Digital Subaltern 2.0 presentation from September 2014

1. “Digital Subaltern 2.0:
Globalizing the
Commodified Other”
Radhika Gajjala, September
2014

2. Theory building collaborators
Non-profit collaborators
Visual analysis collaborators (both on campus and
from other places)

3. Research
Process
• Framing of the Project
• Background/Context of Site(s) examined -
Method – Ethnography , Immersion and
Action Research
• Thorough and close readings of relevant
work in intersecting disciplines
• Description/Discovery of what is happening
at the site(s)
• Analysis – Method Visual and Discourse
analysis
• Extension of Theory
• Future Directions for Examination of issue
at hand

4. Central
Research
Problem
• As Global FinanceScapes work
together with Global MediaScapes to
Data-ize Indigenous populations,
informal economies and tacit
knowledges in the name of financial
inclusion. What sorts of global
networks emerge online/offline?
• What’s at stake here?

5. The dual processes of
global “NGOization” and
“ITization” produce global
communities of production
and consumption at this
coded interface.

6. Hierarchies of literacy,
culture and everyday
practice that shape the
communication and
presence of Non-profit
advocacy Online.

7. “digital subaltern 2.0” - not
to be confused with
essentialized or ideas of the
“authentic” static subaltern

8. Raises issues not only of
representation – but also
questions about terms of
engagement with the
global financial structure
and labor hierarchies

9. Social Media
and
Micro-transactions
• Buy and sell
• Access for consumers
• Supposed access to “the
market”
• (Creation of) Demand and
Supply
• Whose Desire?

10. Method
 Critical Ethnography
 Visual Analysis
 “Epistemologies of Doing”

11. Theory
• Subaltern Studies
• Development Studies
• Cyberculture Studies
• Feminist Theory
• Affect Theory
• Visual Studies
• Political Economy

12. Some sites I
explore
• http://www.kiva.org
• http://www.micrograam.co
m
• http://www.microplace.co
m
• http://www.lendwithcare.or
g
• http://safaricom.co.ke

13. • Microfinance
• Empowerment
• Subaltern
• Mobile Money
• Entreprenuer
• BoP as Consumers
• Digital Play and Labor
• Affect
• Biopolitics
• Millenials
• Women’s work

14.  “The most widespread
microfinancing instrument is
microcredit or microlending,
which is the issuance of
small, unsecured loans to
individuals or groups for the
purpose of starting or
expanding businesses.
Microfinancing aims to
alleviate poverty by stimulating
economic growth through
entrepreneurial initiative.” -
Susanna Khavul

15. Banking the
“unbankable”; Financial
Inclusion
Lisa Simpson
discovers microfinance

16. Lisa Simpson
discovers
microfinance –

17. Developed World
Online Networks
Kiva.org
Microplace.com
Lendwithcare.org
Online Networks
Revealing and Naming Embedded
Communication Processes
Ebay
Etsy.com
Novica.com
Alternate Producers
and Consumers
Lenders, Investors,
Philanthropists and
Social Entrepreneurs

18. Producer
Cooperatives
Online Networks
Kiva.org
Microplace.com
Lendingwithcare.org
MFIs
NGOs
Social
Entrepreneurs
Rural
Borrower/Prod
ucer from
Developing
worlds
Online Networks
Ebay
Etsy.com
Novica.com access
Markets Credit
Locating the Offline to Online Mediators

19. • The coded interface, on
the other hand, structures
the practices in very
specific ways even as
liberal discourse points to
the rampant
“multiculturalism” online
as evidence of progress
and democracy,

20. while in coded fact this
multiculturalism is almost
accidental, yet shaped by a
labor force that is based in a
tiered hierarchy of layered
literacies and material
access. (2012-11-24).
Cyberculture and the
Subaltern: Weavings of the
Virtual and Real

21. Networked
(global) Labor
as the inter-networks and cross-platforms
throw up individualized
subalterns as discipline-able low-cost
labor-surplus options (from
historically colonized locations)
and patrons (from historically
colonizing locations) –
simultaneously staging the
borrower and lender in a global
setting.

22. Narrating “the
subaltern”
through socio-financial
platforms
•http://www.kiva.org/about/how
•http://www.kiva.org/community
•http://www.kiva.org/fellows
•https://twitter.com/kiva_journals
•http://www.kiva.org/updates
•http://pinterest.com/kivaorg

23. (micro)financing
“the subaltern”
• We can do it!
• $25 dollars at a time!

24. Empowered to
Empower…

25. Digital
Philanthropy
2.0
• Global Giving Staged
• Neoliberal Logics of
Empowerment

26. Monetizing
Social identities
• Producing Monetary value
for particular offline bodies /
subject positions
• Supplying the globally
consumable global
subaltern
• Globally acceptable labor
forces
• Individualized. Subordinate.
Disciplined.
• The Other contained and
Manageable.

27. Monetizing
Social identities

28. • Who gets to manage and
structure it?
• En-Coding Voice, en-
Coding Bodies, de- Coding
Affect, en-Coding Financial
practice, en-coding Affect
• Affective Intensities as
Strategies of Persuasion –
• Affect translated into
emotional mis-readings/
labels - politics of
emotion
• Staging the Global

29. • Those that “find” the digitizable
subaltern
• Those that work to stage them
• Those that fund the staging
organizations/collectives
• Those that contribute to the funding
• Supply and Demand - Met.
• Media(ted) Economics of subaltern
empowerment?

30. Thank you!
http://www.radhikagajjala.org