'Instagram is like a karela': transnational digital queer politics and online censorship and surveillance in India

Kanchan, Tanvi

Abstract

This article explores transnational queer political flows and negotiations in Indian queer/trans communities on Instagram, situating this in its limits and restrictions as a public sphere that is corporate- and state-governed and subject to conditions of profitability, censorship, regulation, and algorithmic disciplining. Using insights from 23 in-depth interviews with queer/trans women and non-binary Instagram users and community organizers across India, I argue that binaries of Western/Indigenous, global/local, authentic/inauthentic are insufficient to understand Indian queer digital politics. I instead explore the political utility of agentic reclamations and negotiations of queer/trans identity by marginal queer/trans users. At the same time, drawing on participant experiences of content moderation, censorship, and corporate and state surveillance, I examine how the potentials of Instagram as a site to mediate articulations of a radical politics of queer liberation are restricted, thwarted, and reconfigured by platform design and policing.

Citation

Kanchan, T. (in press). 'Instagram is like a karela': transnational digital queer politics and online censorship and surveillance in India. Communication, Culture & Critique, 17(3), 162-169. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcae034

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 12, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Sep 2, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 14, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 14, 2024
• Print ISSN: 1753-9129
• Electronic ISSN: 1753-9137
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 162-169
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcae034
• Keywords: Instagram, queer and trans women, transnational politics, content moderation, state surveillance
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/ccc/article/17/3/162/7747686
• Additional Information: Data Access Statement : The data underlying this article cannot be shared publicly to protect the privacy of the individuals that participated in the study. The data will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.