or researcher, the information was available), whereas the third used her own name and location, but kept other aspects of her personal life away from the spotlight. On the other hand, the two “anonymous” bloggers were the most accessible to me as a researcher, whereas the third did not respond to emails. While discussing this choice to remain anonymous, blogger OJ explained: I started my first blog initially under my own name and then very soon changed it to Orange Jammies(by literally looking down at what I was wearing!). There was a lot of excitement and a lot of Indian women started writing. That blog was quite a success. It had an IDEX rating (biometric data) of 200,000 hits. However, I changed platforms pretty soon after that for technical reasons and while the old blog had a privacy setting, the new one was a totally public blog and I felt uncomfortable about putting so much personal information out there. This was in 2006. Also, the new blog – WWNP – started being more widely read, with many more “lurkers”, so I chose to be more cautious (but not necessarily closed) with the details I shared. (OJ of Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Interview) The politics of location becomes doubly significant in the case of bloggers of the diaspora. While it signals the importance of place in the diasporic narrative, it also complicates the positioning of the person in terms of privilege and identity. Issues of race, class, and ethnicity are drawn in, as we are forced to acknowledge what the politics of location are for educated bloggers who are perhaps privileged in their countries of origin, but are positioned as “outsiders,” as women of colour in the host societies they currently inhabit (Rajgopal, 2003). As Mitra (2008) points out, the geographical, physical location is as important as the discursive, virtual location or space that a blog creates. However, the experience of calling multiple geographical spaces “home,” both current and relinquished, or native and adopted are unique to the diasporic experience. So while these bloggers, like other

Transcontinental and transnational lives  105 bloggers, are simultaneously straddling the online and offline spaces, they are also straddling intercontinental, intercultural spaces. They may perhaps be pledging allegiance simultaneously to different nation-states, at different levels, and in different aspects of their lives. But it is this multiplicity of experience and this simultaneous juggling of cultures, societies, and nationalities that exemplifies the transnational. The following discussion attempts to unravel some of the many and varied threads that each blogger weaves into the fabric that is her (transnational) life. In my sample of blogs, all three bloggers disclose their locations (and previous locations) through self-disclosure. Each does so in a slightly different manner. Neha V. of Within/Without indicates the actual city she lives in (London) and the other cities or parts of India she has grown up in (Chennai, Delhi, “South India”). She does so in a straightforward manner, describing specific locations in the city as a way to evoke the city and her place in it, through descriptive and anecdotal information. For example: Who would have thought you’d find the startling green of parakeets in London? I thought I saw some near Hyde Park but blamed it on the July sun. Or homesickness. But wondering through the Kyoto Gardens at Holland Park . . . I thought I heard parakeets. I dismissed it. But as we wandered into an enclosure, there they were. Bright green with redchilli beaks. I’ve always been fond of parrots. I have a nose like one, and there’s that relationship of empathy. After being subjected to the utterly boring waddling walks of London pigeons, it’s a treat to see these lovely birds flying about, blithe and screechy. None of the cooing nonsense of pigeons. Just straightforward shrieking, like a million shopkeepers calling out their bargains. (Within/Without: Blog post “On parakeets in London”) Similarly, she writes a post on a visit to an abandoned building called the Crystal Palace Railway Station, and in another, describes a visit to Highgate Cemetery, both landmark locations in the city of London. She evokes the multiplicities of geographical experience in several posts, as for instance, the implicit reference to India in the previous post when she compares the birds to “screeching shopkeepers,” or by a direct comparison to abandoned buildings or “ruins” as she calls them in Delhi. In a post titled simply, “Snow” and tagged under London, she posts a picture probably taken from her window (she is an amateur photographer) of buildings covered in a thick layer of snow that almost look like icing on a cake. She writes: Snow! And so much of it! Needless to say the tubes are off, the buses are not working. And I am working at home drinking endless cups of chai. London is a cake. And I can eat it! (Within/Without: Blog post “Snow”)

106  Transcontinental and transnational lives In this, as in so many other posts, she simultaneously evokes multiplicities of experience and location. Her writing style, filled with similes and metaphors, is also evident here. In posts like this, there is the simultaneous occurrence of both self-disclosed space, with specific references to cities or landmarks/locations in the city, as well as the occurrence of the spatial markers that Mitra mentions, to evoke memories, images, comparisons of other spaces. These spaces may not be specifically “lost” as Mitra indicates, but may be spaces/geographical locations that represent a different phase of the blogger’s life. OJ (of Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas) takes a step back from revealing the actual city where she lives but gives a more regional area as her location. This, she reveals to us, is the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a conglomeration of towns and cities clustered around the metros of San Francisco and San Jose. Though somewhat generalised, this disclosure nevertheless gives a good indication of location and also the social and cultural milieu in which she may live. In a post titled “Vivaldi’s Fifth,” she says: There are actually 5 seasons in America: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and California. We just keep that last one under wraps to avoid being lynched by the poor sods in the rest of the country ϑ (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Vivaldi’s Fifth”) The “we” here seems to imply an identification with a Californian identity. Other posts by this blogger indicate how strongly she identifies with her hometown, Bombay.21 And like Neha, she evokes, often in the same post, both a nostalgia and recreation of inhabited and lost locations. For instance: Life in California is the technology buzz, swirls of innovation, the thick of things. The beautiful Valley and Mt. Diablo and sting of the Pacific on browning skin. Sareed aunties and baby booms and fresh bhel, bhature, bhangra around the nook. Sunshine and summer and chilly evenings; poolside and wifi and stacks of free books. Life in California is an exhaled breath, a winding down, that feeling of calm. . . . Then comes one downpour in the city of my heart and the fickle spirit turns traitor again. (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Life in California”) The reader is drawn into the evocative description of her current location. She gives a glimpse into her life and the reader begins to identify with her and her life and vicariously experiences the beauty of her location. Then, at the end of several paragraphs of description, she throws in the punch line: “Then comes one downpour in the city of my heart and the fickle spirit turns traitor again.” The regular reader immediately knows what she means, because she refers fairly frequently to her hometown Mumbai (she calls is by its old name – Bombay) as the “city of my heart.” A first-time reader may

Transcontinental and transnational lives  107 not immediately understand, but a quick glance at the tags at the bottom of the post will give a clue – in this case, the post is tagged as “Bombay, California, Immigrant, Longing, Nostalgia.” This is an example of how “transmigrants” (Schiller et al., 1995) are “rooted” to their new locations while maintaining their links with “home.” In Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas, the blogger OJ refers directly to both her locations – the previous, and the present – as here: When I landed in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day three years ago, I was newly-married and eager to join my spouse. It rained for six straight weeks after my arrival, and even as I laughed about being duped by “sunny” California, I could not have felt more accepted by my new patch of sky . . . It may sound dramatic, but it’s true: a lack of stormy weather parches my soul. I become unreasonable, forgetting the potholes and waterlogged streets of Bombay, and unfavourably comparing my desertsurfaced skin to the dewy glow of a season run wild to the strains of Hariharan’s “Indian Rain”, the aroma of ginger tea, and the crunch of freshly-fried pakodas. I swear up and down that I’ll visit Bombay this very monsoon, I rail at the maddeningly blue skies, and even as the rest of America faces extreme, dangerous weather, I can only wallow in my drop-less fate as I watch the country of my birth drifting away on drain water. (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Rain Again”) Many of her posts are about her “home town” Mumbai/Bombay, which she refers to frequently in different posts, but most notably in a series of poems tagged “Bombay meri jaan.” In the following excerpt from the poem “Speak Not Of My City,” she speaks achingly of missing the city of her childhood: Speak Not Of My City I speak not of my city, Not because prettier climes lure me I speak not of my city, Not because I forget . . . In these ways and all these moments, I Silence the pain, Bury the longing under the pillows And sit on it. (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Speak Not Of My City”) The constant tug between home and host becomes evident in a post like this. Though seemingly comfortably settled in her current location, the separation from “home” seems to fill this blogger with anguish.

108  Transcontinental and transnational lives Mom Gone Mad (On a Wing and a Prayer) reveals her current location as a city in Norway and leaves the rest vague. She introduces herself thus: Cast: Indian Mom Viking Dad The spawn of their union – The Boy and the Toddler Action unfolds at our humble abode in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Sub-zero temperatures and the lack of sun make us vile and permanently groggy. The result of this is that our offspring often have their way with us, and you, my dear reader, will often be witness to their wily ways and our staggering incompetence. In between full time jobs, we are pretty much parenting on a wing and a prayer. (On a Wing and a Prayer; “About Me”) There is neither any indication as to the city or town where she lives, nor many clues to general regional location within the country. One accidental click on posts tagged Happiness lead me to a post of a family vacation that has a family picture – probably the only such picture on this blog. Another post also tagged happiness is about living by the sea on the south-west coast of Norway and the joy it brings her. In the ebb and flow of this tide lies my peace and solitude. (On a Wing and a Prayer: Blog post “Running away”) Looking for “spatial markers” as Mitra (2008) suggests is further complicated, because Norway is not a country that many Indians (including me) are very familiar with. Therefore, even cues that may be easily identifiable for a Scandinavian, or someone familiar with that area of the world, may be invisible to the Indian reader. Mitra argues that the spatial element of blogs is particularly relevant to the diaspora, as the cybernetic space of the blogosphere can help to re-create the real space left behind. He further adds that for the non-diasporic Indian, the blogosphere creates a virtual diasporic space that such readers can enter and experience. Thus the cybernetic space of these blogs become a “portal to places different” and allow the diasporic Indian to experience “home” and the non-diasporic Indian to experience a place other than “home.” In a post about the excitement of watching with her husband and children the Indian cricket team win the ICC World Cup, Mom Gone Mad writes: My son happily spent the entire day watching this thrilling match with me. I translated the Indian national anthem for him and I choked up with tears. He looked concerned and I had the chance to explain to him, in simple terms, how strange and difficult it is sometimes to not live in a country that possesses your heart so fully. How the smallest things

Transcontinental and transnational lives  109 can sometimes trigger a longing so powerful that it can knock you off balance. (On a Wing and a Prayer: Blog post “Today”) OJ ruminates on the meanings of home and asks her community of readers, This past month, I’ve been revisiting definitions of home. Specifically, how my notion of the word itself has changed, from an intensely familiar brick-and-mortar space bearing my history and tales of generations of family, to new lands: both geographical and synaptical, and finally to the person I come home to roost with each day. It’s a fascinating concept, this little word. . . . What do you think of when you think of home? (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Reheat, Serve”) I would further argue that while diasporic blogs may re-create relinquished spaces in cybernetic space, these blogs also create new spaces that do not exist either in the homeland or in the adopted land. Thus, these cybernetic spaces represent a “third space” that diasporic bloggers and their readers also inhabit along with the other two. Cyberspace has come to be imbued with the symbolic value of a “third space” for migrants to interact and engage in building upon existing relationships and forging new ones. The tension between an inhabited space and a relinquished space that is central to the migrant experience renders this “third space” as both significant and valuable (Price and Whitworth, 2004; Skop, 2014) Mitra also comments that the blogs can provide a sense of comfort and security that the real (in this case, “host” country) space may not provide. In the case of blogs of the diaspora, he further argues that blogs can help re-create a space (i.e. geographical location) that has been left behind. My observation draws me to conclude that the reality is far more complex than that. While it may be true that blogs can offer a sense of comfort by re-creating a lost location such as the country of origin for a diasporic population, the blogs I have studied indicate that while this may be a small part of the motivation, the bloggers and their readers are actually building community and identity that goes beyond the mere longing for a lost location and creating completely new spaces to inhabit. Rather than create a mere facsimile of host or home, the blogosphere may actually be contributing to the creation of a whole new territory of belonging that goes beyond the relinquished geographical spaces and in fact creates a unique “virtualbut-real” terrain to inhabit. My conversations with them reiterated this mixed sense of belonging: Where is home? Calicut used to be “home” and that has changed . . . coming back to Norway now feels like “home”. It’s constantly in flux. . . . When you have a transnational or diasporic background, the

110  Transcontinental and transnational lives sense of home becomes about people, it stops being (so much) about place. Sometimes a “feeling” can make even a strange place home. (Mom Gone Mad: Interview) After I finished graduate school in the US, I went back for a while (to live in India). In those years I rediscovered a love for Bombay . . . I did a lot of writing at that time, rediscovering my city, myself . . . I love California too. I write about that too. Still, there’s always a sense of displacement . . . always a narrative of “we left” . . . historical baggage, you know. . . . It could be a personal perspective (because I’m Parsi), I’m not sure. (OJ: Interview)

Fluid identities in a global world Inextricably linked to the study of migrating peoples is the understanding of identities. Scholars are increasingly suggesting a move away from this “static” meaning and argue for an expanded meaning that includes a “wide range of fluid, spatial, cultural and political locations” (Walsh, 2003, p. 3 in Thapan, 2005, p. 25). Stuart Hall (1990) describes identities as fluid and changing rather than fixed and absolute. He points out that cultural identities are “unstable points of identification” that are embedded within the larger frameworks/processes of history and politics. Hall sees cultural identity as dynamic and ever evolving. He notes that we cannot think of it as “already accomplished fact,” nor is it transparent or unproblematic. On the contrary, he asks us to think of it as a “production” that is always in process and never complete (1990, p. 222). He goes on to outline two conceptualisations of cultural identity predicated on points of similarity and points of difference. First, cultural identities draw on shared histories and reconstructions of a glorious past. As part of the colonial project was to denigrate and render native histories as valueless,22 this conceptualisation of cultural identity played an important role in post-colonial struggles. However, he points out that perhaps it was not as simple a matter as “rediscovery,” but rather, a matter of “production,” since “such images of representation offers a way of imposing an imaginary coherence on the experience of dispersal and fragmentation” (1990, p. 224). A second conceptualisation of cultural identity addresses the points of difference, “the ruptures and discontinuities” which render each (diasporic) experience unique.23 Cultural identity does not exist on its own, transcending place, time, history and culture, but is a matter of “becoming” as well as “being.” Hall is articulating a different way of thinking about cultural identity: We have been trying to theorise identity as constituted not outside, but within representation; . . . not as a second-order mirror held up to reflect

Transcontinental and transnational lives  111 what already exists, but as that form of representation which is able to constitute us as new kinds of subjects, and thereby enable us to discover places from which to speak. (1990, p. 236, emphasis mine) While Hall is speaking here of Caribbean and Black cinema, his thoughts on the matter apply equally to other forms of communication and representation as well. Migration and diaspora have tended to be studied primarily as historical and socio-economic processes, but since cultural identity is inextricably linked to our journeys and the way we come to see ourselves, representation (both self-representation and otherwise) becomes a significant aspect of the study of diaspora. Talking about her “transnational identity” and a sense of displacement, Mom Gone Mad, the blogger of On a Wing and a Prayer explains: Because I grew up outside of India, I always felt like an outsider. Even when I went to college in India. It’s how you think too . . . this matter of not being “Indian” enough . . . you can try to assimilate all you want, you’ll never be one of “them” . . . being constantly judged for being Indian or not Indian . . . Identity – wise, you become a seeker. (Mom Gone Mad: Interview) As much as identity is fluid and changeable, one must recognise that there is no such thing as a single identity. Rayaprol points out that early work on the South Asian diaspora tended to focus only on ethnic identities, but in fact a South Asian immigrant contends with intersecting identities that include gender and nationality as well as regional, linguistic, and religious identities (1997, 2011). She refers to Fisher’s analogy of a multi-layered cake to describe the multiple identities that South Asian immigrants have to contend with (Fisher, 1980 in Rayaprol, 1997). Despite the heterogeneity of identities and experience, we cannot forget that the state plays a role in regulating these identities. So while we recognize that identities, in this case transnational identities are fluid and heterogeneous, we must also acknowledge the power of the state to regulate these complex identities. . . . The effect of the past is inevitably present in the construction and experience of identity but this is not a fixed, “factual” past. There is a relation to this past and women engage in a constant negotiation with it thereby, playing a vital role in the reconstruction of cultural identity in the host society. (Thapan, 2005, p. 26) The bloggers in this sample are self-reflexive and articulate about their own identities and seem to approach the notion with a clear-eyed awareness of

112  Transcontinental and transnational lives the overlapping nature of identities. For instance, Neha of Within/Without confronts the issue directly in the “About Me” section of her blog: The author of this blog lives in London, UK. City-hopping, triviagathering, identity-hunting. . . . I once tried writing about the cities in my life. Metaphors from different languages and cultures begin to drip off one’s forehead. In Hindi, there is a wonderful idiom that sums up the notion of identity. Dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka na ghat ka. Trans. Like the washerman’s dog – who belongs neither at home nor to the river bank. (Within/Without: “About Me”) OJ of Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas talks of her intersecting identities and the many “labels” she embraces: Culturally, I’m the oddball who knows her Brahms but not Bally Sagoo, . . . Geographically, I am surrounded by friends and family who think Bandra is the end of the world . . . . Socio-economically, I’m a teeny-tiny sliver of people who aren’t a business community, aren’t nouveau riche, aren’t aristocracy, aren’t old money. . . . Politically, I’m mid-left on social issues and middle-path on economic ones, while my milieu resembles the Indian version of Republican senators. So I write. In the hope that I can leave my labels at the door, divorce my history, blur my “identity” and be just me. (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Minority Report”) Mom Gone Mad of On a Wing and a Prayer presents her issue in her characteristic style, relating a personal anecdote with both sarcasm and irony while rejecting being “labelled” in stereotypical ways. In a post titled “Early Morning Cuppa WTF,” she addresses the multiplicities of identities and people’s limiting notions of what it means. She describes meeting a “South Indian/Sri Lankan looking mother” at her son’s school and introduces herself as a fellow South Indian. I tell her that I am a Malayali, who can manage a few filmy phrases in the neighbouring states vernacular – Tamil. “Oh”, she says dismissively, “you look like such a North Indian. I wouldn’t have imagined that you were a Southie.” I stare at her, gobsmacked. Looking like El Grande Twit. Ms. Thanjavur, who is all about great conversational antenna, goes on: “You have straight, coloured hair and the way you dress and all . . . I was sure you were from up North. And you know how it is. . . .”she tapers off in a conspiratory tone with a huge smile.

Transcontinental and transnational lives  113 Shot pans to where I stand, still in El Grande Twit zone, clearly unaware of how it is. “Oh, you know . . . with these Northies, it can be okay sometimes and then it simppply won’t work out. Anyway, its soo good to meet another South Indian.” Ms. Thanjavur glides away. Mallu-with-straightened-hair-and-apparently-North-Indian-air left feeling compartmentalized, categorized, judged and incredibly pissed off. (On a Wing and a Prayer: blog post Morning Cuppa WTF”)

The transnational subject Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities” is the idea that groups of people can form a community based on perceived commonality, not necessarily based on a fixed or stable geographical location. For instance, Anderson (1983) argues that a “nation” is in fact an imagined community or a social construct whose members perceive themselves to be a part of that community. Extending this idea, Arjun Appadurai (1990) proposes five “scapes” that could be considered the “building blocks” of imagined communities. He coins the terms ethnoscape, mediascape, technoscape, finanscape, and ideoscape to underline the fact that culture, society, politics, and economy, are all important factors of what we call globalisation. The term ethnoscapes particularly indicates the significance that Appadurai gives to the study and understanding of the movement of peoples across the globe. Braziel and Mannur (2003, p. 15) contend that the social, cultural, psychic, and experiential facets of the diaspora is a fundamentally “human phenomenon” differentiating it from transnationalism, which also includes the impersonal flows of capital, goods, ideas, images, and information. Given the rapid changes in technology, travel, and communication across boundaries, the term transnational acquires new meaning and importance. Transnationalism is therefore a more useful term when referring to the mix of social, cultural, economic factors that contribute to diasporic identity in the context of the globalisation of capital and labour. The transnational subject, then, is one who is able to locate herself (or himself) within this global flow of “scapes,” at once familiar with multiple geographies, cultures, and political landscapes. Rajan and Sharma (2007) use the term new cosmopolitanisms to describe these transnationals, explaining: People who blur the edges of home and abroad by continuously moving physically, culturally, and socially, and by selectively using globalized forms of travel, communication, languages, and technology to position themselves in motion between at least two homes, sometimes even through dual forms of citizenship, but always in multiple locations (through travel, or through cultural, racial, or linguistic modalities). (2006, p. 2)

114  Transcontinental and transnational lives In short, there is a need to look at diaspora both in its particularities, by locating it in very specific historical, geographical, cultural contexts as well as within the context of larger frameworks of understanding such as economic, political, and social conditions worldwide. Transnational migration is the process by which immigrants forge and sustain simultaneous multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement. In identifying a new process of migration, scholars of transnational migration emphasize the ongoing and continuing ways in which current-day immigrants construct and reconstitute their simultaneous embeddedness in more than one society. (Schiller et al., 1995, p. 48) A close reading of the blogs examined in my study shows that these bloggers are quite conscious of their identities as transnational subjects. The selfconscious positioning is not artificial or forced, yet it becomes clear that not only is the blogger aware of this identity but also she is simultaneously both displaying and engaging with it. Mom Gone Mad plays with the idea of the transnational subject versus the “national” subject in a post titled “#1 Annoying Allegation” in which she responds with acerbic humour to comments she gets during visits to India about how “Western/Norwegian” she has become. Oh, but you are so westernised and you’ve become a Norwegian lady now. . . .  . . . Really? What gave me away? My underwear with the Norwegian flag on it? . . . And what has made me Norwegian? Do I speak my mother tongue with a trace of Norwegian accent? Or any accent at all? Do I vaunt unnecessarily over Norwegian life? Do I shrug my shoulders at the dismaying ways of fellow Indians and relentlessly diss the country of my birth? Do I complain about the roads, the water or the service in hotels and shops? No. I take it for what it is. I can be uncritical about the things that don’t really matter and critical about those things that do. How Indian I feel has nothing to do with the colour of my passport or where it was assigned. Or whether I wear capri pants and a short top and disagree with your parochial views, while leaving my hair unoiled. (On a Wing and a Prayer: Blog post “#1 Annoying Allegation”) Grewal (2005) seeks to unpack the ways in which many different global processes contribute to the making of transnationalism. She identifies the concepts of “universal” and “global” as specifically constructed dominant conceptions within a transnational framework that includes technologies, subjects, and ethical practices. Calling these “transnational connectivities,” she places them within a discourse of empire and power and examines the

Transcontinental and transnational lives  115 ways in which these connectivities produce gendered and racialised bodies and subjects. She further highlights a connection to feminism and argues that it is vital to understand contemporary feminism’s inextricable link to neoliberal consumer culture. In the following discussion, I will draw from Grewal’s explication of the transnational subject and the practices of power and knowledge that are implicated in it to contextualise the narratives that appear in this sample of blogs within a larger world context. Within this framework of power and knowledge, it becomes important to examine the process of cosmopolitan knowledge formation and recognise that even feminist and progressive knowledge producers (i.e. academics, activists) are embedded within a neoliberal framework but “can, as changing, contingent subjects, not be incapacitated by this neoliberalism” (2005, p. 4). The diasporic bloggers can also be considered knowledge producers of a kind, albeit perhaps less influential than the activists and academics that Grewal is referring to. As writers who command a certain respect in their virtual communities, their position as cosmopolitan knowledge producers can be considered valid and significant. Further, as voluntary (we presume) migrants, they are definitely working and living within a “neoliberal condition.” Within this neoliberal globalised economy, the “visible” contemporary Indian migrant represents a knowledge worker primarily in the “high-tech” sector, whose paid labour is cheaper than that of his or her domestically based counterpart, thereby providing the corporations who hire them with greater profits.24 Grewal points out that in “understanding such migrations, we need also to probe why certain groups of people rather than others came to constitute these workers” (2005, p. 5).25 The English-speaking, middleand upper-class Indian immigrant is seen as a desirable migrant because of a certain combination of educational qualifications, technical skills, and linguistic abilities that are considered appropriate and useful (both by corporations and governmental bodies) in the global, neoliberal economy. One can speculate that a significant portion of the diasporic bloggers in my study are in fact from just such a background, and their privileged geographical locations (United States, United Kingdom, Norway) are, in part, proof of their participation in the global, neoliberal economy. In her analysis of Indian novelists writing in English, Grewal makes the point that the three writers – Chitra Bannerjee, Amitav Ghosh, and Bharti Mukherjee – while displaying a contemporary multicultural cosmopolitanism, are themselves the inheritors of a previous colonial cosmopolitanism facilitated by British colonial policies in pre-Independent, nineteenth-century India. As descendants of the Westernised, English-educated Bengali middle class fostered by British policies to function as intermediaries between the “native” Indian population and the ruling British classes, these writers are poised perfectly between a local rootedness and a cosmopolitan sensibility that is part of their historic/ancestral heritage. While there were many other groups similarly placed in colonial history, it is perhaps not entirely coincidental that many successful Indian writers (of English) are descendants of an elite, English-educated Bengali upper class

116  Transcontinental and transnational lives and middle class.26 That demographic generated a large number of people who became influential writers, poets, thinkers. Grewal argues: The entire class of English-educated Indians came to have a colonial cosmopolitanism that inserted its members into circuits of knowledge about Britain and India that were not previously open to them. This cosmopolitanism, although quite different from the postcolonial cosmopolitanism of the 1990s was nevertheless a condition of possibility for that later articulation. (2005, p. 40) I would argue that these bloggers also emerge from similar “conditions of possibility” that not only provides them with the social and cultural capital (education, linguistic fluency, mobility, etc.) to do what they are doing but also might provide an ancestral history of cosmopolitanism that, though very different from their own post-colonial (possibly neoliberal) transnationalism, nevertheless acts as a possible precondition for this positioning. Their ease and fluency with writing in English is obvious, with several examples of the way they almost seem to play with the language. Both their fluency and facility with the English language, as well as their educational backgrounds, are indicators of a certain cultural and social capital that they may have inherited or have worked extremely hard to attain. Further, their access to technology and the financial privileges that come from working within the global economy clearly position them within the framework of the neo-liberal economy. Concrete examples of the social/cultural capital that these bloggers may possess are somewhat hard to identify, yet it is possible to “tease out” (Mitra, 2008) some examples of this. For instance, Orange Jammies of Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas, refers frequently to her Parsi background. The Parsi community in India are a historically cosmopolitan and “Westernised” demographic and this shows itself in many little ways in the blog.27 OJ writes a post about attending Western classical music concerts in Bombay. Titled “Love in the Age of Debussy,” she writes: Among the many posts I have shared about the city of my heart, I have failed to mention a key experience: music by the warm glittering bay. I don’t quite remember when I first stepped into the NCPA. Perhaps I was 6. Or younger. . . . Music by the classical masters formed a backdrop to my life, and for this gift, I cannot give enough thanks. The morning dress-up ritual for school was punctuated by the gentle strains of Strauss’s Blue Danube (keeps tension at bay, Daddy used to say) and I may have developed a Pavlovian response to Sunday dhandar, fried fish, and Mozart. . . . It was never just about the music. There were rituals, and unspoken codes, and if you were lucky (?) enough to be born and bred into them, then you’d pick them up effortlessly, sailing through the crimson-carpeted hallways with your pearls and

Transcontinental and transnational lives  117 grandma’s handbag, knowing not to clap between movements, and acknowledging other regulars with air kisses and tilts of the head. . . . You would know the insiders from the one-offs, who, clad in rani pink or bright orange, would shuffle unsurely towards the bar and food area, not knowing that the cold coffee and chicken sandwiches were the best things on the menu . . . (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Love in the Age of Debussy,” emphasis mine) In this passage, the blogger is clearly referring to the social and cultural capital that she possesses. Her family background, her childhood experiences, the “insider” status she draws on, all point to her cosmopolitan roots and serve as impetus to her current transnational status. Similarly, NV of Within/Without indicates through small ways what her background might be. Neha writes about food, music, film, and art. She is an amateur photographer and a poet, and her blog is peppered with examples of both. Unlike OJ, she doesn’t as clearly articulate her cosmopolitanism in specific words, but it’s there, sometimes hidden, and sometimes visible, in the texture of her writing. She moves easily between Hindi, Tamil, and English (the blog is in English, but her writing displays an ease with all three languages). Carnatic music, Bob Dylan, and Bollywood songs all form part of her repertoire. She talks of overflowing bookshelves, a love of reading, and posts examples of her poetry and “fiction fragments.” An example: In his eyes, she sees a deep yearning for the comfort filter coffee promises. The swirl of froth lifting anxieties, and a minor advancement in contentment. They buy a steel filter set, and have an argument about the exact proportion of chicory and coffee powder. Their argument oozes love and nostalgia, as they evoke the ghosts of grandparents, the edicts of great aunts and throw in some knowledge of basic chemistry. They are full of love and caffeine for a week. Their days start with hot water trickling through coffee powder. Their evenings uplifted. (Within/Without: Blog post “Fiction Fragment -His Love for Filter Coffee”) Here, in a more subtle way, are indications of the ease and fluency of the English language, and by extension, the cosmopolitan education that the blogger has. Yet her rootedness in the local is established, as she describes eloquently, a quintessentially regional (South Indian) ritual of “filter coffee.” It is harder to identify Mom Gone Mad (MGM) of On a Wing and a Prayer as historically inheriting a cosmopolitan outlook, because we get very few personal details of that kind from reading her blog. However, her writing itself offers several indicators with regard to her current cosmopolitanism/ transnationalism. References to literature and art and world music show her interest and familiarity with them. Her writing is simultaneously both

118  Transcontinental and transnational lives elegant and casual and manages to remain thoughtful despite the sarcastic tone she adopts. The writing seems to convey a sense of her cosmopolitan outlook and background. For example: For years, I equated the loving, stable relationship with the death of all that is exciting. For years, I did myself in, trying to reach some unattainable high, like a junkie who is sure that the next great hit is right around the corner. I shipwrecked myself repeatedly without much thought or respect. . . . The problem in mindlessly seeking the passionate, the volatile and the good fight is manifold in my eyes . . . The years are going to take their toll. It will get tough before it gets easy. At several points, we will all hopefully spring-clean and de-clutter our emotional spheres. . . . Wanting to sit on a porch swing with them, swinging aimlessly, being perfectly boring, dreaming of places we will go (if only in your head), while that cup of coffee goes cold in your hands. And he looks at you with ill-concealed affection as if to say, “Typical!” We should all let ourselves want some of that. (On a Wing and a Prayer: Blog post “Fight club”) The posts are filled with references to books and music, as well as travel, that all indicate a cosmopolitan life. My interview with her further confirmed this reading. My childhood was spent in England. And then high school and college were in India – Calicut and Bombay. I went to study in Australia, where I met my husband, and came back to live here on the south-west coast of Norway. (Mom Gone Mad: Interview) These examples from the blogs exhibit an ease with the trappings of transnationalism, the “rituals and unspoken codes” of a cosmopolitanism that one may be “born and bred into,” or that education, travel, and experience in a globalised, transnational world has conferred upon them, or some combination of the two. Grewal argues that the many and varied processes that together contributed to what we today call “global” include migrations and diasporas, nationalisms and ethnicities, multinational corporations and a global consumer culture. So rather than create or produce state or national subjects, “these processes caused the emergence of heterogeneous subjects who created identities in relation to the nation-state as well as to new kinds of internationalisms” (2005, p. 10). The “practice” of transnationalism While there can be many ways of approaching the concept of transnationalism, at its most basic, it can be broken down into a set of adopted

Transcontinental and transnational lives  119 or inherited practices. Grewal explains it as a combination of practices and behaviours – cultural, social, political, economic – that are adopted/ imbibed and practised. She uses the example of the “American dream” and how new immigrants work towards achieving it to illustrate this concept. She describes how as new Indian immigrants arrive in the country, older Indian immigrants act as social, cultural, and economic mediators for these new “FOB” arrivals.28 These older immigrants introduce and explain the understanding of what it means to be an “American” and then facilitate and mediate the adoption of practices or sets of practices that go towards articulating and manifesting the American dream.29 Particularly, they play a significant role in re-articulating the “American dream” within an ethnic, multicultural framework, “creating new discourses of success in America, and thus make it possible to be immigrants, Indians, and ethnic and American subjects at the same time” (2005, p. 7). Those who are adept at accepting and adopting (either consciously or unconsciously) these overlapping and multiple identities become transnational subjects. The transnational subject, then, while being comfortably able to straddle multiple identity-descriptors simultaneously, is also implicated in the social, political, cultural, and economic practices she or he adopts as part of that transnationalism. In addition to an ability to embrace and straddle multiple identities with ease, these “transnationals” often also practise behaviours that Grewal would consider markers of transnational identity. Indeed, Grewal would argue that it is these very practices that come together to form/create this identity and that without these practices, there is no transnationalism. Since contemporary transnationalism is inextricably linked to globalisation and the neo-liberal economy, adopted economic practices could be considered one of the most important markers of transnationalism. A child’s birthday, for instance, might be a mix of religious, social, and economic practices (visit to a religious place, a party, and presents). Such adaptations show how multiple practices are enmeshed together, and the mixed cultural markers of “Home” (temple, Indian food, Indian clothing, etc.) and “Host” (birthday cake, multiple presents, etc.) represent how consumption patterns are implicated in the process of becoming “American.” In my sample of blogs, the two most significant ways that these practices manifest themselves is through references to travel and food. Travel for pleasure (and also for work) is an adopted economic practice that is both social and cultural within a neo-liberal/transnational framework. References to other places that the bloggers have travelled to either on holiday or on work represent a distinctly transnational approach to geography. The “understanding” of other cultures and geographies was a colonial project,30 and travel in a globalised world becomes an act of consumption in itself. Embedded in the idea of travel are all the accompanying consumer choices that go with it – choice of transportation, hotels, restaurants, and shopping (Munt, 1994; Baranowski and Furlough, 2001). The bloggers might refer to travel to different destinations, either in passing, while talking about something else, or directly, as in a description of a

120  Transcontinental and transnational lives new city or location. Similarly, food choices are a strong marker of transnationalism. A growth of interest in different kinds of foods, cuisines, and recipes other than one’s own are representative for adopted cultural practices of transnationalism (Hollows, 2003; Cairns, Johnston, and Baumann, 2010). Visiting new restaurants or trying out new ingredients and recipes, along with one’s social group, transforms the merely cultural into the social. And, finally, the economic aspects of buying and spending for these new food-related interests and pursuits bring the economic element into the mix. In this blog sample, I was able to find fleeting glimpses of other consumer practices, but these were rare and hard to find. This is in keeping with the keen focus on the larger themes of diasporic experience and social justice on which the bloggers tend to concentrate. In articulating a transnational and largely intellectual identity, they rarely talk about consumer goods and other purely economic practices, yet in their manifestation of the transnational, their economic practices become nevertheless visible.31 In some posts, the bloggers seemingly traverse multiple geographical locations and cultural underpinnings in the space of a single post. For example, a post on Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas titled “Tea in San Francisco, Lunch in London, Supper in Paris,” describes a travel experience that took the blogger from San Francisco to Paris via London in a day. A description of a weekend in Paris: Come walk/sail/ride with us through the city of amour: But would I bore you by droning on about the touristy usuals: gawking at the Tour Eiffel, hopping on and off the Batobus, elbowing Chanel-crazed Chinese tourists at the Galleries Lafayette, whispering up at the Rose windows of the Notre Dame, taking in views of Paris from Sacre Coeur, downing one too many nutella crepes, cruising the Seine, nibbling at escargot and pain au chocolat, pinching oneself in disbelief at the Louvre, traipsing down the Champs Elysees? (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Paris Amour”) A quick look at the posts tagged travel on Within/Without shows that the blogger talks about Chennai and Sultanpur, with the same familiarity as Budapest and Berlin. Similarly, Mom Gone Mad displays an easy ability to step between not just transcontinental locations but also transcontinental cultures as she negotiates an inter-racial/inter-cultural marriage. As part of being “tagged” in a blogging contest, she is required to list seven reasons for being “awesome.” One of the reasons she gives is the following: I am awesome because I speak four languages without a trace of accent. And by the time I am sixty, I will speak at least 8. I have an unusual ear

Transcontinental and transnational lives  121 for languages and dialects and pick them up almost by osmosis. I often get asked why I have an “English accent” and I have learnt to reply that it’s a gift . . . I can handle the varying dialects of all five languages. It gives me a huge kick that I can perform Ibsen in English and Norsk. (On a Wing and a Prayer: Blog post “Awesome? Who? Me?”) OJ recounts other travel-related experiences in different posts – to places close by, like the Santa Cruz mountains, and to places farther away, like Spain. About her visit to Spain, she writes: Costa Del Sol has a thriving weekend market that hawks everything from handmade Italian leather bags to kitchen implements, local music to fresh vegetables. We spent a fun morning people-watching, puppy-petting, jostling amidst strollers and sunburned Brits, acquiring adorable and unnecessary things, then traipsed off to do justice to The Full Irish breakfast, in honor of my aunt. Just so dinner wouldn’t feel ignored and sob in a corner, we danced, supped, and toasted the night away at a performance by the enthralling Divo & Divas ensemble. The sky glimmered over the crash of waves, candles made shadows sway, flavors teased the palate in their own seduction sideshow, and I basked in the bonhomie of old family friends who last met me as a teenager-on-fertilizer. (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “So Spain”) The evocative description vicariously transports the reader to the foreign locale. This is where the transnational subject and the Third World subject collide, as the blogger recounts the experience the following day of being denied entry into Gibraltar because of her Indian passport.32 She recounts the (possibly racist) encounter with dry humour and wry acceptance, but not without flagging it as a significant transnational moment. In the blog Within/Without, blogger Neha writes about a visit to Budapest for the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit, and about Malta where she goes on vacation, and Delhi and Benaras where she goes during visits back to India. All of these posts show on some level the inextricable linking between economic, political, and cultural/social choices and practices. Democratic citizenship, liberal politics, and transnationalism Grewal describes how the practice of transnationalism implies a set of progressive political choices, creating a connection between human rights, political progressiveness and transnationalism. Accordingly, within a context of neoliberal transnationalism, “the relationship between gendered identity, feminism, democratic citizenship, and consumer culture become apparent” (2005, p. 26). Similarly, Gajjala (2013) reminds us that the formation of digital diasporas happens against the backdrop of transnational business networks, globalised markets, and the unique features of new digital

122  Transcontinental and transnational lives technologies. Both Grewal and Gajjala point out that the new technologies that enable transnational networks (of people, groups, organisations, or corporations) are owned or controlled by multinational corporations. With regard to gendered identities, it becomes important to examine how the concept of “choice” is implicated in liberal democratic discourse as well as in contemporary consumer cultures. This notion is further extended to contemporary feminist approaches. Grewal explains: Thus the production of feminist and female subjects through discourses of freedom and unfreedom within transnational consumer cultures needs to be interrogated, especially with relation to the concept of “choice” that became a key discourse of neo-liberal feminism. (2005, p. 28) The blogs in this sample all display a liberal politics. Like the academics and activists that Grewal refers to, these bloggers can also be considered – to an extent – to be “feminist knowledge producers,” as they use their educational background, their facility with the language, and their online spaces as virtual soapboxes to display, discuss, and highlight a liberal/progressive political stance. It is possible to read the blogger’s politics on the basis of some of the things they choose to write about. For example, a post on Within/Without offers an ironic and amused commentary on a news item about an anti-immigration Australian politician who moves to the United Kingdom because she’s “had enough” of the Asian immigrants. Oh, the severe, languishing irony in this story. In short, the daughter of an immigrant turns into a rabid anti-immigration politician. And then gets tired of the country she lives in and moves to another, because she’s looking for peace and contentment. (Of all the countries you can find peace and contentment in – if it is at all possible – she chooses the UK). . . . Oh oh. Does she know how many “Asians” live in Britain? (Within/Without: Blog post “Immigration, Peace and Contentment”) Similarly, other posts tagged under politics, express the blogger’s thoughts (and therefore provide an indication of her politics) on news stories and political issues of the day, often using personal anecdotes and experiences as an entry point to reflect on various aspects of the issue. For example, in a post titled “On being Offended and Taslima Nasrin,” she refers to a news item she has read about local MLAs attacking author Taslima Nasrin at a book launch event organised by local journalists. She writes: People have the right to protest. You don’t like a book, don’t buy it. Encourage others not to buy it. But interfering in someone else’s right to

Transcontinental and transnational lives  123 read, write, or speak just doesn’t cut it for me. That’s not protest, that’s plain old intimidation. (Within/Without: Blog post “On being offended and Taslima Nasrin”) Another example of how she connects a personal encounter/experience with a larger political positioning is visible in a post about the “Pizza Prophet.” She begins by describing a soapbox orator she encounters at Hyde Park who is expounding the virtues of starting a new religion. One of the founding tenets of this new religion, he opines, is the tabooing of a food item. He notes that since beef and pork are already “taken,” a new food item will have to be considered. The audience offers various suggestions, among them pizza and sausages. The blogger then recounts a conversation she has with a cab driver later, who professes to her his affiliation with a pro-white, antiimmigration political party (BNP). He also tells her she should go back to where she came from. She writes: I gave the cabbie a tip anyway. He said “I don’t mind people like you here. It’s the others I want out”. I asked him if he meant he didn’t mind people who gave him tips. He had no response. Thanks to the traffic jam I grilled him for a full five minutes about why he was a BNP supporter. The scary bit was that he didn’t know. Had no idea. There was rhetoric and more rhetoric. He might as well have believed the Pizza Prophet. But he wouldn’t want to give up on his pizza or sausages I guess. He then told me (he) liked Indian curry. There’s a joke in there somewhere, I am yet to figure it out though. (Within/Without: Blog post “BNP and the pizza prophet”) Mom Gone Mad expresses her liberal politics in a different way. She too begins a post by referring to a personal incident or experience, and then instead of veering off into a discussion about the politics/ideology inherent, she stays with the anecdote, relating with characteristic self-deprecating humour the entire episode with reactions and responses from all involved. There is no overt discussion or declaration of a political/ideological position; rather, the blogger makes an assumption that her readers understand what her position is on the issue. For example, in a post about promoting awareness of child sexual abuse, she begins by describing the childhood experience of a friend and then talking about how to approach this reality in one’s own approach to parenting. What a wonderful world it would be, if we could take for granted, our child’s safety. Realistically though, the odds are stacked against us. Depravity is often unmatched in cunning and I doubt my ability to protect my own children a 100%. We can and should talk about preventing it, but it becomes just as important to widen the discourse to talk about dealing with that reality we don’t want to imagine.

124  Transcontinental and transnational lives There are some days when I look at their beautiful open faces, their lanky, tanned bodies and it breaks my heart that I can never fully protect them. (On a Wing and a Prayer: Blog post “The Usual Suspects”) Both bloggers described their liberal stance towards women’s and children’s rights as well as their general attitudes to social justice and human rights during my interviews with them. For example: I am very progressive. Even though I don’t openly espouse it (in my writing), it does come through I think. You don’t have to say “I’m going to write about this,” you start writing about something and (your point) comes through. (Mom Gone Mad: Interview) OJ, of Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas, also writes about similar issues. Her posts address awareness around issues like domestic violence, child sexual abuse, and women’s rights. She also writes about things more esoteric, giving us a glimpse not only of her interests, but also of an intellectual thought process. For example: American rhetoric is littered with war words on a daily basis. The nation’s lexicon is so charged with conflict – the war against smoking, the battle against cancer, the fight to save a marriage – that every act, no matter how innocuous, is verbally militarized. So deeply entrenched are these cultural references to violence, that those raised in the country barely appear to notice. Is there anyone else who sees this? I can’t be the only one! Why don’t we question it? Is there any literature or research on this that would help me understand the phenomenon? (Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas: Blog post “Opposes/Supposes”) Elaborating on how certain choices contribute to the construction of a liberal, feminist politics, Grewal (2005) explains: Other ways of conceptualizing progressive feminism, especially ones that focus on international and “global” issues, use the idea of “having choices” as the opposite of “being oppressed.” From activism against domestic violence to activism in favor of reproductive rights, the availability of “choice” was increasingly taken as representing feminist agency. Critiques of these approaches from radical and post-structural feminisms were also raised in the 1990s, although the powerful circulation of this concept continued as well. (2005, p. 28)

Transcontinental and transnational lives  125 As Grewal indicates, there is a considerable literature that interrogates how a liberal feminist politics is implicated in the neo-liberal, transnational economy and needs to be problematised accordingly. This extremely preliminary exploration of diasporic blogs barely scratches the surface of such an interrogation. Nevertheless, the content of these blogs indicate that they are a rich resource for exploration and that a deeper study has the potential for furthering our understanding of the positions these diasporic bloggers occupy within a transnational context.

Conclusion This study of personal blogs written by women of the Indian diaspora reveals a thriving network of articulate voices speaking out about their experiences and relating them to larger themes of migration, displacement, and cosmopolitanism. There has been considerable scholarship on the diaspora that examines the peculiarly conservative ideologies of many diasporic populations. Studies of online religious forums by these scholars have revealed for instance, that many Hindutva websites and online forums are established, financed, and maintained by members (mostly male) of the Indian diaspora (Lal, 1999, 2014). Mishra (2007) points out that contrary to idealised notions of the diaspora as symbolising the future nation-state, some of the most exclusionary and reactionary rhetoric has come from them. Even as the hypermobility of postmodern capital makes borders more porous and ideas get immediately disseminated via websites and search engines, diasporic subjects have shown a remarkably anti-modern capacity for ethnic absolutism. In part this is because diasporas can now recreate their fantasy structures of homeland even as they live elsewhere. (Mishra, 2007, p. 17) Women have long been cast in the role of upholders of tradition, and the responsibility of transmitting cultural and religious practices to the next generation often falls to them. And for the diasporic woman who most often assumes the task of child-rearing alone, the pressure is perhaps even greater. These personal, online spaces and virtual communities reveal that these women are feminist and politically liberal (albeit with all the caveats that come with it) and not afraid to say so. In some sense, then, these personal blogs represent an oppositional progressive narrative to the conservative – and regressive – public online spaces that occupy the academic conversation. While not overstating the value of these progressive spaces as oppositional to conservative forums, it would be a mistake to under-estimate the significances that these experiential, liberal, socio-politically engaged personal narratives bring to the table.

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Notes 1 The three blogs introduced in this chapter were all last accessed on April 24, 2019. All blog posts quoted are archived in the blog archives. Interviews with the bloggers were conducted in 2015 over the course of several interactions by email, phone, and/or Google chat. 2 Ong (2003) notes this difference in the context of the Chinese diaspora, while noting that this could be true for other diasporic populations as well. 3 The indentured workers were made to sign an “agreement” (the word was corrupted to become “girmit,” hence girmitiyas) that required them to work for a contracted period in exchange for a ticket in the hold of a cargo ship. Many left families behind with the idea of returning at some time in the future. However, the system was designed to burden the worker with so much debt that he or she would be unable to leave, thereby effectively enslaving them for the rest of their lives. Indian diasporic populations descended from these original indentured workers now live in over 70 countries and number almost 2 million. See, for example: Kishore (2010), and Mishra (1996). 4 See, for example: Sengupta (2008), and Munro (2013). 5 Racially discriminating laws that came into effect after the arrival of the Sikh farmers in California in the early 1900s forced them to cut off from their families back home and forge marital ties with the Mexican women who were also working as migrant labour in the same areas. These interfaith marriages (the Mexican women were Catholic) led to the creation of a unique diasporic community that was not only inter-faith, but also inter-racial and inter-cultural. Descendants of these original pioneering migrant settlers continue to live and prosper in California’s Central Valley. See Leonard (2010). 6 See, for example: Palriwala and Uberoi (2008). Also Sinha-Kerkhoff (2005). 7 See, for example: Bhachu (1991) and Voigt-Graf (2003). 8 Bahadur’s (2013) work on Guyanese Indians is remarkable in this area for its archival research, using the “absences” in colonial records to tease out the important role played by women migrants. 9 In addition to being discriminatory, scholars have noted that this is also inaccurate positioning, as many single women also migrated seeking opportunity and/ or escaping persecution. 10 I use the terms public and private cautiously, acknowledging the considerable feminist scholarship that critiques this dichotomy (as discussed in the previous chapter). My attempt here is not to reinforce the stereotype but to extend the critique into the area of new media studies and observe the ways in which these blogs challenge that simplistic binary. 11 See, for example: Shameem (1990), Niranjana (2006), and Bahadur (2013). 12 See, for example: Gajjala et al. (2008) and Mitra and Gajjala (2008) on race and queer subjectivities in the Indian digital diaspora; Lal (2014) and Scheifinger (2008) on online Hinduism and the Indian diaspora. Ranganathan’s (2009, 2011) work on the Tamil diaspora and its online support of Eelam is another interesting study of digital diasporas in the South Asian context. 13 www.littleindia.com/life/2593-wanna-be-a-blogging-star.html. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 14 http://masalamommas.com/2012/01/05/where-all-south-asian-mom-bloggers/. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 15 http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/. Archives available at URL. The title is a play on the words Sepoy Mutiny, the British reference to the 1857 revolt by Indian soldiers against their colonial masters, and “sepia” (a shade of brown) is a cheeky reference to the skin colour of South Asians. (Last accessed October 30, 2015).

Transcontinental and transnational lives  127 16 www.sajaforum.org/; www.desipundit.com./ (Last accessed on October 30, 2015); UltraBrown is not currently accessible. 17 www.indiacurrents.com/articles/2007/11/05/welcome-to-the-south-asianblogosphere. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 18 Interview taken from: www.littleindia.com/life/2593-wanna-be-a-blogging-star. html. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 19 Some other examples of blogs by South Asian women are http://shebasphere. blogspot.in/ (invitee only blog); www.lactivistinlouboutins.com/; https://wbsa. wordpress.com/. (Others, last accessed October 30, 2015). 20 “Imaginary” implies a lost homeland and a foundational narrative of the nation. In this narrative, the Other seeks to “steal (the nation’s) enjoyment.” We (those who own the narrative) repress the fact that we may never have possessed what we believe was stolen from us, so the “enjoyment” is always of the “imaginary” (Mishra, 2007, p. 15). 21 This blogger refers to the city consistently as Bombay, and not Mumbai. I follow the same convention for purposes of convenience in this chapter. 22 Hall (1990) quotes Fanon, who explains how colonisation, not satisfied with controlling the “native” physically and mentally, “turns to the past of oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it” (Fanon, 1963, p. 170). 23 Hall is talking here about the Caribbean diaspora, but it holds true for most diasporic populations. 24 We cannot ignore the thousands of “invisible” and/or illegal migrants from the subcontinent, labouring under extremely difficult living and working conditions in many different countries around the globe. 25 In this case, Grewal is talking about Indian H-1B workers in the United States, but this could/would apply to other voluntary migrants as well. 26 See, for example: Chatterjee (1989) 27 Hinnels (1994, 2000). See, also, this 1995 interview with Parsi cultural theorist Homi Bhabha in which he talks about the Parsi identity and the community: https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bhabha/interview.html. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 28 FOB – acronym for “fresh off the boat,” American slang used to refer to new immigrants. For a longer explanation, see www.thehindu.com/thehindu/ edu/2002/11/26/stories/2002112600070202.htm. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 29 Grewal explains that she uses “United States” when she refers to the nation-state, but “America” has a hegemonic yet heterogeneous meaning to do with cultural, political, and economic practices that together constitute the “American dream” – an imagined and aspired-to state of being that is larger than and different from the nation-state of the United States. 30 See, for example, David Spurr (1993) and Thomas (1994). 31 This omission could be understood in several ways. First, as intellectually oriented bloggers, they have probably made a conscious decision to address only certain topics in their blogs. Second, as members of an upwardly mobile economic class, they may take certain economic choices for granted. Third, this may partly be construed as a Goffman-like management of their online personalities. 32 Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of Spain and is a contentious point of issue between the two governments. OJ recounts how her visa, which was valid for entry to both Spain and the United Kingdom, was somehow not acceptable for entry into a British territory.

6

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity Blogging about food

When I was a child, Pongal was always a much anticipated festival day. We woke early, dressed up and headed downstairs to a smokey open wood fire. Two decorated brass pots of pongal would already be bubbling away – one sweet (with coconut, cardamom and jaggery), and one savory (recipe below). My grandmother the matriarch, was in charge of making the pongal. My father would always scold her for using too much ghee in pongal, and the second he turned away, she’d add another dollop! – (Veggie Belly: Blog post “Creamy ven pongal: A Pongal tradition”)1

Of the many kinds of blogs on the Internet that fall under the “lifestyle” category, food blogs are probably among the most popular kind. A food blog is, as its name implies, a blog or online journal that is primarily about food. While often dismissed as recipe journals written by housewives, these food blogs are in fact much more. While they can be simplistically characterised as new media extensions of the average cookbook, their uniqueness lies in the special characteristics that a weblog offers both to the writer and the reader. In keeping with the blog’s origins as an online diary, a food blog is a combination of a recipe book and a journal. It is most often a chronicle of one person’s cooking efforts, with photos of the actual food/dish that was cooked followed by a recipe. Some blogs are more journal than recipe, and some are more about the recipes than journaling. Sometimes, it can be a chronicle of one person’s experiences with food – like a food or eating diary, rather than a cooking diary. Most often, it is something of a kitchen chronicle – documenting step-by-step a home-cook’s experiments and doings in her home kitchen.

Food studies Food has been an object of academic study for decades. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was among the earliest social scientists to study food and food cultures. As one of the founders of the structuralist movement, Lévi-Strauss studied the underlying structures that ordered and defined kinship patterns in societies (1969).2 He later shifted his focus to

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  129 cultural systems where he studied, among other things, myths. He believed that myths were a significant way in which societies understood and analysed the reality they experienced. Rejecting the notion of the researcher as passive observer, he believed that the researcher took an active part in the process of knowledge creation, by applying a conceptual grid to the observed phenomenon, which he then used to deconstruct and examine the phenomenon. Lévi-Strauss developed a conceptual framework consisting of binaries that he considered to be universal. Among these were binaries such as man versus woman, nature versus culture, and raw versus cooked (1964). His book The Raw and the Cooked (1964) explores food and cooking by applying this binary framework to food cultures. His work on food and cooking myths elaborated on these binaries, drawing a correlation between nature/culture to raw/cooked, and air/water to roasted/boiled. Another of his important contributions to this area of research was the categorisation of foods into “raw,” “cooked,” and “rotten,” which together formed what he called the “culinary triangle.” He further argued that since human beings can digest all kinds of foods, there was no such thing as edible and inedible foods. However, since most societies did have a framework of edible and inedible foods, this categorisation fell on the cultural side of the natural versus cultural binary (Elyada, 2007). Lévi-Strauss applied some of these concepts to his experience of Indian food rules, but this work has been critiqued for its overly simplistic categorisation of the complex food rules of India into simple binaries. Other researchers such as Marriot (1968) and Dumont (1970) sought to bring more depth and nuance to the topic by adopting a caste-focused approach. While Marriot used a predominantly anthropological and autobiographical approach to make generalisations about how social interactions (including those related to food) were based on caste-rank, Dumont (1970) focused on inter-caste food rules regarding sharing and avoidance and developed a structural framework/understanding of Hindu food rules within the hierarchical caste order (Khare, 2012). While acknowledging the valuable nature of this work, Khare (2012) nevertheless critiques some of these caste-focused assumptions and underlines the need to take into account the historical, technological, and socio-economic changes that have taken place over the last several decades. If necessary, he says, this calls for stepping out of caste-bound formulations to reassess and re-evaluate those food rules. For instance, his research finds that India’s food ways and material cultures are far more differentiated on the basis of regions, practices, and value systems than Marriot’s and Dumont’s works indicate. Further, he found that caste-based rules, while given importance and visibility, did not supersede certain common or ordinary rules of eating, sharing, and feeding (sahaj dharma) that were also practised. A broader way to look at foods was also pioneered by anthropologists who focused on people moving around the globe – through colonisation and forced or voluntary migration – and how these people and socio-political-economic

130  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity movements catalysed food production, dietary changes, and the commoditisation of certain foods (Mintz and Du Bois, 2002). In their historical overview of the anthropology of food and eating, these authors point out that such academic studies of food have helped illuminate “broad societal processes such as political-economic value creation, symbolic value-creation, and the social construction of memory” (Mintz and Du Bois, 2002, p. 99). A further point they make, with regard to food and identities, is particularly relevant to the analysis in this chapter – how ethnicity, like nationhood, is imagined (Murcott, 1996), and how these ethnic cuisines may thus also be “imagined”: Once imagined, such cuisines provide added concreteness to the idea of national or ethnic identity. Talking and writing about these ethnic or national food can then add to a cuisine’s conceptual solidity and coherence. (Mintz and Du Bois, 2002, p. 109) The relatively new academic area of food studies picks up where the earlier anthropologists left off. By placing the study of food and culture at the centre of its academic quest, food studies critically examines food in the context of contemporary life. As part of this research interest, scholars are beginning to study culinary artefacts such as cookbooks, television shows, advertisements, blogs, and movies as important material aspects of food cultures. In his analysis of a new kind of Indian cookbook, Appadurai (1988) elaborates on the value of studying these culinary texts: Language and literacy, cities and ethnicity, women and domesticity, all are examples of issues that lie behind these cookbooks. In examining these issues in the Indian case, we can begin to sharpen our comparative instincts about how cuisines are constructed and about what cookbooks imply and create. (1988, p. 4) Brownlie, Hewer, and Horne (2005) extend this idea to examine how popular cookbooks written by celebrity chefs should be treated as cultural products that provide a glimpse into representations of contemporary consumer culture and “should be understood as artefacts of cultural life in the making” (2005, p. 7). They further explain: [I]f cooking is understood to mark the “transition between nature and culture,” then it clearly suggests a potentially rich vein of social inquiry about how people construct their world in texts and talk, and what is done with those constructions. (2005, p. 8) In this chapter, I show how a food blog is, in a way, an extension of the traditional cookbook, and therefore should also be read as a cultural product

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  131 that not only reflects but also constructs contemporary culinary cultures. I further argue that as a dynamic and continuously updated culinary archive, it is perhaps a more “authentic” document of what the contemporary cook is actually doing with food than some other food-related texts might be. I examine the ways in which food blogs written by Indian women are valuable culinary examples of “texts and talk.” The real-time, constantly updated, conversational (and confessional) style of writing that is characteristic of many food blogs makes them the ideal cultural artefact to study contemporary culinary culture, and by extension to look at how these conversations about food and its attendant practices construct ideas about who we are, how we define ourselves, and what it means to be part of a community – be it regional, national, multicultural, or transnational. As Mannur (2013) points out, “Because blogs are interested in the supplementary narrative often excised from the printed review, it also provides space for articulating ideas that might seem tangential, but are as important to developing a narrative about food” (2013, p. 23). In the following discussion, I will explore several aspects of identity as they relate to food and food writing. Some of the lenses I will use to analyse these food texts include that of gender, class, and the concept of multiculturalism.

Culinary landscapes in cyberspace: the Indian food blog It is a fairly well-known fact that India has a long tradition of culinary culture. Food is embedded in our psyche, playing a role in almost every aspect of our lives. It is the thing that is necessary to our very existence. Historically, money and political power often played a role in distinguishing an elite culinary tradition that dominated the culinary landscape and established itself as the national cuisine of a country. In his landmark essay on Indian cuisine, Appadurai (1988) notes this historical tendency and discusses the conditions that allow for the emergence of a national/haute cuisine. There is a . . . powerful tendency to emphasize the difference between high and low cuisines, between court food and peasant food, and between food of urban centres and that of rural peripheries. Imperial cuisines always drew upon regional, provincial and folk materials and recipes. Preindustrial elites often displayed their political power, their commercial reach, and their cosmopolitan tastes by drawing in ingredients, techniques, and even cooks from far and wide. (1988, p. 4) Yet despite being a highly literate society (a necessary requirement for developing a high cuisine), the presence of elites and many different political power centres on the sub-continent, as well as an impressive tradition of food prescriptions and taboos, pre-industrial (and colonial) India had not developed an haute cuisine like France or Italy, or even China.

132  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity Appadurai’s primary argument for India’s lack of an haute cuisine involves the position of food and eating customs in traditional Hindu thought. Within this system, says Appadurai, food is either a moral or medical matter. The preparation, presentation, and consumption of food is governed by rules of moral conduct, religious or ritual significance, and/or medical necessity. Sometimes all three are involved. He points out that while the Hindu texts talk a lot about eating or gastronomic issues, they have little to say about cooking, namely culinary issues. The primary argument, then, is that trapped as it is within the moral and medical confines of taboos, ritual, and prescriptions, food in India is unable to achieve epicurean status. Despite the extensive literature related to food in India, there is in fact, according to Appadurai, little written about the actual cooking process itself. In the second part of the essay, he notes the rise in the number of English language cookbooks geared towards the middle-class woman in post-colonial India. These books, often written by upper-class, urban/diasporic women, focus on regional cuisines. He argues that the increasing proliferation of these specialised, region-based cookbooks paradoxically work towards constructing a national cuisine rather than against the creation of one. [T]he idea of an Indian cuisine has emerged because of rather than despite, the increasing articulation of regional and ethnic cuisines. As in other modalities of identity and ideology in emergent nations, cosmopolitan and parochial expressions enrich and sharpen each other by dialectical interaction. Especially in culinary matters, the melting pot is a myth. (Appadurai,1988, p. 21) As the world of Indian food writing has evolved, so too have the ways in which aspects of national and regional identity come to be addressed. Like the cookbooks, most Indian food blogs tend to showcase region-based cuisine. Almost all Indian food bloggers will identify themselves as coming from a specific region of the country and as representing a particular style of cooking. The core of a popular food blog is often the database of “home” food recipes that the blogger has compiled and presented. Somewhere in the text, usually in the “About Me” section, the blogger will state her regional and, by extension, her culinary affiliations: From Mumbai/Uttaranchal, or Kerala Syrian Christian, or coastal Andhra, or from small town Maharashtra.3 For example, the popular food blog Saffron Trail is written by a self-confessed “Tam-Brahm” who grew up in Mumbai, lived in Hyderabad, and now lives and works in Bangalore.4 At other times, the blogger feels that a geographical region is not specific enough and creates a sub-category by adding some detail about linguistic or ethnic roots such as “Konkani cooking from the South Kanara region.” However, even as they articulate and emphasise their roots, increasingly these same bloggers are branching out to include recipes of other foods. These may be foods that have thrown off their regional specificity and now acquired the status of what could be called “Generic-Indian.” Foods such

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  133 as Palak Paneer, Butter Chicken, Naan, and Gobi Manchurian are examples of dishes that have become commonly available across the country, as well as in Indian restaurants abroad, and that have come to be identified with a “national cuisine” that Appadurai is referring to. A third category of multicultural, global foods might include pizza, pasta, burritos, or hummus, reflecting a transnational positioning on the part of the blogger. One of the key differences between a cookbook and a food blog is that while a cookbook has a somewhat artificially created structure and categorisation (Appadurai, 1988), a food blog (Indian or otherwise) has a more organic flow as it documents the bloggers’ cooking activities as and when they occur. The blog format is such that most of these recipes are then archived under categories similar to that in a cookbook: Snacks, breads, rice, sweets, and so forth, but in a well-written blog, each individual post is an entity in itself and enjoyable to read as a stand-alone piece. The relative anonymity that the blogosphere affords works in interesting ways in the context of the Indian food blog. In a country where regional and caste affiliations can often be identified by name, the blogosphere allows the blogger, should she wish it, to shed such affiliations. While some bloggers are upfront about caste and region, others play down the specifics of caste yet provide clear markers regarding other affiliations. What stands out, however, in these food blogs is the emergence of affiliations based on income, age, interest, geographical location, and educational qualifications. Though class, caste, geographical and linguistic affiliations are not new, I believe that in the contemporary moment of globalisation and migration, these affiliations come together in new and interesting ways, to “forge new transnational culinary publics” (Hegde, 2014, p. 91). In the discussion that follows, I explore some of these aspects with reference to my sample of three blogs written by Indian women. Each of these women is geographically situated in a different country – India, UAE, and the United States. Each of these women has a different style of cooking and writing, and their blogs reflect their very different online personas in specific ways.

Blog Profiles: Blog 1: Veggie Belly (www.veggiebelly.com/) Tag Line: Vegetarian recipes . . . everything from easy to exotic Blog Host: WordPress Blogging since 2007 Blogger: Sala Location: Oregon, USA Sala, the blogger behind “Veggie Belly,” lives in Oregon, United States, and describes herself as a business analyst turned software entrepreneur. Her abiding interest in cooking is what motivated her to start the blog. Except

134  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity for a few family pictures and occasional photos of herself in various locations, the pictures on this blog relate primarily to food and travel. Names and most personal details are obscured. The posts range over a variety of recipes –simpler versions of traditional recipes, food she cooks in her home kitchen, and recipes of food she has eaten at different travel locations around the world. Image: This blog features a simple design of black letters on a white background. The banner is a light grey with a muted pattern on which the words Veggie Belly are inscribed in a mustard yellow colour and a handwritten font. The tag line runs in a smaller font underneath that. Deep red tabs right below the banner are designed to look like the tabs in a recipe or file cabinet and identify the categories into which the posts are divided, such as “Entrees,” “Snacks,” “Photos,” and “Archives.” A small box designed to look like a sheet of notepad paper contains extra links to other pages on the blog. Every recipe has a main photo of the completed dish beautifully but simply styled. There also usually three or more extra photos of the ingredients and of the preparation process as well. The whole is designed to convey the effect of an old-fashioned recipe book with handwritten recipes in a rustic kitchen. The extensive use of white lends a brightness and lightness to the whole blog that makes it attractive to the reader. Theme: The broad themes are food and travel. Under food are several different categories including Breakfast, Entrees, Sides & Snacks, Soups & Salads, and Desserts. Under travel, she has individual posts that include her trips to different countries as well as road trips and train rides in the United States. Since all travel posts feature at least one recipe, these posts are cross-referenced under other recipe sub-categories as well. The How-To, Photos, and Home & Garden categories list posts that fall under those headings. Feature: Under the banner are the deep red tabs for different categories. Home, About Me, and a few other categories are placed to the left of the banner. The sidebar has social media links for Facebook and Twitter, a list of recent posts, and another for recent comments. Below that is another category list and a tag cloud of ingredient names. At the bottom of the sidebar are blog awards that Veggie Belly has won. Link: This blog does not use a lot of links. Within a post there might be occasional references to other bloggers or blogs, cooks, cookbooks, or specific ingredients. These will be linked to the appropriate site – either another blog, or a website for the person, book, or ingredient. Exchange Analysis: Veggie Belly seems to be a part of the larger food blog community, specifically referencing other vegetarian bloggers and Indian food bloggers. She refers to other bloggers in her own posts as well as occasionally cross-posting with other blogs. Guest posting, acting as a judge for a blogging photo contest, and using giveaways of cookbooks by other bloggers are the main ways she maintains her community.

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  135 Language Analysis: The blogger has a simple straightforward style that reflects both an Indian “convent” education and her familiarity with American terms and usage. She uses small touches of humour in some posts. The language of her posts is simple and evocative of the smells, tastes, and sights of food and cooking, giving the reader the chance to imagine and experience the food vicariously. The anecdotes and observations that accompany each recipe add to the interest of the whole blog.

Blog 2: Ishita Unblogged (http://ishitaunblogged.com/) Tag Line: A culinary travel blog featuring Dubai, Kolkata and the world beyond Blog Host: WordPress Blogger: Ishita Blogging since 2011 Location: Dubai

Ishita, the blogger, comes across as energetic and passionate about everything to do with food. This blog too focuses on food and travel and the intersection between the two. There are lots of recipe posts as well as posts about the various trips that the blogger and her family have taken around the world. Where the previous blogger (Sala) tends to talk about solo travel, this blogger focuses on family travel. She describes the different cities that her family has lived in and visited, and in all posts, the foods of the place are integrated into the content of the post. Most travel posts end with recipes, menu descriptions, or restaurant recommendations. This blogger refers to herself and her family quite a lot and posts pictures of herself as well as of her children regularly. Image: This blog is filled with images – photos of food she has cooked or dishes at a restaurant, the blogger interacting with others, pictures of her children, events, street scenes, etc. However, in contrast to Veggie Belly and My Diverse Kitchen, this blogger doesn’t spend as much time on photographing the cooking process. The photos, though well taken, do not have the stylised and curated look of the images that the other two blogs have. Ishita Unblogged comes across more as a food diary of the blogger, rather than as an exclusive cooking blog. Theme: The blog offers two main themes titled “My Kolkota Konnection” and “My Dubai Diary.” However, there are many other themes that may or may not intersect with those two topics. Other themes include recipes; interviews with chefs; reviews of restaurants, organic stores, and food markets reviews; culinary travel organised by country; personal anecdotes; and thoughts on blogging.

136  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity Feature: The original layout for this blog displayed a black banner with a small line drawing sketch of her four-member family at the top. The simple white letters describing her main categories acted as buttons on banner. Recent posts were displayed in the main section of the page with a photo and an excerpt from the individual post. These features remain; however, some aspects of the blog design have been updated to provide a professional look to the site (perhaps in keeping with the increasing business aspects and monetisation of the blog that the blogger seems to have recently taken on). The home page of the blog, as well as each main category of posts, now have cover pages that consist of a mosaic of photographs on a black background that looks somewhat like a magazine cover. Each photograph also acts as a link to a post. The sidebar has buttons for email as well as for social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram). Below that is a drop-down list of categories, and a place for readers to “subscribe” to the blog. The next section features recent photos from the blogger’s Instagram feed and tweets that she has posted on Twitter. Finally, there is a series of thumbnail images for the blogging awards she has won. Link: Links are minimal in this blog. Only a few links to locations, restaurants, and celebrity chefs. Some posts contain internal links to other posts within her blog when relevant. Exchange Analysis: The comments on this blog range between 30 and 200 depending on the post. There are also buttons allowing a reader to “like” a post, without needing to comment. The blog also facilitates “subscribers” who sign up to receive email notifications of new posts. This blog has over 13,000 followers. Other ways that this blogger maintains community is through offline means such as blogger meets, restaurant openings, magazine articles, and cooking demonstrations and talks. Language Analysis: This blogger writes in a casual, simple style that invites the reader to join her in sharing the experiences she is describing. The tone is personal – like a personal food diary – and intimate in that she regularly offers the readers a glimpse into her personal life: Frequent references to her children, husband, mother and mother-inlaw as well anecdotes of people, places, events, and experiences create the mood of this upbeat blog-diary. Blog 3: My Diverse Kitchen (www.mydiversekitchen.com/) Tag Line: Food and photography from a vegetarian kitchen in India Blog Host: Blogger/Blogspot Blogging since 2007 Blogger: Aparna Location: Goa, India Aparna, the blogger of My Diverse Kitchen, comes across as a thoughtful and serious blogger with a passion for food and photography. Each post

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  137 provides some background, either historical or anecdotal, allowing the reader to understand the context. The blog is neither overly personal nor overly impersonal. She refers to her daughter and to their family choices with regard to food. However, there is very little personal information of any other kind and no personal photos of the blogger or her family. The recipes range over a wide array of regions, ingredients, and cooking styles within vegetarian cooking. The reader is drawn to the blog by the historical references and the uncluttered approach to both the food and the photography. Image: This blog follows a white, grey, and black theme – the borders are a dark grey and the centre portion where the main text is placed is a very pale grey. The banner too is of a darker grey with a simple image of colourful painted flowers on it. The blog name My Diverse Kitchen and the tag line are both in white. As can be noted from the tag line, this blogger is serious about photography, so each post has several carefully styled images of ingredients, cooking process, and the completed dish. Theme: The themes are mainly food and photography. The main categories are the “Recipe Index” and “Photography.” The recipe index is further divided into over 20 sub-categories including “Breakfast”; “Snacks”; “Gravy dishes”; “Jams, Sauces, and Spreads”; “Breads”; and “Palakkad Iyer Cuisine.” The food photography theme consists of photography tips and tutorials, food photography competitions (called “challenges” in the blogosphere), and the bloggers portfolio of food photos. Feature: The main text is centred on the page with a very simple banner and category tabs, and two small sidebars are placed on either side of the main text. The category tabs below the banner are in yet another shade of grey with black text. The left sidebar has a search and translate option, below which are the Archives, a list of categories and sub-categories, and a list of tags that are clickable links for individual posts. On the right sidebar are media buttons for email, RSS feed, and Google Plus as well as social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Below that are options to subscribe to the blog and dropdown lists of posts and comments. Link: Provides occasional links and cross-references others’ posts. Exchange Analysis: This blog gets a range of comments averaging around 30 per post. She also participates in blogger events and meet-ups as well as both participates in and acts as judge for food blog challenges/ contests that involved cooking a certain kind of dish or food photography challenges. There is also interaction and exchange via social media and offline events. Language Analysis: She blogs regularly, averaging about six posts a month. The language is simple and the explanations are clear and straightforward. This blogger comes across as thoughtful and serious, usually providing some historical context to each post.

138  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity

Food through a gendered lens Food cultures represent more than regional and communal specificities and differences. Cooking and eating habits correspond to consumption patterns and group identity and to issues of class and gender. Coming to the specific context of India, the links between food and social class are well documented. Going beyond mere regional specificity, food in India is closely linked to religion and community, caste, class and gender (e.g. Appadurai Breckenridge, 1986; Katrak, 1997). However, Appadurai notes a changing perspective on this issue, pointing out that “as caste differences come increasingly to be perceived as differences between ethnic identities (Dumont, 1970), so food differences come to be seen as consumption issues divorced from the realm of taboo and prohibition” (1988, p. 8). Recent scholarship in the field has focused on the connection between food and globalisation, emphasising that while certain aspects of globalisation such as the speed, volume, and nature of transportation and communication flows can be considered “new,” other aspects like the movement of people, goods, and ideas, have a long historical precedent (Ray and Srinivas, 2012). Gupta (2012), for example, traces the historical trajectory of food as commodity and cuisine by delving deeper into the long history of globalisation. Similarly, Chatterjee (2011) and others have studied the “Spice Race” by competing colonising countries as they battled for territorial rights over key locations. Other studies have examined the colonial response to Indian foods and food practices, the nationalist response to such representations (Sengupta, 2012), and the ways in which traditional food practices have been commercialised and, in the process, been both secularised and globalised (Madsen and Gardella, 2012). Siddiqui (2011) tackles the issue of food habits and dietary choices as a marker of identity, a particularly relevant topic for current times. Food studies scholars are exploring and debating the changing nature of contemporary food practices both in India and beyond. For instance, the emergence of upscale Indian cafes and restaurants in metropolitan centres around the world and the entrance of global food chains into the culinary landscape of urban India, consuming ethnic cuisines as a symbol of multiculturalism, are all phenomena that are being scrutinised by scholars interested in the study of food (e.g. Mannur, 2007; Highmore, 2008; Buettnner, 2012; Ray, 2012). The connections between food and gender are manifold and have been documented extensively. Feminist scholarship in particular has paid great attention to the implications of food related labour with regard to women. The disproportionate amount of time that women spend on the production and preparation of food as compared with men is a welldocumented fact (see, e.g. Swaminathan, 2012). This consistent and strong association of women as primary care givers and food preparers for the family continues to perpetuate the gendered division of labour

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  139 into supposedly public and private spheres (Cairns et al., 2010; Nath and Mokashi-Punekar, 2011). DeVault (1994) explains the concept of “caring work” that becomes inextricably linked to food preparation and in a larger sense, with providing sustenance and care to the family. She analyses how women become emotionally implicated in this “caring,” and thereby participate in their own exploitation. Other studies have built on this to explore how this “caring” has come to be imbued with ideals of femininity, and the maternal, and the ways in which women themselves relate cooking and caring for others as integral to their identities. In these ways, they conclude, caring work (of which cooking is a large part) functions as a way of doing or performing gender (Lupton, 1996; Charles and Kerr, 1988; Hollows, 2003). Cairns et al. (2010) note that recent scholarship indicates that women continue to do the majority of food related labour and that this is often naturalised by citing women’s biological predisposition to such work. The connections between gender and food in the context of the Indian food blog are obvious. Many popular Indian food blogs are written by women. Among the earliest Indian food bloggers were women of the diaspora. Their educational qualifications, coupled with early access to the tools and resources required to start a blog, uniquely positioned them to be early adopters of the blog medium.5 Indian women located in the sub-continent quickly followed, and today Indian food bloggers are situated in many different parts of the world. Despite the tremendous popularity of food blogs and the diverse array of bloggers writing them, women continue to dominate this particular genre of lifestyle blog. For instance, the 2013 Rediff list of the top 30 Indian food bloggers featured 29 women and only one man.6 The bloggers in my sample all display very different personas, yet their interest in food and cooking for others and themselves is the common thread that brings them together. Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen explains her interest in cooking and the food blog in this way: I believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of the home and this blog is my way of sharing some of our food experiences and a bit of our lives with you all. (“About Me”) Ishita of Ishita Unblogged describes the importance of food for her family as follows: The most important companion in our travel is FOOD. It’s futile to even try justifying the highest expenditure in our holiday bills – our Food expenditure. The four of us can travel far and wide just to experience a particular culinary delight. What to eat and where to eat comes first in our holiday planning, followed by everything else. I make notes

140  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity of all the special cuisine of each place we visit and S scours the local groceries or food markets for local spices of the particular region that we are visiting. . . . Though our food preferences are contradictory, eating is a therapeutic and a soulful experience for our family and it’s the most exciting conversation in our lives. (“About Me”) Renegotiating gendered domesticity While the literature on caring work emphasises the emotional investment women have in preparing the food and the pleasure they derive in the family consuming it, in these blogs, the actual work of cooking the food, that is, the labour involved, is also described as pleasurable. What is foregrounded here is the apparent pleasure they seem to take in cooking. The approach to food and its preparation is constructed as something enjoyable and the presentation and subsequent consumption of the food is also part of the enjoyment. Ishita of Ishita Unblogged says: I am very passionate about the subject that I write about. And I want to travel the whole world and show my children how different the different people are and yet so similar. I love experimenting in the kitchen and I am inspired by people who follow their passion. (Ishita: Interview) In this, the bloggers echo Hollows’s (2003) analysis of British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson as presenting a philosophy of cooking and eating as predominantly pleasurable. Hollows juxtaposes, on the one hand, scholarship that critiques cooking as women’s labour with other writing that celebrates female culinary cultures of earlier times, on the other. She places Nigella’s work between these two oppositional stances. The food bloggers too display a negotiation of these two positions. They offer “quick and easy” and “fast to put together” recipes and menus and hope that their own experiments in the kitchen, along with recipe ideas and menu suggestions, will help the home cook/reader in saving time in the kitchen. Hegde (2014) notes that diasporic food bloggers work to dispel popular stereotypes about Indian food and present Indian cuisine on their blogs as one that can be cooked with speed and precision as well as being adaptable and open to fusion. In Veggie Belly, the blogger shares a recipe for “easy potato curry,” explaining how to peel, chop and cook potatoes with Indian spices so that the dish is prepared in under 15 minutes. Simply styled photos of the dish are included. While an Indian (or South Asian) commenter notes: Only Sala can make simple aloo curry look so scrumptious . . . all-time favourite and comfort food . . . , another commenter says: The words “easy” and “curry”

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  141 used in the same sentence are like a magic key to my heart. Lovely color from the spices. Definitely turning to this next time I need a flavorful dinner fast. Sala replies: If you have a good curry powder, then “curry” and “easy” can definitely go together! While not explicitly addressing the considerable literature about women’s labour surrounding food, this emphasis on quick and easy implicitly frames the conversation within the critique of the disproportionate amount of time women across the world spend on food preparation. As an extension to the pleasures of cooking is an emphasis on the pleasures of eating. While the bloggers do talk about family meals and the pleasures of cooking for others, there is also an underlying focus on the pleasures of eating. Thus, while the blogger may fulfil traditional roles of food preparation as part of her caring work, she is also espousing the pleasures of eating for herself. What I want to suggest is that the representation of cooking . . . starts from the importance of satisfying and caring for the self rather than others and in this way offers an alternative mode of representing the pleasures of domestic femininity . . . by linking the pleasures of cooking and eating, (Lawson) represents not only a feminine self that eats, but one that is very aware of what it wants to eat rather than deferring to the presence of others. (Hollows, 2003, p. 184) This turns on its head more popular stereotypes/representations of women who cook for others or women whose connection with food consumption is surrounded by guilt, or dieting, and concerns with weight gain (Murcott, 1995; Charles and Kerr, 1988). The emphasis on the pleasures of cooking and eating for oneself rather than for someone else takes an emancipatory approach to the caring of the “self,” by giving it as much (or more) importance as the “caring work” performed for others. Sala of Veggie Belly talks in a lighter vein about her relationship with food. I enjoy Asian cuisine. I like bold, assertive flavors. And of course, the good south Indian that I am, I can’t live without yogurt rice. I love Popcorn, olives, cheese, anything green especially kale, mustard greens and spinach and anything spicy – I add sriracha to everything. Did I mention olives? I’m obsessed with them. Cerignola and halkidi are my favorite olives. If I had a cat I’d name it olive. If I had a dog I’d name it olive. If I had a baby I’d name it olive. Ok . . . maybe not the baby . . . but you get the idea. Evoking nostalgia and building authenticity A frequent theme in the food blogs (including this sample) is the evoking of a nostalgic past, memories of home, comfort, and family. They draw on old

142  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity family recipes, memories of childhood meals, or other markers to invoke nostalgia and history that create ambience and authenticity. The bloggers often refer to their mothers’ cooking in this context. The blog is often primarily a repository of the blogger’s mother’s recipes. This clear link to the maternal is reflected again and again in the blog posts. I am not a chef, nor do I have formal training in the culinary arts. I do love good food, and have grown up surrounded by womenfolk who were all very good cooks. Both my paternal and maternal grandmothers, and my mother were known in the family for their cooking skills. They were also supposed to have what we traditionally referred to as “Kaipunyam” which would roughly translate as “magic of the hand”, that special something that was not in the recipe but added a special something to everything they cooked and served. I guess it meant they cooked with love. I would like to believe that some of that has rubbed off on me and shows in my cooking too. (My Diverse Kitchen: “About”) “The domestic arena, so frequently associated with femininity, also becomes a space to reproduce culture and national identity” (Mannur, 2007, p. 14). The identification of women as the primary upholders and teachers of tradition and culture to the younger generation is linked to these notions of the domestic, the culinary, the caring as being feminine and therefore to be performed primarily by women. In writing about the positioning of food in Asian American novels, Xu (2008) explains how the dynamics between enjoyment, the maternal, and ethnic identification play out in these narratives. “Food and rituals,” Xu argues, “as manifestations of the feminine, are unmistakably gendered feminine” (2008, p. 36). Thus, one can argue that there is an unambiguous connection between food and domesticity to the maternal and the feminine. The feminisation of cooking and the feminisation of lifestyle blogs intersect in the realm of food blogs.7 Women have traditionally been assigned not only the role of socialising children into cultural mores but also that of the primary caregiver of everyone in the family – parents, spouse, and children. Specifically in the Indian context, “the home was the principal site for expressing the spiritual quality of national culture, and women must take the main responsibility of protecting and nurturing this responsibility” (Chatterjee, 1989, p. 239). It then becomes the task of the woman to retain and reproduce tradition at several different levels. While this idea has been explored extensively in diaspora scholarship, it is also the case that cultural reproduction, especially related to religion, food ways, and all aspects of domesticity is gendered not just in the diasporic context but also in the non-diasporic context. In the case of Indian food blogs, including those in this sample,

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  143 one can see how domesticity, as well as tradition and memory, become the domain of the woman, and the bloggers use the blogging medium as a way of performing those roles. This particular Appakaaral (a cooking vessel used to make a specific local delicacy) was given to me by my mother-in-law and belonged to her mother-in-law (my husband’s paternal grandmother). In fact, you can see his grandfather’s initials (in Malayalam – A.G. Ra) etched into the side even though the pan belonged to his grandmother! Not surprising in a male dominated society of the early 1900s. (My Diverse Kitchen: Blog post “Treasured Cookware”) Food-related practices are often used as ways of evoking the past, as representative of home and comfort and the food bloggers draw often on these images in their posts. Diaspora scholarship addresses the concepts of memory and nostalgia in constructing a “lost” homeland, cautioning that memories are at best unreliable evocations of the past or, as Rushdie would call them, “fictions.” But if we do look back, we must also do so in the knowledge – which gives rise to profound uncertainties – that our physical alienation from India almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind. (Rushdie, 1991, p. 10) So how do the bloggers invoke feelings of home, mother, and memory? If there is one ingredient that I can’t possibly cook without, then that is some story. A story with some magic attached to it along with my childhood memories and nostalgia, the aroma of cooking from the kitchen, each dish arriving on the dining table, cooked with much love by some loving hand – either my Ma’s, or my Thakuma’s (paternal grandma) or my Dida’s (maternal grandma) or some Mashi (aunt) and much later, my Mum-in-law’s. Today, that secret ingredient is sourced from antique cookbooks or handwritten recipes, that have been duly passed onto me. Each recipe unfolds from some story or the other. And each story surrounds around some delicate and delicious food moment that I have experienced in my childhood. I intend to pass on the same magical ingredient to my girls. (Ishita Unblogged: Blog post “Stories of love, nostalgia, and memories”)

144  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity These examples show how these blogs draw on memory of home and family in the context of their current cosmopolitan lives by recounting stories, archiving recipes, and documenting their everyday experiences to make connections between tradition and modernity, home and host, regional and global. In a post describing the Hindu festival “Shivarathri,” Aparna, of My Diverse Kitchen, writes at length about the legends and stories surrounding the festival as well the foods that are eaten to break the day-long fast. She shares a recipe for “Parippu Kanji,” a lentil and jaggery porridge, updated for modern kitchens and modern lives, and presents the serving of this liquidy sweet in a non-traditional, contemporary style. In Veggie Belly, Sala writes of taking a vacation at an Ayurvedic resort in Kerala and shares a recipe for a simple, no-oil tomato soup. Filled with evocative photographs of the grounds, seating areas, and kitchen of the resort, the blogger seamlessly fuses tradition and modernity in a single post. A strong sense of female culinary cultures pervades the conversations. As referenced previously, despite critiques of the gendered division of labour with regard to food, there has also been writing about female domestic cultures. While Smith (1987) and others have validated these cultures of the everyday as important to understanding women’s experiences, sometimes celebratory accounts of such traditions need to be problematised in order to better understand the larger theoretical context. It is important to note that the memories and histories recounted in the blogs, are not necessarily a pining for a lost past or homeland, but a way for the bloggers to acknowledge and record/document the past, and link them to the contemporary everyday of their lives. The cooking and talking/writing are thus “producing new memories of comfort through practice.” (Hollows, 2003, p. 193) Sala of Veggie Belly introduces a series of her grandmother’s favourite recipes, pointing out that, ironically, her grandmother didn’t actually cook herself, but instructed her cook to make her favourite dishes. While the series is posted as a tribute and draws on nostalgia and the maternal/feminine elements, it also revisits and rewrites the recipes for the current time. It is an honor to have been raised by a woman who was so intelligent, beautiful and exuberant. Her life was grand and her love was abundant. This post is the first in a series of recipes I will be posting as a tribute to my grandmother. These recipes have all been tried and tested over decades. Every single recipe I will be posting was a favourite of my grandmother’s. Each one brings back a flood of memories.

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  145 In creating these posts, I am filled with tremendous pride to have been part of this incredible woman’s life, and at the same time I am filled with great grief that she is no more. (Veggie Belly: Blog post “Remembering my grandmother through her favorite recipes”) There is much scholarship on the idea of nostalgia as it relates to the concept of “home.” [T]he desire to remember home by fondly recreating culinary memories cannot be understood merely as reflectively nostalgic gestures; rather such nostalgically-framed narratives must also read as meta-critiques of what it means to route memory and nostalgic longing for a homeland through one’s relationship to seemingly intractable culinary practices which yoke national identity with culinary taste and practices. (Mannur, 2007, p. 13) Rushdie likens such memories to those reflected in a “broken mirror that may actually be as valuable as the one which is supposedly unflawed” (1991, p. 11). As I’ve shown previously, the bloggers re-create a nostalgic longing for home through their descriptions of culinary practices that they associate with their personal experiences of domesticity. Though framed as “authentic” because they are real-life experiences, we must nevertheless complicate our ideas of this authenticity by recognising that these stories are refracted through the prism of nostalgic memories. Further, as I will explore in the next section, one must take into account the implications of social and economic class that these personalised accounts of domestic practice may denote.

Class and cosmopolitanism This study of food blogs by Indian women indicates that a majority of Indian food bloggers are upwardly mobile middle-class women living in scattered parts of the globe. Appadurai (1988) notes that while most cookbooks cater to the women of the burgeoning middle class, the cookbooks themselves are often written by upper-class, urban, or Western-educated women. While such easy definitions of what is “upper class” and “middle class” are tenuous, my sample shows that the average Indian food bloggers are themselves mostly middle-class women.8 But these women represent more than just that: The “new” middle class (Bourdieu, 1984; Featherstone, 2007; Wynne, 2002) stands or aspires for a transnational identity and is implicated in the larger context of the neo-liberal economy, globalisation, and media and migration flows. I argue that these food blogs truly represent not only what the middle class is cooking and eating but also what the middle class is aspiring to cook and eat. I further posit that the conversations around food, its preparation and

146  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity consumption, its aesthetic and representational value, are important markers of how the middle class sees itself.9 Food ways in India are embedded in the larger sociological constructs of family, kinship, community, and so forth. What you eat – and not eat – often slots you into a category – in terms of location, region, religion, income, and often, caste. The baggage that is associated with what you eat is a burden that all Indians bear and one that most Indians can deftly decode to slot you into your category. The freedom and relative anonymity, as well as the fact that a large part of the target audience might be Western and therefore unaware of any predetermined affiliations, is part of the charm and an important factor in breaking down old, restrictive categories in the world of the food blog. The whole lifestyle blogging genre is a product of the new middle class, created in the context of transnational, neo-liberal economics, where consumer culture and choice go hand in hand, where lifestyle – travel, food, design, and so forth – becomes a project that they have the luxury (leisure, money, education, resources, etc.) to indulge in. These concepts of pleasure, and choice, are in line with Bourdieu’s (1984) work on the new middle class where he talks about the middle class’s engagement with aesthetic experiences as an important aspect of the pursuit of pleasure that typifies it. He further delineates a lifestyle that is characterised by “a morality of pleasure as duty,” which makes it a failure to not “have fun” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 367). Featherstone (2007) calls this the “aesthetization of everyday life,” where the lifestyle project becomes a central feature of the middle class. The middle-class kitchen and, by extension, the food blog, becomes the site where these aesthetic and economic choices take centre stage. The food blogs also become the stage where the tensions between “food work” as labour and “food work” as leisure play out. The home as a site for the practice of a “morality” of pleasure and play is problematised for women, for whom it has been traditionally seen as a site for labour and the performance of a morality of “respectability” through which women are judged as to whether they are appropriately feminine. (Hollows, 2003, p. 187) For example, My Diverse Kitchen frequently features European recipes of various baked goods – cakes, scones, pies, and so forth. The ingredients for these recipes are not always easily available in stores and tend to be expensive. The baking and presenting of these recipes are a strongly economic and aesthetic choice for the blogger. She has the time and the money to indulge this particular hobby. This cooking as “choice” can be juxtaposed against the millions of women who have neither the luxury of choice nor the economic ability to do so. Another aspect of the pursuit of leisure and beauty is the aesthetics of food and its presentation. Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen explains how she

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  147 became interested in photography after starting the blog, since one of the first things that a food blogger encounters is the need for beautifully shot photographs. Sala of Veggie Belly has posts where she explains different photographic techniques and offers specific suggestions about lighting, styling, and how she took certain photographs. Transnationalism and its practice is strongly associated with the notion of choice. As referenced in the previous chapter, the practice of transnationalism or the “new cosmopolitanism” (Rajan and Sharma, 2007) comes with a set of practices that characterise it. While economic, social, and cultural practices are adopted as markers of this transnationalism, the feminisms of this new transnational middle class are multiple and intrinsically linked to a discourse of choice. In the case of the lifestyle/food bloggers, they are free to choose among several aspects of femininity, practising those they want and rejecting others (Hollows, 2003). For example, while Sala of Veggie Belly displays certain gendered aspects of domesticity – as in her interest in cooking – she comes across as a woman who is in every way her own person. A travel series that she does on her blog describes a cross-country road trip across the United States that she takes alone. Other travel and culinary adventures in other parts of the world also show her travelling alone. In one post, she offers tips and suggestions to other women who may want to travel on their own,10 discussing safety measures and offering practical suggestions for others who may choose to do the same. Another way that these food blogs manifest issues of class is by the social, economic, and cultural markers referenced in the narratives. Hooks (1992) has argued that consumption is not value or race neutral, and I argue that by extension it is also not class/caste neutral. The different bloggers in this study seem to approach these issues differently. Aparna uses her caste as a primary marker of her cooking style, using it to introduce and explain her cooking traditions. My husband, our daughter and I are vegetarian by tradition and choice, though we do eat eggs occasionally. We enjoy good food and are willing to try anything at least once, so long as it is vegetarian. (My Diverse Kitchen: “About”) And in a separate post: I was going through my posts when I realized that while I had posted a few Palakkad Iyer recipes (we are Palakkad Iyers), I ought to introduce this style of cooking to all who are not familiar with it. I am sure that quite a few of you who are reading this are already familiar with all this. For all of you who are new to Palakkad Iyers as a community in India, here is a short introduction to our cuisine. (My Diverse Kitchen: Blog post “A Bit about Palakkad Iyers and Their Cuisine”)

148  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity Sala of Veggie Belly does not refer to her caste but explains that she is vegetarian by choice and was also raised vegetarian.11 The third blogger, like the second, does not refer to her caste. However, she writes frequently of traditional regional dishes of Bengal and what kind of foods her family cooks. To someone more familiar with the region, this may give an indication of her community. Why are you vegetarian? I was raised a vegetarian and have been vegetarian most (of) my life. I love it and will never change it. But you won’t see me preaching vegetarianism. I respect peoples’ eating choices. I have a husband who eats meat and I have no problem with it. (Veggie Belly: “About Me,” “FAQ”) As can be seen previously, both bloggers frame their vegetarianism as both tradition and choice. Further, it’s interesting to note the words in which the first blogger talks about her caste identification: Aparna identifies herself and her family as Palakkad Iyers and refers to this group primarily as a “community” rather than as a caste. Later on in the post, she elaborates on this and refers to Palakkad Iyers as “a community of Tamil speaking Brahmins, living in Kerala.” She also says, “I am sure that quite a few of you who are reading this are already familiar with all this.” (emphasis mine), subtly indicating (to those who are familiar with Indian caste and food systems) the whole sociopolitical-historical package of caste and region that is associated with the caste name. She goes on to explain the historical context of the community and the characteristics of the cuisine based on both region and caste. The Indian reader, familiar with at least some of the food rules prevalent amongst the various communities and castes around India, can therefore read certain information into the bloggers’ narratives that Western/non-Indian readers may not be able to. This is part of the charm of reading a food blog such as this. The layers of information vary on the basis of your background and knowledge of Indian regions or food customs. However, this variation of food habits and rituals based on caste, community, and region tend to be represented as simple ethnic differences and largely ignore the socio-political aspects of these differences. While this may be read as a critique, Appadurai offers an alternative explanation: In a society where dining across caste and ethnic boundaries is still a relatively delicate matter, recipes sometimes move where people may not. In traditional India . . . commensal boundaries were central to the edifice of the caste system. But the movement of recipes in the new urban middle-class milieu is one sign of the loosening of these boundaries. (1988, p. 7, emphasis mine)

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  149 He adds: As caste differences come increasingly to be perceived as differences between ethnic entities (Dumont, 1970), so food differences come to be seen as consumption issues divorced from the realm of taboo and prohibition. (1988, p. 8, emphasis mine) The food blogs in this sample, for the most part, do present their individualised food traditions as merely ethnic or regional difference. Further, several of the food choices are represented as exactly that – choice. In keeping with the literature as referenced previously, choice and patterns of consumption are markers of the practice of transnationalism. I would argue that by presenting food differences as matters of ethnic difference, or choice of consumption, these food bloggers are working to “loosen the boundaries” that Indian food has traditionally been straight-jacketed into. Mannur (2007) notes that in Meatless Days, Suleri (1989) recounts stories of her childhood in Pakistan. In recounting stories surrounding food consumption, she consciously constructs a memoir within a domestic, feminine sphere, thereby reframing a patriarchal nationalist narrative, as a feminist one. By remembering the presence of women and domestic workers in her narrative, she is reframing the nature of the narrative itself. Sala of Veggie Belly similarly reframes the narrative of women’s domesticity by acknowledging (through photographs) and mentioning the presence of domestic workers in her culinary experiences. This introduces the crucial aspect of economic class into the equation, as only families of a certain economic class can afford to have domestic workers. A picture of the kitchen in her parents’ home does not show her mother or herself at the stove. Rather, the first picture shows a woman – clearly not her mother – supervising the boiling of milk on the stove. The second picture shows another woman – identified as “Kamalamma the cook” preparing a meal at the kitchen counter. Two other photos show two women domestic workers in a dish-washing area at the back of the house. The last photo in the post, interestingly, shows the blogger’s mother seated comfortably at the dining table. One can read into this the blogger’s acknowledgement of the service workers (and service receivers) in the context of her family home. In another series of posts on her paternal grandmother, she introduces her as a highly accomplished woman with no interest in cooking. She describes the many dinner parties her grandmother used to host while never entering the kitchen. Her “talented cook,” Mariappan, is given credit for the “amazing food.” Other hints to social and economic class are offered by way of photographs and descriptions of her family home and details of their social life. My grandmother’s dinner parties were legendary and her hospitality impeccable. Although she never took an interest in cooking, she had a

150  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity keen palate and a great love for hosting and feeding people. She would give her cook Mariappan, detailed instructions. . . . She took care of every detail – the decoration, neatly folded napkins, extra large size silver plates, polished cutlery, and a lovingly curated menu. (Veggie Belly: Blog post “Remembering my grandmother through her favorite recipes”) Another example of the way in which class may manifest itself in the blogs is through what has been called “culinary tourism” (Brownlie et al., 2005). All the bloggers display some level of travel related culinary adventures. Travel, like “foodie culture,” is an element of the new aspirational lifestyle choices of the transnational and middle classes. The diasporic bloggers showcase foreign locales not just through the recipes but also through their recounting of travel-related culinary adventures. The ability to travel for leisure is connected to being economically advantaged enough to make lifestyle choices that include foreign travel.12 Leisure travel has always been and continues to be the province of the world’s relatively affluent, those people with sufficiently disposable income to expend on these discretionary diversions. But over the course of the second half of the twentieth century and now into the twentyfirst, as tourist opportunities and venues have diversified, the numbers and strata of people who are involved as both consumers and purveyors of these services have dramatically expanded, forming the largest industry in the world. (Amit, 2007, p. 4) In my food blog sample, travel makes an appearance in a few different ways. In My Diverse Kitchen, Aparna does not recount personal experiences of travel but showcases a variety of recipes inspired by travel. For instance, she presents a series on Western (mostly French) baking that she explains is not native to her own tradition but which interests her nonetheless. Another post gives the recipe for pomegranate molasses, an ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking. In one post, she writes: Do you dream of travelling to beautiful and exotic destinations that books, movies or television describe to you? Do the stories, colours and smells of an almost different world or era excite the hidden adventure in your heart? (My Diverse Kitchen: Blog post “Moroccan style chickpea soup with k’rsa-Moroccan aniseed flatbread”) Sala of Veggie Belly writes frequently about travel. An extremely popular travel series on her blog was a culinary journey across several hundred miles

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  151 of the United States – from Washington, DC, to Portland, Oregon. There’s also a three-part travel series on her visit to Thailand and several other posts about visits to countries as diverse as Portugal, Cambodia, Argentina, and Israel. These posts not only showcase the personal travel experiences of the blogger but also specifically describe a culinary experience related to the foreign location. For example, in the introductory post of the Thailand series, Sala says: When I visited Thailand, I was intoxicated by the sights, sounds, smells and tastes. The sensory explosion was just incredible. And the food . . . oh man the food . . . where do I even start? Thailand has a huge street food culture; so this only means one thing – tasty, fast, cheap food. Batter fried bananas, sticky rice steamed inside hollow bamboo sticks, street-side penang curry, morning glory (a spinach like vegetable) with garlic . . . the list is endless. (Veggie Belly: Blog post “A vegetarian Thai cooking class and a trip to a Produce market in Chiang Mai – Thailand Part 1”) The post continues with more description, lots of pictures of the vegetable market, and concludes with an interview of a local woman who runs a restaurant. Another post describes a trip to Bethlehem that she took on her own: I walked into Laila’s house in Bethlehem on a cold and drizzly morning. Her family greeted me warmly and with lots of questions about India and the US. Do you know Amitabh Bachchan? How big is your house in America? What do they eat in India? Does your husband allow you to travel alone? Over fresh mint tea, I answered their questions about my culture and asked them questions about theirs. I knew right away this was going to be a memorable trip. (Veggie Belly: Blog post “A vegetarian journey through Israel and Palestinian Territories Part II”) Her writing is evocative and enticing. For the reader, the particular combination of recipes, descriptions of people and places, and culinary experiences is what makes a food blog of this kind so popular. This is culinary tourism at its best. The food bloggers in this study (as well as the larger group of Indian food bloggers) and their communities of readers are located both within India and outside its borders. They build community both among fellow Indians – both resident and diasporic – and among non-Indians as well. The Indian food blogger is simultaneously addressing multiple audiences and playing different roles at the same time. For the Indian immigrant (whether she herself is one or not), she is sharing “recipes of home” – how to make sambar powder or the authentic pav bhaji recipe from a particular popular restaurant in Mumbai; for her fellow Indians, both in India and abroad,

152  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity she is also sharing her experiments with the preparation of new foods from her encounter with the global. Finally, she is also addressing the non-Indian (Western and otherwise), introducing Indian food to the unaccustomed palate – exotic, yet easy, spiced, yet flavourful – showcasing India through its cuisine to the world. The recipe index in My Diverse Kitchen lists recipes under many different categories, from traditional Palakkad Iyer recipes that are her native cuisine to foreign-sounding breads and cookies and scones; from Sabudana Kichdi to “Turkish Tomato Salad with Pomegranate Molasses and Sumac.” In this transnational moment where high-profile Indian (origin) chefs (e.g. Padma Lakshmi and Floyd Cardoz) are creating a space for Indian food to be viewed as haute cuisine, the food bloggers are simultaneously working to popularise the everyday, home cooking of regional specialities as authentic and valuable.13 The two trajectories intersect in this transnational moment to redefine Indian food. Again geography plays a role in the content of these blogs. Often, the choice of dishes, range of ingredients used, and names of exotic foods tasted and tried give an indication of the geographical location of the blogger. Until a few years ago, it was possible to separate the content of the food blogs by identifying whether the blogger was diasporic. Diasporic food bloggers tended to focus on both Indian and non-Indian cuisines. They provided a glimpse (and a taste) of the global exotic to readers and bloggers located in India. A subtle hierarchy of sorts was at play here as the Indian blogger concentrated on recipes of “home” while the diasporic blogger diversified into a form of global tourism, providing for the blogger “at home” a sort of play-by-play of her adventures in culinary tourism. This has shifted somewhat over time, where bloggers from India are also exploring non-Indian cuisines on their blogs. However, the aspect of culinary tourism remains, with each blogger showcasing their particular experiments with global and native foods. One has only to look at the recipe index of the blogs to find examples. The recipes on Ishita Unblogged range from “Mashed Potato Bengali style (Aloo Bhaate)” and “Lamb Tagine with Couscous” to “Sumac Octopus with Pomegranate,” which is described as a Turkish-Ottoman recipe. The My Diverse Kitchen recipe index lists recipes from her native Palakkad, from around the country such as Goa and Kashmir, and from other parts of the world, like Italy, Scandinavia, Mexico, and the Middle East. Similarly, Veggie Belly features “entree” recipes that are introduced as everything from Sri Lankan, Vietnamese, Palestinian, and Thai. Brownlie et al. (2005) explore this idea and consider certain cookbooks and television shows as sites from which to experience that local globalization and with which to participate in metrocentric global culinary culture. . . . In this sense the cookbooks not only provide geography lessons. Through the deliberate use of enchanting streams of symbols of travel and exotic places, they

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  153 also manufacture the global diversity of culinary culture and bring it to your doorstep. (2005, p. 19) Readers of cookbooks are given the opportunity to experience the food through the pictures and text provided so conveniently by the celebrity chef. Similarly, a food blog that features global cuisine to the Indian reader or the blog that presents Indian cuisine to the immigrant or Western reader is allowing the reader or blog follower to vicariously experience not just the new food but also the new location. The Indian food blog thus serves as a personal diary of culinary travels around the world – presenting both an Indian-exotic and a global-exotic to its blog “followers.” There is an element of fantasy here, as the reader follows the authors’ transnational culinary adventures vicariously through the blog.14

National cuisines and the politics of multiculturalism “The construction of a national cuisine is essentially a post-industrial, postcolonial process.” Appadurai points out that despite the antiquity and variety of Indian cooking traditions, Indian culinary traditions “stayed oral in their mode of transmission, domestic in their locus, and regional in their scope.” This did not mean that culinary cultures were static or immune to change but that there was little or no impetus to create a national cuisine until the post-colonial period (Appadurai, 1988, p. 12). He further argues that the rise in the publication of specialised, regionbased cookbooks paradoxically works towards constructing a national cuisine rather than against the creation of one. “The surest sign,” he says, of “the emergence of an authentically Indian cuisine is the appearance of cookbooks that deal with special audiences and special types of food.” According to him, regional and ethnic cookbooks do two things: (1) they provide a systematic glimpse of the culinary traditions of people from regions other than our own, and (2) they represent a growing body of food-characterisations of the ethnic Other. In other words, cookbooks allow women from one region or community to explore the tastes of another and in doing so simultaneously allow women from one group to be represented to another. A pan-Indian cuisine, after all, requires that it draw from all over the country, and he notes that this is exactly what is happening. He contends that this is the required beginning for the development of an overarching Indian cuisine (Appadurai, 1988, p. 15). Ishita gives an extensive explanation of the variety and differences in regional cooking traditions and also gives a detailed introduction of the nuances and customs surrounding Bengali cooking. Similarly, Aparna explains how parts of Northern and North-Eastern India felt like completely different countries to her when she was younger because climate,

154  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity custom, and food were so different from that with which she was familiar. Despite his mostly positive outlook on the creation of a national cuisine through cookbooks, Appadurai worries that cookbook writing tends to simplify and offer pared down, edited versions of recipes and cuisines. This results in the disappearance of the “the most exotic, peculiar, distinctive, or domestic nuances in a particular specialized cuisine.” Another concern he has is that cuisines of lesser known or remote regions might be edged out by those with greater access to urban resources – Tamil over Telugu, Gujarati over Rajasthani, Bengali over Oriya, and so forth (1988, p. 17). Both the structure and process of writing a blog, and the fact that many blogs (at least in the beginning) are not a monetary project but a hobby for the bloggers, preclude these negative aspects of cookbooks. Since these are usually home cooks sharing their culinary experiences, there is less danger of simplification for mass appeal. Often a blogger will record the “traditional” way of preparing a dish and then present her own variation of it. In addition, it is often true that the more unique or less known one’s culinary heritage, the easier it is to find a niche and make a place for oneself in the culinary blogosphere. A certain kind of hegemony is inherent in the term Indian Food. Mannur’s (2007) critique of Madhur Jaffrey discusses what she sees as “hegemonic Indianness” that collapses a generalised category of “Indian food” with Jaffrey’s upper-class, privileged, North Indian culinary heritage. She highlights the contradictions inherent in her explanations/discussion of Indian food, which emphasises regionality on the one hand (e.g. by talking about north Indians being wheat eaters and south Indians being rice eaters), yet on the other, she talks about Indians as a homogenous group and reinscribes the hegemony of north Indian food in a way that “effectively conflates the regional with the national” (Mannur, 2007, p. 16). In the case of the food blogs, one observes both the highlighting of regional cuisines, thereby counteracting at one level, the hegemony of certain kinds of regional culinary traditions being given precedence over cuisines of other regions. Further, the blog format allows for the highlighting of extremely region/community specific cuisines to be documented, circulated, and popularised. On the other hand, there are instances where we can see the collapsing of difference by presenting a somewhat homogenous picture of Indian food. Thus, the Indian food blog simultaneously both distinguishes and establishes a place for regionality – thereby countering hegemonic constructions of “Indian food” as well as conflating the regional with the national in contexts where the blogger is trying to convey a pan-Indian tradition or image to the reader. If there are certain texts that have been considered classic for the American cook/woman of the 1960s and 1970s to draw from,15 Indian women have not had such a text. Admittedly, regional language cookbooks occasionally emerge as favourites within a certain time period, but no cook or cookbook has developed a pan-Indian identity in the way that some US-based cooks

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  155 have. Appadurai (1988) points out that Indian cuisine, with its emphasis on regionality and rules of taboo and avoidance, has not had such a single, definitive text. I would add that given Indian cuisine’s emphasis on regionality, perhaps a definitive text cannot exist. Rather, these food blogs are conceivably doing something even better: In addition to documenting the everyday culinary lives of the home cook, they are also creating archives of a cuisine that has long been deprived of such an archive. The cookbooks of the 1980s written by largely Western-educated, urban/diasporic women were the beginning of the textualisation of Indian culinary traditions, and the blogs continue that cultural work in an even more dynamic, of-themoment way. Huge archives of authentic recipes from real home cooks thus become accessible to the reader – both Indian and non-Indian – with just a click of the mouse. While these blogs cannot be considered to be an exact replacement of a single definitive cookbook or influential chef-author, one can argue that in the postmodern, Internet era, the idea of a single authentic source is passé. These food blogs provide us with multiple, simultaneous, and dynamic texts that are perhaps more valuable as archives than a single, fixed text. Discussions of what constitutes a national cuisine are closely related to multicultural politics and identity formation; specifically, the formation of ethnic identity is often influenced by the dynamics between the construction of an “ethnic” cuisine as “other,” and the consumption of this other as multicultural. The concept of multiculturalism as it relates to food has been critiqued by scholars for its superficiality and as a way to avoid deeper discussions of race and class in a society (e.g. Highmore, 2008; Slocum and Everett, 2010). In the late 1990s, “the easy multiculturalism of fusion cuisine and a willingness to experiment with different culinary styles marked the emergence of a form of cosmopolitan modernity” (Mannur, 2013, p. 8). Encountering and engaging with non-Western cuisines, as well as enjoying “fusion” cuisine, was a way of displaying a politically correct multiculturalist stance.16 Following hooks’s (1992) reminder that consumption is not value or race neutral, it becomes important to complicate simplistic notions of ethnic food consumption as automatically multiculturalist. Highmore (2008, p. 396) elaborates on the idea of multiculturalist eating: For marginalised ethnicities, as well as those ethnicities more powerfully placed, cross-cultural food consumption can be pleasurable and problematic. . . . How these potential spaces are negotiated . . . reflect the multicultural shapes of a culture (its racism, its openness, its acceptance of difference). These negotiations offer a barometer of lived everyday multiculturalism . . . but they are also themselves transformative negotiations . . . that will in turn shape the multicultural pattern of a culture, a society. Mannur defines multiculturalist eating as a consumptive practice that commonly posits eating together as a way to overcome racial and ethnic

156  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity difference (Mannur, 2007, p. 27). She argues that within Western cultures, whiteness is centred as the norm even within multiculturalist discourses that are ostensibly inclusive (2013). Ethnic cuisines then become symbols of difference that the transnational “foodie” consumes as a way of overcoming or transcending this difference.17 She draws on hooks (1992), who says that in a commodity culture “ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up a dull dish that is mainstream white culture” (1992, p. 366). The food blogs can also be seen in this light. They offer up an “exotic” cuisine to a non-Indian audience, making it both accessible and exotic/foreign at the same time. Fusion cuisine is also a popular category in these blogs. The “fusion” may come from a mixing of Indian, Western, and other ingredients with each other, from an adaptation of Indian techniques to non-Indian foods, or vice versa, or even in terms of presentation and order of eating individual courses. Following Appadurai’s critique of the division of foods into rigid and non-native categories such as appetizers, soups, main course, and so forth in cookbooks, one can see examples of how traditional Indian foods are sometimes adapted to more Western styles of presentation. In one post, Ishita of Ishita Unblogged describes a dinner she hosts for several people in a formal setting. She uses the opportunity to introduce traditional Bengali cuisine but presented or “plated” in a way that is more familiar to Western settings. There is both a showcasing of traditional food and an innovation in the preparing and presenting of individual dishes. She describes the event: I basked in the spotlight throughout the evening guiding the diner through each dish and shared stories of how and why I started my food blog, my Bengali heritage, how my Kolkata nostalgia shaped my current living, what stimulated my food senses and how the menu for that evening had been inspired by both traditional Bengali cuisine and Kolkata street food. And most importantly, how food connected me to each and every diner attending the dinner that night. (Ishita Unblogged: Blog post “How did I fare in showcasing my Bengali cuisine?”) Another example of “fusion” cooking is the following recipe featured in Veggie Belly. Sala explains: In my last post I showed you how to make homemade ghee. In this post, I share how to use all that delicious ghee – pasta with curry leaf and ghee! I am a pasta lover and a ghee lover, and this is the recipe I created to get my pasta fix and ghee fix all in one recipe. (Veggie Belly: Blog post “Ghee and curry leaf pasta recipe”) These are further examples of the repositioning of Indian food as adaptable and flexible that Hegde (2014) describes.

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  157 While on the one hand, these can be critiqued as privileging Western food consumption customs over non-Western ones, on the other hand, one cannot but acknowledge that these food blogs are counteracting hegemonic ideas about haute cuisine as being largely Western by showcasing Indian culinary traditions extensively and in a form that is easily palatable to those unused to it. By being primarily home cooks and gaining credibility as such, they are overturning popular Western constructions of the ethnic othering of Indian cuisine, while also counteracting gendered representations of “authentic” chefs as being predominantly male. No discussion of multiculturalism, eating, and the practice of transnationalism would be complete without reminding ourselves of the larger context of colonialism and contemporary patterns of globalisation. While ethnic foods are often represented as spicy and “other” and something to be “conquered” (Highmore, 2008),18 Western foods are characterised as “bland” and normalised as non-spicy. The connections between food and the colonial enterprise cannot go unmentioned. The seeds of colonialism lie in the history of the spice trade. The violence of colonialism and its connection to migration – especially from the Third World to the First World – cannot be separated from the convenient exoticisation of ethnic/non-Western foods and their use of spices. That current discourses around globalisation also often involve food is not surprising, since the search for spices and the conversion of staples to commodities has a far-reaching history.19 In his famous essay, “Old and new identities, old and new ethnicities,” Stuart Hall (1991) speaks incisively to the historical connections between foods and colonialism. People like me who came to England in the 1950s have been there for centuries; symbolically, we have been there for centuries. I was coming home. I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea. I am the sweet tooth, the sugar plantations that rotted generations of English children’s teeth. There are thousands others beside me that are, you know, the cup of tea itself. Because they don’t grow it in Lancashire, you know. Not a single tea plantation exists within the United Kingdom. (1991, p. 48) Even as the search for precious spices fuelled colonial expansionist agendas, the migrations and trade that these exchanges opened up led to a mutual “borrowing” of foods. Ingredients that have become staples of Indian cooking, including tomatoes, potatoes, chilli peppers, and cashews, are in fact “new world” foods that are not indigenous to the sub-continent. Similarly, both tea and coffee are beverages introduced into India by the colonial planters who sought to cultivate them in large quantities for export to England and other Western nations.20

158  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity Interestingly, Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen also references these “foreign” foods in her introduction to her native cuisine. Palakkad Iyer food is very healthy as it uses minimal oil, and steam cooking is extensively used. There is no baking tradition. Most of the dishes are prepared using indigenously available vegetables and spices, though many changes have crept in over the years. Vegetables like potatoes, carrots, cabbages, cauliflowers, tomatoes and even green chillies came to India as a result of foreign influence of the Dutch, British and Portuguese over the years and were not a part of the original cooking ingredients. (My Diverse Kitchen: Blog post “A bit about Palakkad Iyers and their cuisine”) Mannur argues that it is important to take into account “flourishing and complex system(s) of immigrant foodways, polyvocal in (its) intensity and deeply enmeshed in a layered history of race and class” and acknowledge them in non-marginalising/non-exoticising ways (2013, p. 11). In the context of global migration and transnational lifestyles, it is important to place the representation of ethnic food cultures against a history of racism and colonialism. Indian (in the United Kingdom) and Chinese (in the United States) immigrants, for example, were often forced to start food-related businesses because of racist laws barring them from other kinds of work.21 Some writers see multiculturalist eating as a positive development that works towards breaking down cultural stereotypes. For instance, Narayan sees it as liberating, allowing Indian food to escape from “the labyrinth of food parochialism to a liberal, welcoming of other food cultures” and of Western eaters who seek to mitigate their food colonialism by acquiring deeper knowledge of the cultural contexts of the ethnic foods they eat (Narayan, 2013, pp. 180–181). In the same vein, Hegde’s (2014) analysis of diasporic Indian food blogs assigns the bloggers an ambassadorial role for Indian cuisine by trying to battle Orientalist representations of Indian food. Their emphasis on authentic regional home cooking but in a global context shows not only the diversity of Indian food/cooking but also its flexibility and adaptability to transnational lifestyles.22 Multicultural food ways are changing, and for the Indian woman, diasporic or otherwise, this becomes apparent in the changing nature of her approach to food. In the diasporic context, where older immigrants talked about how to use ricotta cheese to make gulabjamuns, and tortillas to make papdi chat,23 and (more famously) rice krispies to make “jhalmoori” (or bhelpuri),24 newer immigrants such as these bloggers seemingly flip the concept by re-inventing recipes, deftly using Western vegetables in Indian ways, adding Indian spices to a Western dish, preparing and serving Indian dishes for Western palates and sensibilities, or creating entirely new dishes with what seems like consummate ease.

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  159 Hegde (2014) finds a similar trajectory in her study of diasporic food bloggers who she compares with her interviews of older immigrant women. They used to exchange information with other immigrant women to learn how best to incorporate ingredients like pancake mix, cottage cheese, cream of wheat or ricotta cheese into Indian recipes . . . the immigration narratives of the food bloggers, however, emerge from a different migratory flow – one more recent and closely connected with India, the flows of globalization and a more mobile sense of identity. (2014, p. 93) The food narratives in these food blogs represent a very different sensibility from that of previous generations of migrants. Elsewhere, I have discussed how new communication technologies have changed the meanings of migration and mobility, and scholars have discussed how these technologies allow migrants to remain connected with home and community (e.g. Mitra, 2008). These blogs represent a more confident migrant with a transnational/global/ cosmopolitan sensibility. It is also apparent that this cosmopolitan sensibility is not limited to diasporic bloggers but to other food bloggers as well. The transnational–multicultural Indian food blogger seems to be one with a more fluid sense of identity, though nevertheless rooted in the local. The conversational, confiding tone adopted by these bloggers, their globetrotting transnational lives, their quick and easy versions of heritage recipes, their emphasis on healthy food, the evocative descriptions of traditions, their mixing of Indian ingredients with “foreign” ones (the old recipes become new again, as they work not only with contemporary career demands, global lifestyles, and health trends) are doing the cultural work of recreating/reconstructing an ancient cuisine as “young” and transnational. The bloggers easily move between the worlds of regional, national, and global, both marking borders and blurring boundaries as they go back and forth between these worlds, showing the fluid/dynamic/mobile identities and worlds that they concurrently inhabit.

Conclusion Brownlie et al. (2005) conclude their article by stating that cookbooks are cultural artefacts that enrich our understanding of food as cultural capital and culinary tourism and reading these as texts affords us a window into problematising contemporary culture. Like a cookbook, a food blog too allows us a way of looking into and understanding contemporary cultures. The editorial and economic concerns that might influence decisions with regard to a cookbook, television show, or movie, do not play as great a role in the context of the food blog. Unlike a cookbook or a television show, which necessarily go through several rounds of planning and editing before being released, a food blog shows food culture in a much more “real” and

160  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity “of-the-moment” way because of the organic and somewhat spontaneous interaction that is characteristic of the blogging medium. Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen explains: Well written blogs are also very informative and good place to learn new things, especially getting introduced to newer cuisines, cultural food differences, new ingredients, produce, cooking procedures and food experiences. With more and more people now accessing the net on the go, it has become an easy source of information. Food blogs are better than cookbooks because they’re also more personalised, a better indication of whether a particular recipe actually works, and it’s also easy for a reader to get back to the author of the recipes to clarify doubts or have a discussion. (Aparna: Interview) Another noteworthy point is that in contrast to the documented experiences of early migrants who were forced to take up food-related occupations, these transnational bloggers (sometimes migrant) often have a choice. Maintaining a food blog can be a complex, tedious process involving blog-related technology such as computers, high-speed Internet, photography equipment (since food blogs are usually image heavy), a variety of ingredients, the right kind of crockery or dishes as well as accessories (such as tablemats, vases, cutlery, etc.) to showcase the food, and, most important, the time to execute all the tasks involved – from cooking, photographing, and writing, to uploading, and responding to comments. Far from it being work of the marginalised, maintaining a food blog is an active, voluntary choice of privilege undertaken by the blogger. In that sense, Indian (or other “ethnic”) food blogs have come full circle – from being marginalised, ethnic foodways relegated to the margins, they have come to take their place in the larger culinary landscape. Taking a cue from Stuart Hall, perhaps these Indian food bloggers can legitimately make the claim that they are the pepper on the tables of the world? As the preceding analysis shows, the food bloggers are documenting their cooking and eating practices in a dynamic way that, I believe, are far more indicative of their authentic culinary practices than a cookbook or television show or a corporate recipe site ever can be. By documenting these domestic practices of the everyday, they contribute to our larger understanding of women’s quotidian experiences. Even though these blogs do not openly espouse a feminist stance, their positioning of themselves through their choice of posts and their constructions of femininity all point towards a dynamic and progressive understanding of what it is to be a woman. By “stressing the values of a feminine domestic tradition” that emphasises and privileges the caring and enjoyment of the self (Hollows, 2003, p. 186), these bloggers are constructing alternative, more emancipatory modes of performing the self and the feminine.

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  161 In a sense, the food blogs create a transnational web across the world – from Palakkad to Goa, from Kolkata to Dubai, from Tamil Nadu to Oregon. But on the way, they traverse other networks – of travel, of migration, of conquests, and of colonisation. They explore culinary experiences of travel, experiment with recipes from the “Orient” to the “Occident” and traverse centuries and continents in their kitchens with the ingredients they use. From kitchen tales of the everyday to nostalgic memories of mothers and grandmothers, interspersed with recipes, photos, personal anecdotes, and travel accounts, these food blogs contribute to meaning making and memory making in the feminised world of the home kitchen.

Notes 1 The three blogs introduced in this chapter were all last accessed on April 24, 2019. All blog posts quoted are archived in the blog archives. Interviews with the bloggers were conducted in 2015 over the course of several interactions by email and/or phone. 2 Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote his foundational book The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), which was translated into English from the original French in 1969.The books Totemism and The Savage Mind were written in 1962 and The Raw and the Cooked was written in 1964 as the first volume of the four volume series titled Mythologiques (1964–1971) These were translated into English shortly after they were published in the original French. 3 For examples of popular Indian food blogs with clearly stated regional and community affiliations see: http://konkanifoodie.blogspot.in, www.nimmypaul.com/ index.html, www.sailusfood.com, http://onehotstove.blogspot.com. Also, www. aayisrecipes.com/profile and http://saffrontrail.blogspot.com. (All links last accessed November 15, 2015). 4 The term Tam-Brahm is urban slang, often self-referential, to refer to people of the Tamil-speaking Brahmin community. While the term is not included in any formal dictionary, that it has entered the popular “desi” lexicon is apparent by doing a quick search on the Internet for the term. 5 Hegde (2014) notes the linkages between diasporic women bloggers, immigration policies, and “nested systems of local and global patriarchy” that preclude highly qualified Indian women from working outside the home. 6 www.rediff.com/getahead/slide-show/slide-show-1-food-recipe-the-top-30-indian-food-bloggers-of-2013-/20131209.htm#1. (Last accessed on November 15, 2015). I credit Krishnan (2014) for bringing my attention to this. 7 See, for instance, Hollows (2007) and Duffy (2015). 8 The basic requirements to produce a good food blog are themselves markers of social class and status. Access to computers, internet connections, digital cameras, fluency of language, the time and money to indulge in cooking as a hobby – all of these indicate that the bloggers are most likely women who inhabit the upper levels of the middle-class demographic. 9 This aspirational move is akin to M.N. Srinivas’s (1956) explication of the concept of “Sanskritisation” developed by him, which relates to caste. It identifies a process by which those placed lower in the caste hierarchy embraced ways of life, including food, language, and rituals of those of a higher caste in an aspirational move to rise in that hierarchy. 10 In an interview with me, she explained that she was a stock market analyst who had quit to start a software company with her husband.

162  Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity 11 In India, vegetarianism is often an indication of certain caste and/or community affiliations, not in a simplistic way, but in the context of a complex web of religious, regional, linguistic, and caste intersections. Despite this complexity, it is sometimes possible to read it as a partial indicator of a person’s affiliations. 12 See also Baranowski and Furlough (2001), and Munt (1994). 13 Padma Lakshmi is a fashion model-turned cookbook author of Indian origin who became well known to Western audiences as host of the popular food show Top Chef and later as author Salman Rushdie’s fourth wife. Floyd Cardoz, author and executive chef at the popular NYC restaurants Tabla and (more recently) North End Grill, was also the winner of Top Chef Season 3. 14 This is not unlike Ang’s (1985) explication of how fantasy plays a role in allowing female viewers to relate to the television show Dallas, offering a way for them to experience other feminine identities. In the case of the food blogs, the transnational, cosmopolitan, “kitchen diva” identities of the bloggers may be one of the attractions for readers. Analysing reader responses, unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this project. 15 For example, Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer published privately in the United States in 1931 and continuously in print since 1936 and Julia Child’s (co- written with Bertolle and Beck) two-volume Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961 & 1970) are two that come to mind. 16 Mannur (2013) gives the example of Indian American chef Floyd Cardoz, who won an early season of the popular foodie game show Top Chef by making a “Wild Mushroom Upma Polenta with kokum and coconut milk.” Indian media, which until then had not bothered with reporting this genre of television, expressed both excitement and surprise that the “humble upma” was worth $100,000 – the value of the prize money. Upma, humble breakfast food to millions of Indians, immediately began trending on Twitter, going from obscurity to fame overnight. See, for example, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/us-canada-news/Up-UpUpma-Indian-chef-wins-100000-prize-in-New-York/articleshow/8881462.cms; http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mumbai-born-chef-wins-top-chefs-mastersseason-3-with-upma/1/141778.html. (Last accessed October 30, 2015). 17 For more on “foodie” cultures, see Cairns et al. (2010). 18 Highmore (2008) describes a “food event” recounted by the owner of an Indian restaurant where a group of (presumably racist) young English boys insist on eating the “hottest food” on the menu as a way of “conquering” spicy, ethnicother food. 19 The anti-GMO movement, the debates around food security, water scarcity, the slow food movement, carbon footprints of foods, and so forth are some examples of how food issues are inextricably implicated in the discourse of globalisation. 20 For interesting accounts of how tea and coffee drinking were introduced in India, see Collingham (2006) and Venkatachalapathy (2006). 21 For a larger discussion of the feminisation of “native” races as well as the feminisation of domestic practices such as food preparation and laundry work, which non-white immigrants to the United States were forced to take up as livelihoods, see Xu (2008). 22 I would argue that this characterisation of Indian food as flexible and adaptable is not unlike Indian migrants (and perhaps all migrants) themselves, who work to be flexible and adaptable to the culture of the host nation, while retaining an essential “Indianness.” 23 As a student in the United States in the mid-1990s, one of the first things I remember when meeting the “Indian aunties” is being given recipes for precisely these

Culinary landscapes and gendered domesticity  163 dishes. Living in a small university town with limited access to Indian ingredients that residents of bigger cities may have accessed more easily, it was a matter of pride to be able to serve gulabjamuns, rasgullas, and papdi chat at parties, all made from (Western) grocery store ingredients. 24 This particular innovation made famous by Pulitzer-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri in her novel Namesake, and in the movie adaptation by Mira Nair.

7

Conclusion Performing the gendered self

Blogging is constantly changing and evolving. It’s become way more competitive for one. There are uber talented bloggers coming up every day. – (Sala, Veggie Belly, Interview)1 Oh, it’s absolutely influential. Blogs have independent voices and they have their own followings. So, each blogger should understand the responsibility each one is carrying and how important it is to blog with integrity and honesty. – (Ishita, Ishita Unblogged, Interview)

In the 15 years since the weblog was developed and grew to its current popularity, the “blog” has grown not only in number of users but also in terms of form. New widgets and add-on technologies have expanded the ways in which a blog can be used, and users of all ages, from many different walks of life, and in multiple languages, continue to use the blogging medium in new and different ways every day. Since the development of the online diary into a weblog, we have seen the growth of filter blogs, political blogs, and technological blogs, and, in recent years, an explosion of the different kinds of lifestyle and personal blogs. As these blogs have become more visible to audiences outside their niche demographics, researchers have begun to take more interest in the many and varied dimensions of the blogosphere, and “blog research” has become an accepted category of new media research. In this study, I set out to explore the blogosphere as inhabited by Indian women. I approached the project with an interest in exploring the narratives of their everyday experiences that these bloggers were sharing via their blogs. First, since much research on blogging and social media has often focused on the narcissistic self in cyberspace, I was curious to see how the women bloggers in my sample set of blogs performed the “self” through their blogs. Second, I wanted to explore how the notions of public and private played out in these online spaces. By definition, a personal blog is a public document of private thoughts, and that made this set of blogs particularly interesting. Finally, I was most interested in exploring how the particularities

Conclusion  165 of experience recalled, described, and dwelled on by the bloggers in these digital narratives related to larger themes of community and identity, location and migration, and nation and citizenship. My interest was in exploring how these narratives contributed to “meaning-making” (Rosaldo, 1980) in the context of the everyday. Over the course of this project, after reading numerous blogs, and innumerable posts and comments, I was excited to discover the many layers and levels of meaning-making, identity-building, and community-sharing that were emerging through my analysis. Despite the relatively small sample size, I believe my research contributes to a greater understanding of the everyday experiences and thoughts of Indian women, such as those in this sample. I also consider significant the value that can be drawn from studying the process of writing and sharing these experiences. As I’ve stated before, any medium that provides an archive of women’s writing is a valuable cultural artefact and research resource. Finally, my findings have interesting implications for the field of scholarship that has emerged as a convergence of the study of new media, globalisation, and gender studies. In this concluding chapter, I will briefly introduce the wide swathe of theoretical work I have drawn on in order to better locate my study within the academic terrain. I will then present the main themes that emerged in my analysis to see how these themes played across the three different genres of blogs that I chose to study. Next, I will discuss the implications that these findings have for future study in the context of not only the Indian blogosphere but also to the study of other kinds of online spaces in general. Finally, I will suggest specific ways in which this project can act as impetus to further work in the field.

Theory and context In the first chapter, I provided the ideas that formed the theoretical framework for this study. I primarily draw from two broad areas of scholarship, both of which take a critical perspective. First, I base the premise of this thesis on feminist theory, which argues for research that is grounded in women’s experiences. Second, I use the insights gained by scholars working in the area of new media in order to develop my understanding of how women’s selfarticulated experiences can contribute to our body of research. Feminist standpoint theory (Harding, 1991) places women and their lived experiences at the centre of the research agenda. In this view, scholars believe that knowledge is grounded in and emerges out of experience, and for this reason, women alone can be agents of this knowledge (Rayaprol, 1997). Personal blogs written by women offer us a glimpse of these women’s lived experiences in their own words. The second area of research I draw upon is in the area of new media studies, which examines how people behave and interact in online environments. While initial research in the area studied how people behaved in the

166  Conclusion context of chat rooms and other kinds of early virtual spaces, more recently, new media scholars working in the field of social media tend to focus on the social and cultural practices that develop around these technologies and the changing meanings of “sociality” as defined by users, “produsers,” (Bruns, 2008) and media institutions. The blog is one such social media platform that was developed more than a decade ago, and despite newer technologies being introduced with unfailing and rapid regularity since then, continues to hold its own among social media users. I place my study of Indian women bloggers within this research context. My analysis was informed by theoretical ideas developed by Donna Haraway, Nancy Fraser, Sherry Turkle, and Jodi Dean, among others. Recent work by Papacharissi, boyd, Couldry, Van Dijk and Bruns who seek to describe and study the implications of our media-saturated lives were also important for my approach. Further, my analysis of each genre of blogs also drew on specific areas of scholarship that were relevant to that genre. For instance, for the blogs that focused on gender issues (Chapter 4), I referred not only to work on performativity (Goffman, 1959; Butler, 1990) but also to issues such as the multiplicities of women’s experiences (Smith, 1987; Mohanty, 2003) and work on cyberfeminism (Gajjala, 1999). For the chapter that examined blogs of the diaspora (Chapter 5), my understanding of transnationalism and its “practice” came primarily from Inderpal Grewal (2005). I also relied on the considerable literature in the area of migration studies and, particularly, work on the Indian diaspora. For my analysis of the food blogs (Chapter 6), I first referred to work by Lévi-Strauss (1964) and other anthropologists like Marriot (1968), Dumont (1970), and Khare (1992) who did early work on caste and food rules in the Indian context. I also draw from food studies scholars such as Xu (2008) and Mannur (2007), whose work on Asian and South Asian foodways and its representation as “ethnic” and “other” were important to my understanding of how cuisines can be constructed and consumed in ideological ways. Finally, Appadurai’s (1988) insights into creating an Indian national cuisine helped complicate my own understanding of it.

Identity, community, and complicating the meanings of “space” Over the course of this research project, I spent countless hours reading numerous blog posts. Reading comments and counter-comments, clicking through to other posts on other blogs, an reading more posts, and so on. As I narrowed down the three main genres of blogs that I would focus on and began to read more intensively in those areas, I began to see patterns of similarity emerge as well as several different “themes” that appeared repeatedly as I analysed the content. By themes, I mean theoretical concepts that seemed to be playing out in these blogs. Some themes were specific to a genre of blog, while others appeared in all three blog samples, appearing

Conclusion  167 in varying degrees in each sample. The four main themes that emerged as important across all three samples of blog genres were: 1 The concepts of “public” and “private” and the manner in which these controversial concepts were being renegotiated in these narratives; 2 The notion of community in the context of online environments, and the ways these blogs manifested them; 3 Issues of identity as they related to gender performativity but also as related to performing the self, fluid identities as opposed to fixed ones, and in the context of a globalised, transnational world; 4 The idea of geography – as contrasted between the local and the global, the virtual and the real, the native and the migrant. In the following discussion, I will present how these themes resonated across the blogs in different ways. One of the first themes that emerged as I began to explore these ephemeral and composite media texts was the issue of the public and private spheres and how personal blogs were blurring the supposed boundaries between the two. Personal blogs, by definition, recount the personal thoughts and ideas of the blogger, in a way that is available for public consumption. Thus, the personal blog immediately calls into question the public/private distinction which is a topic that has occupied feminist scholars for decades (Pateman, 1983). The division between private and public, historically, emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but continues to this day as a way to distinguish between state and society and the domestic and non-domestic spheres of life. In doing so, men were aligned with the “public” domains of the state, government, trade, and so forth, whereas women became aligned to the “private” domains of home, children, and family (Horowitz, 1982; Okin, 1998). Feminist scholars have argued that this artificial distinction relegates women’s concerns to the private realm and works to maintain the status quo of patriarchal dominance over women’s bodies. They argue that in fact, the supposedly “private” aspects of life, including home, family, and sexuality, are shaped and controlled by such “public” institutions as government, the law, politics, and so on. In the Indian context, Chatterjee (1989) and others have documented how nationalistic concerns in the early nineteenth century shaped the meanings of what was considered public and private, and how men and women fit into those supposedly separate realms. Referencing the considerable literature that argues against this artificial divide, I explored how the women bloggers in my sample were negotiating this distinction.2 Studies have shown that while both men and women blog, personal blogs are written more by women than men (Lenhart and Fox, 2006). Thus, a woman’s personal blog is bringing topics that concern women into the “public” realm by simply writing about those things via a publicly available blog. The three genres of blog that I studied renegotiate these “boundaries” in slightly different ways.

168  Conclusion I use the metaphor of a private living room as comparable to a personal blog. A living room is a private room in a person’s home and often decorated to reflect the owner’s interest, personality, and aesthetic choices. It is also the most “public” room of a house, one where the homeowner might invite personal friends to spend time and talk. Thus, a living room is simultaneously both a public and a private space. A personal blog is similar, in that it is “decorated” to reflect the bloggers’ style (both aesthetic and literary) and topics of interest and is a space where she recounts personal thoughts and experiences in a confiding tone. Those who metaphorically “enter” the space are readers, who participate in the conversation through comments and soon begin to feel like friends. For instance, food blogs bring the domestic realm of the home kitchen into focus by documenting the daily cooking tasks that have traditionally been performed by women.3 Kitchens, and the domestic realm in general, were considered private spaces and separate from the public spaces of the home. Conversations about food, cooking, and domestic cultures have historically been activities relegated to private conversations between women. The food blog brings these conversations out of the kitchen (or conversely, invites the public into the kitchen) and not only records but also celebrates these everyday food routines. Similarly, the bloggers who write about their diasporic lives use the medium of the personal blogs to express their thoughts about a variety of personal experiences related to their lives. These women write about family relationships, personal goals, and life experiences in a confiding and conversational tone that makes them seem like old friends. Conversations between friends filled with funny anecdotes, personal ups and downs, and passionate debates invite the reader into their virtual transnational living rooms to join the dialogue. While the blogs about food and transnational lives do in fact blur the lines between the “private” and the “public,” the sample of blogs that focus on gender issues perhaps best reflects how the personal blog is renegotiating these concepts. In my sample of three “feminist” blogs and the larger circle of other similar blogs, the bloggers discuss topics such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, and the imposition of patriarchal values that suppress or undermine women’s choices. Other topics include marital rape, sexual abuse, honour killings, and so forth. These traditionally “taboo” topics that were considered too personal and private to be discussed outside the context of the home (and often not even there) are discussed on these blogs in an open, informative, and conversational style. The blogs not only act as a platform for the blogger to share her experiences and express her thoughts but also function as a platform for other women (both other bloggers and readers/ commenters) to discuss, debate, and draw attention to topics related to gender and feminism. By discussing personal, and supposedly private, topics in a public way, these blogs are renegotiating these entrenched distinctions. The shared conversations on these blogs leads to a second overarching theme in my study, that of community. The popular use of the term might

Conclusion  169 imply a group of people living in a specific geographical locality or sharing a common characteristic such as race, ethnicity, language, or profession. It may also refer to those with shared interests, goals, or attitudes. Yet, academically, the term has been used in many ways, as in “imagined communities” as described by Anderson (1983), “community of sentiment” as explained by Appadurai (1990), and Wenger’s (1999) “communities of practice,” among many others. The notion of the virtual community has been debated, but it is one that has been sustained by bloggers, readers, and researchers. A blog’s community is visible mainly through its comments section but also through its blogroll and cross-posting (references to other blogs in one’s posts). All the blogs in my sample displayed some level of community, though each in their own way. Perhaps the group of blogs where the community was most visible was the sample of blogs focused on gender. This sample set had varying degrees of comments and counter-comments, though The Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker was probably the hub of the most vibrant virtual community in my sample. The community was visible in the numerous comments, and responses to comments, that almost every single post generated. The regular readers participated both through the comments section and through email questions and comments that were posted on the blog, and, in the case of fellow bloggers, through referencing other bloggers on their own blogs. The blogs from the diaspora displayed community in a slightly different way; though comments and cross-referencing were visible on these blogs too, the blogs also showed that the bloggers were part of other communities of interest, both online and offline. For instance, they were active in domestic violence groups, media citizenship groups, and other community organisations, and some of these affiliations were discussed on the blog. The food blogs also displayed aspects of a virtual community, both in the manner described previously and in consciously self-referential ways. In addition to the numerous comments from readers, it is common for food bloggers to comment on each other’s blogs. Additionally, food bloggers, including those in this sample, often refer to themselves as part of “the food blogging community.” This “community” connects both in online and offline environments, as in interactions with restaurants, and community dinners, offline blogger meets and workshops, or online food photography contests. Interestingly, in my interviews with the bloggers, the “community” aspect of blogging was what emerged as most significant. All the bloggers I spoke to referred to the “community they had found” through blogging. Some of them explained how they had become friends with fellow bloggers outside of the blogosphere, either through personal one-on-one emails, telephone calls, in person, or a combination of all three. In fact, two of my bloggers were instrumental in helping me set up interviews with two of their fellow bloggers and referred once again to offline interactions such as phone calls and personal meetings. The value that the blogger seems to derive from this sense

170  Conclusion of community is quite visible and obvious to a regular reader (as I became), and the idea was strongly reinforced by my conversations with them. These sentiments expressed by the bloggers echoed Papacharissi’s (2015b) larger discussion of the role of affect in virtual community building, where she refers to how technologies may network us, but it is narratives that connect us and bring us closer together. Yet another theme that emerged from my analysis of the blogs was one that comes up frequently in most studies of the blogosphere, that of identity and performance of the Self. Again, this theme played out in different ways in each genre of blogs I studied. Across all three samples, Goffman’s concept of the performance of self could be applied since bloggers can be considered to “perform the self” (1956) through their blogs. As described previously, bloggers can be considered to perform their identities through their style of writing, choice of topics, the issues they choose to raise in their posts, and the way they represent themselves as being and behaving as well as through the photographs and other audio-visual “extras” they select to publish on their blogs. In the “gender blogs,” issues of identity were visible primarily in the form of discussions around gender performativity and the many layers of expectation that women are subjected to with regard to the way they can and should behave. To ground this discussion theoretically, I draw from Butler’s (1990) concept of gender as an expression of what one does, rather than what one is. Butler thus sees gender as performed according to rules and mores developed within society and not as biological or “natural.” Gajjala (2003) extends these ideas into cyberspace to discuss how performativity works in the construction of cyber-identities. My analysis showed that there were many posts and discussions around these topics: There were several stand-alone posts, whereas others were posted as a reaction to current events or news items in the media, and yet some more posts occurred in response to email questions and requests from readers. While the starting point was often a specific topic anchored in time and space, the discussion would usually expand to discuss the larger context of the prescribed rules of performativity. A particularly interesting aspect of these gender blogs was the kind of meta-critique that occurred in these debates. In the diasporic blogs, the theme of identity played out in a different way. While gender performativity was not specifically discussed, the ways in which these women expressed themselves and what they revealed about their lives indicated that these women were aware of expectations of performativity and chose to follow them (or not) in their own way. But this ability to choose what rules to follow and what to ignore comes from these women’s position in the neo-liberal economy. The bloggers addressed issues of identity and belonging in terms that revealed that they were straddling different worlds and multiple ways of being. Feminist theorists, as well as those working in migration and diaspora studies, emphasise that there may not be a single

Conclusion  171 simplistic understanding of identity, as there are usually several intersecting identities that people may experience and identify with, such as gender, race, ethnicity, caste, and class. In addition to these traditional identity affiliations, my analysis showed that newer affiliations were also part of these bloggers’ identities – those based on education, geographic location, and ideological viewpoints. All the bloggers displayed a sense of self-reflexive thinking about their identities, and all displayed a transnational identity to some extent, but it was in my set of blogs from the diaspora where this was most visible. The fluid identities of these transnational bloggers were a frequent topic of conversation on the blogs, where they both embraced certain aspects – such as cosmopolitan, “progressive,” or liberal, while rejecting those based on narrow definitions of ethnicity or language that they felt were limiting and judgemental. One blogger succinctly summed up this notion of identity in flux, by referring in her “About Me” page to a Hindi phrase “dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka na ghat ka” that refers to a sense of belonging from everywhere, and nowhere, at the same time. In the food blogs, the culinary identities of the bloggers emerged as a topic of interest. As “Indian food bloggers,” these women were identifying themselves with both a national cuisine and regional cooking styles that was rooted in their identity as Indian women. Even as they shared their Indian cooking skills and recipes with other Indian women, they were also showcasing it to the non-Indian reader. Simultaneously, they were also acting as ambassadors in the reverse direction, sharing with their Indian readers, their experiments with global (non-Indian) ingredients, menus, and techniques. As such, their encounter and experimentation with the global, no matter where they are geographically located, showcases their cosmopolitan identities and their position within the blogosphere as such. For all the bloggers, no matter where they were located and what they blogged about, it became clear that these women were engaging with ideas related to identity and that to varying degrees, they were positioned as cosmopolitan/transnational women with a fluid sense of identity. A fourth and final broad theme that emerged across my sample of blogs as I analysed the text was the notion of geographies, imagined and otherwise. This is not to say that all the blogs specifically engaged with the idea of geographical space or physical location. Rather, the idea emerged as I began to think through the various meanings of real and virtual geographies and then began to see it as an underlying theme in my sample. In the blogs of the diaspora, geography is evidently central to the discussion, as the topics posted often relate to themes such as transnationalism, globalisation, displacement, and migration, which are all related to the idea of physical “geographies.” In part, one can speculate that it is the shift in geographical location that triggers many of the posts. Mannur (2013) examines how the blogs harness “the potential of the Internet to inhabit alternate geographical spaces and to look beyond the immediate surroundings of each writer’s quotidian experiences” (2012, p. 8). She draws from Heidegger’s

172  Conclusion concept of “dwelling” that refers to how a person imbues a location with a sense of “home” and belonging but then extends the concept to point out that “to dwell on” also means to think about, reflect on, or talk about something. This dual connotation works perfectly in the context of these diasporic bloggers and their “blog-homes.” For the blogs about gender, the blogosphere works towards creating just such an “alternate geographical space,” a discursive, gendered space in which the women bloggers are able to discuss gender issues in a frank, yet safe, manner. These bloggers and their readers are creating an alternate space, not as an escape from their physical location, but as an additional space in which to gather together and discuss their concerns.4 In a different way, the food blogs are also about imagined geographies. By recalling and describing stories of home, food, and family, they celebrate gendered domestic cultures and create new ones of their own. In their descriptions of food cooked and recipes shared, they provide an authentic, if sometimes exoticised, version of their regional cuisines, and thereby those regional locations. As they come together as food bloggers to share their take on food, they work towards constructing regional, national, and global geographies. The “geographies” of the Internet – be they virtual, physical, real, or imagined – have been described and discussed in numerous configurations, and this study also revealed that geography plays an important role in the way we imagine and conceptualise our locations in the context of cyberspace.

Implications for future research Perhaps the first thing I realised as I began this study was the relative paucity of research in this area especially in the Indian context. Over the last few years, while the number of research articles on different genres of blogs – especially lifestyle and personal blogs – has grown rapidly, there were very few articles that studied blogs or indeed other online spaces that were used, created, or maintained by Indians. As I dug deeper, looking for feminist media scholars studying any kind of new media and new media practices from a critical perspective specifically in the Indian context, this gap was further brought home to me. I see this as a huge absence in the field and believe that there is ample space for feminist media scholars to study all forms of new media technologies in the Indian context, especially given the implications such research will have in improving our understanding of the ways in which people of all demographic groups function in our current media-saturated environments. In this dissertation, my analytic focus has been on the media “content” – or the content of the blog as the primary text – rather than on the “producers” or “consumers” of this content. This kind of focus on content alone has sometimes been criticised (e.g. Philo, 2007) as not adequately taking into account the context of production and audience response. However, as Fursich (2009) has pointed out, “the narrative character of media content,

Conclusion  173 its potential as a site for ideological negotiation and its impact as mediated reality necessitates interpretation in its own right” (2014, p. 238). The nature of the personal blog reconfigures conventional characterisation of media content as stand-alone since it is the producer’s – in this case, the blogger’s – own narratives that form the significant portion of the content. One can possibly assume that the intentions of the producer, in this case the blogger, are at least partially visible/discernible in the content itself. Unlike commercially created media content, the personal blogs (here, narratives about gender, diasporic lives, or food) are created as media content by the producer/blogger for the express purpose of sharing her thoughts, opinions, and experiences. Further, while studying content alone often requires us to ignore the other end of the media process – audience responses – the personal blog allows us a glimpse into that aspect as well, through the comments section of the blog, which is also a part of the content that is being studied. In this way, while this study has concentrated primarily on the blog as the “text” or content, we nevertheless get a glimpse of the other two aspects of the media process. However, there is no doubt that these are two areas where further research will contribute greatly to our understandings of the way people of all demographic groups engage with the blogosphere. The third broad area of future research relates to the changing nature of social media technologies. The dynamic nature of the technologies and the rapidly shifting ways in which users engage with them, forces us to constantly rethink our academic and methodological approaches. For instance, the advent of vlogs, Facebook, and microblogging and media sharing sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr, all have changed the nature of blogging and the ways in which bloggers themselves use the medium. The shifting of blogging conventions and increasing ubiquity of social media platforms offer interesting possibilities for new academic research. Take, for instance, the phenomenon of video blogging or vlogging, prompted by the ease of recording and uploading facilitated by smartphones and other related technology. It can be considered in some sense a natural extension to text-based blogging. Yet it also opens up the field to a whole array of people who may not have chosen to blog traditionally. The growth of YouTube as an important platform has been instrumental in fuelling a rise in popularity of the medium, though vloggers now have many other platforms including Vimeo, Facebook Live, Snapchat, Instagram Live, Flickr, and d.tube to choose from. While still a minority compared with men, women have a huge presence on these platforms and are considered among the top social media influencers in the world. For example, some of the most popular female YouTubers having followers on their multiple social media accounts in the tens of millions. (This is also the case with women influencers on Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms.) As with blogs, the genres of vlogs are manifold, from make-up to technology, food to feminism, and a range of other topics in between.

174  Conclusion Some of the concepts I have explored in this book would be extremely interesting to study in the context of these emerging platforms. For instance, whether there is a feminist presence on video logs (we know there is!), what are these,5 and what is their contribution to the popular conversation? How do notions of public and private play out in an audio-visual medium like vlogging? Surely, the notion of “private” is different, yet one wonders how much a vlogger reveals of herself and her personal context. Similarly, how does the portrayal of “self” manifest in videos that are ostensibly only about the self? The YouTuber community is massive, and the issues of community and identity are always on the surface as controversies rage and vloggers battle it out among themselves for subscribers, popularity, and revenue. Issues of identity and sexuality are also pertinent here as the medium has allowed people of previously marginalised identity groups – such as queer or transgender bloggers – to come into their own, find their community, and develop possible income streams through their vlogs. Indian women are very much at the centre of this phenomenon: Canadian Indian Lily Singh, aka Superwoman, is YouTube’s third richest star with over 12 million subscribers on YouTube, and another 12 million followers on other social media platforms; Liza Koshy, another young woman of the India diaspora, is making waves with 15 million subscribers. Similarly female content creators in India are considered very influential by Indian brands and by large segments of youth. The themes that surfaced in this study would be fascinating entry points into studying emerging technologies. I hope that through this study, future researchers may recognise how concepts such as “public and private,” “performing the self,” and “virtual communities” are fluid and dynamic and how these and the theoretical frameworks I have drawn upon can be used in studying both enduring and newly emerging digital technologies. Over the course of this project, several bloggers began to post on Facebook and Twitter, sometimes using it to call attention to a post on the blog, or sometimes just posting on Facebook itself, as a way to build audience interest. Some of them also explicitly referred to the changing nature of the social media environment, either describing it as an exciting challenge to be addressed, and others as an indication that maybe the time had come to slow down the blogging. In this sample, different bloggers deal with the changing nature of blogging differently. For example, IHM of Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker posts regularly on both her blog and on Facebook, though the nature of those posts differs. While on her blog, she posts substantive original content that include her thoughts and emails from readers, along with links to news items, and so forth, whereas her social media status updates are usually links to articles, shared jokes on feminism and gender issues, and links to op-ed type articles on various issues of social justice. Sala, of Veggie Belly, posts links to new recipes, photos of food she has cooked, and redirects the attention and interest of new Facebook friends to older recipes on her blog. Neha

Conclusion  175 Viswanathan, of Within/Without, has a Twitter account, but her posts on both the blog and Twitter are infrequent, while OJ of Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas posts regularly on Instagram and (of late) sporadically on her blog. The bloggers themselves are aware of these shifting dynamics. For instance, Ishita says: Nowadays comments are scattered all over the social media – some are commenting on Facebook, some on Twitter and some on Instagram. While it is good that people can follow via the medium that suits them, it also saddens me when a blogpost has enormous traffic and not a single comment. Previously, I have had 80 comments on a blogpost . . . now 20–25, sometimes much less. But one shouldn’t complain – so many readers repost, retweet, share. . ., without leaving any single comment – and that means a lot. I have got more than 10,000 followers subscribed to the blog and another 10,000 followers over social media. (Ishita: Interview) Another related trend has been the increasing professionalisation of the personal blog. This has worked in two ways: (1) where organisations and corporations such as the Huffington Post or the New York Times have appropriated the form and style of the personal blog, writing on topics as wide ranging as food, modern love, popular culture, and spiritual epiphanies; and (2) where bloggers have turned professional, using their blogs as a springboard to professional opportunities in other spheres of activity or monetising their blogs through sponsorships, corporate partnerships, and endorsements. As these blogs and their bloggers blur the lines between their personal selves, their professional selves, and their public selves, the increasing commercialisation, monetisation, and professionalisation of personal blogs opens up multiple possibilities for research projects that examine and explore these shifting selves. Perhaps the genre of blogs in which commercialisation and professionalisation was most visible were the food blogs, where numerous possibilities for monetisation exist. While Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen is subscribed only to Google’s AdSense (which auto-selects appropriate ads on the basis of the content and the visitor), the other two blogs, Veggie Belly (Sala) and Ishita Unblogged seemed to have more partnerships and sponsorships on their blogs. While the professionalisation of both Aparna and Sala seems to be based in building their reputations among the food blog community as bloggers and food photographers, Ishita’s blog most epitomises the concept of “convergence culture” (Jenkins, 2006) and commercialisation. As the content on her blog, and her aforementioned comment indicate, she is actively interested in growing her readership and her professional reputation not just as a blogger but also as a chef and writer as well. She recounts her offline activities in the world of cooking and food journalism and seems to be working actively in professionalising all aspects of her activities.

176  Conclusion This, however, was the rare instance of monetisation that I came across in my sample of blogs. Given the nature of the blogs I studied, the bloggers tended to be disinterested in monetisation and were more focused on the information-sharing and community-building aspects of their blogs. Interestingly, all three bloggers in my sample of diasporic blogs worked in the fields of media, marketing, and journalism. However, none of them actively used their blogs as a way to promote their professional lives. While recognising the broad areas of new media study that are possible, there are a few specific ways in which this particular research project can be taken further. Lövheim, in her study of young women “celebrity gossip” bloggers, notes that blog research on young women bloggers has shown these kinds of blogs “are becoming a new kind of public space for reflections and negotiations of identities, values, and gender” (2011, p. 14). Her study focuses on both the blogs and the bloggers (as I have partly attempted in my own study) and provides a good example of the kind of studies we can consider in the Indian context. Studies on the many different kinds of bloggers, male and female, “young” and “old,” blogging about many different areas of interest including movies, sports, religion, and fashion, are examples of the variety of blogs that exist and that would benefit from some academic study. In the Indian context, there are hardly any studies that one can refer to.6 Similarly, more research that focuses on both the bloggers themselves and their audience/readers would be valuable in helping us understand the motivations, interests, and constraints that surround “practice” of blogging. As social media researchers explore the meanings and constructions of new forms of sociality, the role of affect (Dean, 2010b; Papacharissi, 2015b) in this sociality is an important factor to consider. Another key concern that these scholars are raising is the role of media institutions and corporate entities in how people interact with new media. If people’s “practice” of, and immersion in media is increasingly being suggested, formed, and regulated by those whose primary imperative is profit, then what are the consequences or repercussions of such a media environment? The political economy of these social media platforms – including blogging, which is itself in flux – is a crucial consideration that cannot be ignored. Recent news reports of Facebook’s complicity in allowing malicious entities to access private data of users, the controversy around YouTube’s selective (and unfair, according to vloggers) permission of ad streams, and Twitter’s mixed responses to hate speech, are all examples of the urgent need to address political economy questions in relation to social media. Studies of this nature in any demographic would be relevant and valuable, but with my interest in the Indian context, I see this as an important direction that researchers working in India can take. Of course, with my own particular interest in how women use new media, any study that looks at how women use any form of social media will be a valuable contribution in the areas of both new media and women’s studies.

Conclusion  177

Conclusion This study has examined the many ways that women bloggers document, narrativise, share, and debate their personal experiences. This sample of personal blogs of three categories has revealed the enormous wealth of research possibilities and the considerable insights that stand to be gained from studying other kinds of blogs and other online spaces and how current and emerging new media technologies are used in the Indian context. Future research in these areas of academic interest would therefore be a huge step forward in our understanding of how we as individuals and as a society engage, function, and manoeuvre in online environments.

Notes 1 Interviews with the bloggers were conducted in 2015 over the course of several interactions by email and/or phone. 2 I continue to use the terms public and private for convenience while keeping in mind the considerable wealth of scholarship that questions its use in this way. 3 While restaurant and other food-related businesses do form part of the “public” sphere, these tend to highlight the business acumen and/or cooking skills of men rather than women. The number of celebrity male chefs, for instance, far outnumber that of female chefs. 4 This alternate space could possibly be considered an “augmented space” (Manovich, 2006), though in a slightly different sense. 5 See, for instance, feminist beauty vlogger Megan MacKay, who posts “makeup roast-orials” merging social commentary with light-hearted beauty tips: www. youtube.com/watch?v=Lseep70aE4w. (Last accessed April 24, 2019). 6 The four that I was able to locate were Mitra (2008), Hegde (2014), Raman and Kasturi (2014), and Raman and Chaoudary (2014).

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Index

Note: Numbers in italic indicate figures on the corresponding page. absent space 103 Adamic, L. A. 28 adaptation 3 adoption 3 Adorno 3 “AdSense” platform 15 African diaspora 91 Agarwal, Amit 14 Ali, Rafat 14 Alice in Wonderland 1 Ali-Hasan, N. 28 Anderson, Benedict 37, 113, 169 Appadurai, Arjun 37, 113, 130 – 133, 138, 145, 148, 153 – 155, 166, 169 augmented space 38 Australia 93 authenticity, building 141 – 145 Banerjee, S. 63 Bannerjee, Chitra 115 Bargetz, B. 65 Baudrillard 30 Benjamin, Walter 38 Blinka, L. 21 bloggers 7, 10, 12, 57, 74, 172 blogging 9; about food 128 – 163; about gender 55 – 90; from diaspora 91 – 127; multiplicities of experience 69 – 72; public/private distinction, renegotiating 62 – 72 blogosphere 2 – 3 blogosphere, building 9 – 18; blog, researching 26 – 30; data collection and analytic process 30 – 32;

methodological approaches 24 – 32; women and access to new media 18 blog profiles 58 – 62; A Desi Girl’s Guide to Relationship Survival 61 – 62, 68, 70, 71, 79, 80, 85, 88; Ishita Unblogged 135 – 136, 139 – 140, 152, 153, 156; Life and Times of an Indian Homemaker 58 – 60, 69 – 72, 74, 77 – 83, 85, 86 – 87; My Diverse Kitchen 136 – 137, 139, 152, 158, 160; Scribble Happy 60 – 61, 68, 71, 75, 76, 79, 83 – 85; Veggie Belly 133 – 135, 149 – 151; On a Wing and a Prayer 100 – 101, 108, 109, 111, 112, 117, 118, 120 – 121, 123 – 124; Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas 98 – 99, 104, 106, 107, 112, 116 – 117, 120, 121, 124; Within/Without 101, 105, 112, 117, 120 – 123 blogs 2, 8, 10, 24, 46; aggregator sites 15; genres 167; Indian women 5; posts 11 Bourdieu, P. 146 Boyd, D. 40, 166 Braziel, J. 113 Brownlie, D. 130, 152, 159 Bruns, A. 39, 41, 166 Butler, Judith 7, 38, 72, 73, 78, 170 BW|IndiBlogger report 16 Cairns, K. 139 California 93 Canada 93

192  Index capitalism 63 Castells, M. 95 Chatterjee, Partha 63, 138, 167 Chen, G. M. 22 Choudary, D. 22 communication technology 94 communicative capitalism 3 communities of support 78 – 88 community of sentiment 37, 169 computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) 25 cosmopolitanism 145 – 153 Couldry, N. 39, 40, 53, 166 critical media theory 3 culinary landscapes 128 – 163; in cyberspace 131 – 137; Indian food blog 131 – 137 culinary tourism 150 cultural identity 110 cyberculture 4, 35, 36 cyberfeminism 55, 56 cybernetic space 22 cyberpunk writing 35 cyberspace 1 – 4, 27, 35, 109, 164; culinary landscapes in 131 – 137; everyday feminisms in 55 – 90; online feminisms and 56 – 62 cyborg 37 Cyborg Manifesto 55 Czech bloggers 22 Dash, Anil 14 Davis, K. 22 Dean, Jodi 3, 16, 166 De Certeau, Michel 48 – 51 De Moor, A. 28 desi press 13 DeVault, M. L. 139 diary-style blogs 23 diaspora 91 – 127; bloggers 115, 159; communities 91; digitally diasporic 94 – 98; imaginary 102; scholarship 143 digital cultures 3 digital diasporas 55, 94 – 98 digital inspiration 14 digital platforms 2, 17 discursive space 88 discursive virtual space 102 dot-com crash 40

Dovey, J. 3 duality, Persian concept 79 Dumont, L. 129 dwelling concept 103 East India Company 93 Efimova, L. 28 English-intensive medium 16 English language bloggers 22 Equifax data breach 40 ethical issues 32 ethnic cuisines 155, 156 ethnoscape 113 Facebook 10 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal 40 fair game 27 Featherstone, M. 146 feminist activism online 56 feminist bloggers 76 “feminist” blogs 7 feminist empiricism 42 feminist Internet 4, 6 feminist knowledge producers 122 feminist scholarship 62, 63, 138 feminist standpoint theory 42 – 44, 165 Fiji 93 Fijian Indians 93 filter blogs 11, 12, 19, 164 finanscape 113 Fisher 111 fluid identities 110 – 113 food: bloggers 151; through gendered lens 138 – 145 foodie culture 150 food studies 128 – 131 Forbes 14 Fraser, Nancy 37, 166 Fursich, E. 30, 172 fusion cuisine 156 Gajjala, Radhika 20, 38, 55, 96, 121, 122, 170 gender: identity and 72 – 78; performativity theory 72 – 78; self portrayal 72 – 78 gender-based bullying 57

Index  193 gendered domesticity 128 – 163; renegotiating 140 – 141 gendered narratives 35 – 54; feminist standpoint theory 42 – 44; social media and society 38 – 41; women and writing 44 – 48; women’s “everyday” experiences 48 – 54 gendered self 164 – 177 gendered spaces 78 – 88 gender-focused blogs 67 gender performativity 72, 76, 78 Ghosh, Amitav 115 Gibson, William 35 Giddings, S. 3 GigaOm 14 GirlsGuide 85 girmitiyas 93 global interconnection 94 globalisation 94 Goffman, Erving 49, 52, 72, 75, 78, 79, 170 Grant, I. 3 Grewal, Inderpal 114 – 116, 119, 121, 122, 124, 125, 166 group blogs 9 Gupta, A. 138 Guyana 93 Habermas, J. 37 Hall, Stuart 110, 157 Haraway, Donna 37, 38, 55, 166 Harding, Sandra 29, 42 hashtag activism 56 healthy food bloggers 23 Hegde, R. 22, 53, 54, 96, 140, 159 hegemonic social conventions 72 Heidegger 103 Herring, S. C. 7, 22, 25, 27 – 28, 31 Hewer, P. 130 hierarchical, sexualized and gendered binary order 65 Highmore, B. 155 Hodkinson, P. 66 Hollows, J. 140 “home” and “host,” spatial politics 102 hooks, b. 147, 155, 156 Hookway, N. 24, 27, 30 Horne, S. 130

identity 166 – 172 ideoscape 113 imagined communities 113 “Imagined Communities” 37 imagined political community 37 Indian blogosphere, defined 13 Indian diasporas 91 – 94; blogosphere and 97 – 98 Indian Food 154 Indian food blog 131 – 137 Indian merchant communities 93 Indic languages 16 industrial capitalism 3 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) 18, 95 innovation 3 Instagram 10 Internet 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 26, 35, 37, 48, 55, 58, 96, 102, 103 Internet-enabled communication technologies 9 Jaffrey, Madhur 154 Jameson 30 Jeong, J. 28 Jordan, B. 38 Karlsson, L. 23 Karvachauth 75 Kelly, K. 38 Kenya 93 Khamesra, Laksh 14 Khan, Sameera 57 Khare, R. S. 129 Laguerre, M. 95, 97 Lalita, K. 44, 45 Landreville, K. D. 28 language barriers 16 Lee, J. K. 28 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 128, 129 life narratives 5, 44, 46 “lifestyle” blogs 12 life writing 46 Lincoln, S. 66 Lister, M. 3, 17, 38 LiveJournal 11 long-standing sexism 4

194  Index Lopez, L. K. 22, 48 “Love in the Age of Debussy” 116 Lövheim, M. 21, 176 Lynch, M. 23 Malaysia 93 Malik, Om 14 Mannur, A. 21, 103, 113, 131, 149, 154, 155, 158, 171 Manovich, L. 38, 51 mapping, Indian blogosphere 9 – 34 Marinescu, V. 22 Marriott, M. 129 Martin, J. D. 28 Masserat, A. 79 Mauritius 93 McGaughey, K. 20, 22 Meatless Days 149 media as practice 53 mediascape 113 media sociology 53 Melwani, L. 14 Menon, Nivedita 65 meta-critique 76 methodologically plural paradigm 28 Meyers, E. A. 23, 50 migration process 93 mini-public sphere 80 Mishra, Vijay 92, 93, 102, 125 misogyny 6 Mitra, A. 2, 22, 96, 102 – 104, 106, 108, 109 Mohanty, C. 5, 43 – 45, 47, 62, 64, 69, 115 mommy bloggers 21, 22 mommy blogging 22 more real than real concept 79 Mukherjee, Bharti 115 multiculturalism, politics of 153 – 159 Mumbai Mirror 81 Narayan, S. S. 6 Narayanan, S. 6 narrative bits 2 national cuisines 153 – 159 neoliberal capitalism 16 neo-liberal feminism 122 neoliberal transnationalism 121 networked feminisms 55 Neuromancer 35

new cosmopolitanisms 113 new media studies 35 – 54 New Zealand 93 Nichols, B. 38 nostalgia 141 – 145 obsolescence 3 online diaries 19 online feminisms 55, 56 – 62 online identities 2, 35 – 38 online misogyny 4 online research 24 online spaces 2 Ossman, Susan 79 Papacharissi, Z. 39, 41, 166 Patheja, Jasmeen 56 PC Magazine 14 performativity theory 7, 72 – 78, 170; of social interaction and articulation 79 personal bloggers 57, 58 personal blogs 11, 12, 18 – 23, 27, 44, 67, 165, 167, 168, 173, 175 personal webpage 9 Phadke, Shilpa 57, 64 political blogs 164 politics of location 102 – 110 popular cyber culture 35 Postelnicu, M. 28 Poster, M. 36 Practice of Everyday Life, The 49 Pradhan, Rohit 15 private HTML blog websites 12 private spheres 62 psychological empowerment 20, 21 public/private dichotomy 62, 66 Pyra Labs 10 “radical” democracy 80 Rajan, G. 113 Raman, U. 22 Ranade, Shilpa 57 Raw and the Cooked, The 129 Rayaprol, A. 42 – 44, 93, 94 referential space 103 Rheingold, Howard 36 Ros, A. 94, 95 Rosaldo, M. Z. 43, 44, 76 Rushdie, S. 143, 145

Index  195 Schiller, N. G. 96 self as social ritual 78 self-disclosed space 103 self portrayal 72 – 78 Sepia Mutiny 14, 97 Seshu, G. 18 Sharma, S. 113 Siddiqui, M. A. 138 Sikh farmers 93 Silver, D. 35, 36 Singapore 93 Smith, D. 42, 43, 47 – 49, 52, 63, 144 Smith, S. 5, 44, 46 – 48 social-cultural-economic aspects 40 sociality concept 39, 166 social media 2, 16, 38 – 41, 57, 67; ­campaigns 4; experts 16; platforms 17 social network analysis 25 “social” obligation 39 social space 3 socio-cultural factors 41 South Africa 93 South Asian diasporas 92 South Asian diasporic mobility 97 space of flows 95 Squarespace 17 Stavrositu, C. 20 Stone 36 strategic gamesmanship 52 Suleri, S. 149 Sundar, S. S. 20 synthetic cybernetic space 103 tags 10 Tanzania 93 techno-feminist critique 22 Technorati 11, 12, 14 technoscape 113 Tharu, S. J. 44, 45 theme-based indices 26 traditional diaspora 91 traditional methods 25 Trammell, K. D. 28 transcontinental journeys 91 – 127 transnational identity 111 transnationalism 7, 147, 149; democratic citizenship 121 – 125; liberal politics 121 – 125; “practice” of 118 – 121

transnational lives 91 – 127 transnational subject 113 – 119 transnational women bloggers 66 Tremayne, M. 28 Trinidad 93 Tsaliki, L. 37 Tufecki, Zeynep 40 Tumblr 12, 17, 56 Turkle, Sherry 1, 38, 166 Typepad 12 UltraBrown 14, 97 updates (posts) 9 US Immigration Act of 1965 93 Van Dijk, J. 40, 166 Van Doorn, N. 20 Varadarajan, Siddharth 14 Verma, Amit 14 Vij, Manish 14, 97 virtual communities 35 – 38, 95, 96, 169 Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier 36 virtual geographies 78 – 88 virtual public sphere 57 virtual space 83, 88 Viswanathan, Neha 14 vlogging 173 Web 2.0 1, 9, 50 web content analysis (WebCA) model 7, 22, 25, 28, 29, 31 web crawlers 26 web sphere 30 Wenger, E. 169 Williams, A. P. 28 Williams, J. A. 65 Women’s Rights Online report 18 Women Writing in India 45 WordPress 11, 12, 17 World Wide Web 26; Foundation 18 Xu, W. 142 YouTuber community 174 Zheng, N. 28