By Ayushi Arora
The outputs mentioned in this blog post are part of the Without Fear fellowship program 2022 – 2023. The Bachchao Project started this fellowship program to bring together a cohort of talented individuals with experience and interest in the gender and development space, who could bring fresh perspectives and potential solutions to threats faced by structurally silenced women and gender minorities in the country. This cohort could learn from itself and others, and look at innovative tech based interventions and ideas. The fellows were based around three central verticals; the social and development space, tech, and art. Ayushi was part of the Art Vertical.
Images By: Ayushi Arora under CC-BY-SA 4.0
Digital ecosystems are embedded in everyday lives now, operating within socio-cultural-political contexts rather than in abstract. A lot in the lives of workers too, is mediated by technology and there remains no doubt that this mediation will only become multifold in the near future. From welfare schemes to redressal mechanism- a whole lot of world has turned cyber for the working class: Digitization of EPF and other benefits, biometrics attendance, mandatory implementation of Poshan Tracker App, Shram Suvidha Portal- the list goes on.
Labour is one of the least talked about and syndicatedly silenced beat in indian media. When we talk of women workers, the suppression of experiences is even more layered but wiped out from public consciousness. With technological transformation turning war footing, it has become imperative to closely interrogate the model in context of the vulnerable. The author aims to create a multimedia project that can sustain itself as an archival platform interrogating the intersections of labor, caste, gender and technology.
Over the course of this fellowship, the author wished to inquire into how labor practices and the working class are being transformed in the age of technologization, through an anti-caste and feminist lens. Ostensibly, these digital drives are designed to be efficient and make things simple. The author wished to put this belief under interrogation to find out if tech systems are designed keeping social realities in mind, or if they are making things simple only for those who know how to use technology, thus exacerbating inequality.
Additionally, the author also attempted to understand various ways in which state and non state actors supress voices of women from marginalised /minority communities as a direct result of identity and political assertion over social media. As part of this, the author has carried out a series of field interviews. Two of these are included in this blog post.
Anganwadi Resistance.docxQR Final.docx
MK FINAL.docx