Identifying the Politics of Identity

A majority of countries today are struggling with the horrors of their own creations. Since the beginning of the world we have learned to congregate into groups of distinction. Humans, animals, insects and things are often classified based on their looks, compositions, habitats or habits. It has been our fundamental need to segregate, divide, classify, categorize and label through differences and disparities.

We have supposedly evolved in our bodies and our brains but our minds continue to inhabit this very fundamental human need. On the contrary our minds have evolved its capacity of registering the infinitesimal differences to manifest into a colossal suffering. Now we have learned to stress ourselves with imagined distinctions to haunt us so much that we have lost the capacity of all other senses. Such is our overpowering need to differentiate that we cannot see, hear, touch, smell, taste or feel the similarities of our fellow human beings. Our desire to rule and to dominate is so great that we have fashioned differences to create fake identities through colors and nations and ethnicity and professions and in the process we are now so fragmented that we have lost one of the most distinguishing trait of being a human, the capacity to feel empathy and compassion.

Defining and redefining our identity is hence a political tool to obtain and retain power, the sooner we differentiate these differentiation the faster we evolve ourselves out of permanent self-destruction. If not, the only hope that we will be able to see similarities once again among fellow humans on this earth is perhaps if we were to be attacked by a common enemy such as Aliens from a distant cosmos. If these Aliens are more evolved than us humans that will be the final blow toward permanent destruction of all our collective identities - the relish of most power brokers - the so-called doom’s day. Amen.

Kenyan Wahindis

My earlier trips to Kenya were mostly marked with social hobnobbing amid my sister’s family in addition to the game spotting of Kenyan wilderness. However, this summer my experiences in Kenya extended into the deeper sociological composition, which frame social hierarchies establishing a kind of human food chain, predominantly built on skin pallor.

Since Kenya and India were both British colonies in the early 1900’s the British indentured Indians as skilled labor to build the railway lines in East Africa. The railway lines were laid through the dangerous jungles by sacrificing 2500 Indians to the notorious Tsavo man-eaters. These were the earliest Indian settlers in Kenya some of which still reside along with their families for over 5 generations.

 

Kenya’s elevated city Nairobi privileged with temperate climate and favorable agricultural land was during those times predominantly a white-settler town where the local blacks were not permitted to live. However, Indians fought for their rights and were eventually legally allowed to reside in Nairobi. Similarly, Indians also demanded political representation from the British based on their economic clout however; both prevented any representation from the local Kenyans.  

Currently, although the Indians constitute less than 1% of the total Kenyan population they are integral to Kenyan economy and politics. Indian Gujarati’s and Punjabi’s dominate businesses, trade and commerce and have flourished together with the Kenyan economy. Since, Indians own approximately 30% of all businesses, it is a common sight to see Indian business owners employing local Kenyan workforce.

Indian Diaspora in Kenya is brilliantly represented through Naipaul’s book “A bend in the river” wherein, the KenIndians known as Wahindis in Swahili live in a closely guarded bubble of their religion, language and culture, which is surprisingly endogamous and close-knit in spite of over a century of settlement with the Kenyans. From the Kenyan perspective the Indians are no different then the Colonial powers of injustice and exploitation and this resentment has often taken form of violent crimes.

Nevertheless, KenIndians felt a brunt of causalities during the Westgate siege in 2013 by the Somalian Islamist Group, since the mall is located in the affluent Westlands area of Nairobi often frequented by the Indian Diaspora and nearly 60% of the business owners in the mall were Wahindis. 19 of the total 68 casualties were from Indian origin. And as observed often, occasions that involve a common enemy tend to unite the diversities. There are many stories of how the Kenyans and the Wahindis faced the Westgate crisis together and helped each other during the siege and after.  

The question is weather we require crisis situations for globalization to be truly realized? Will we continue to live in little bubbles of our cultures and identity and looking inward in spite of where we live? Is there any hope for humanity to exist as a whole by shedding our differences and taking inspiration from each others strengths?

Observing Media Patterns of Children

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"The 21st century will not be a dark age. Neither will it deliver to most people the bounties promised by the most extraordinary technological revolution in history.

Rather, it may well be characterized by informed bewilderment."

Castells (1999)

Author of the book, “Rise of the Network Society” Manuel Castells in his interview with Gestner of ABC mentioned that, “The information technology revolution is about how we generate and process information. And information is the key substance of all human activity, and is directly related to culture, to institutions, to experience. So for the first time there is a direct connection between what we think, what we believe, and how and what we produce. Minds become the direct productive forces, and minds are rooted in culture and in social relationships. So there is interactive connection, for the first time, in real time, between nature and culture, through information processing enacted at the speed of light”.

21^st Century infants soon as they develop some basic motor skills begin to patter on mobile devices, haptic experiences of babies and toddlers have been nurtured by tablet touch screens. By the time, children start school they begin to meaningfully use media devices using their smart phones to vote, to play, to chat or to find information. Modern day children are embedded into new media technologies and are setting the trends of media consumption patterns. You Tube mash-ups, Minecraft building blocks and Wikipedia information are already shaping the modern pedagogy. In times when the boundaries between recreation and information are blurring, children are not only consuming media but also actively creating media content.

I have often noticed two extreme sets of discourse toward children’s media consumption patterns. On the one hand there is a pessimistic discourse wherein, children + media = parent anxieties in terms of medias adverse effects on the child’s health, safety and security. On the other hand, often driven by commercial interests, children are idealized as a source of hope and progress whose imagination and creativity are the foundation of the future of a society.

I am however interested a third strand of discourse which is neither pessimistic not idealistic but encourages the young to be included in the discussion and to be taken seriously in terms of how media experiences are offered to them or preferred by them which transpires the culture of the society to be able to be develop them into ‘well-rounded-individuals’.

I propose to take up this subject toward a long doctoral thesis, however my primary motivation for understanding these patterns builds on an everyday struggle with my 10 year old that depends on social media and technology for a majority of her chores. She learns to play the musical notes of her favourite songs on the Keyboard through You-tube videos, finds information regarding her favourite movie stars and pop singers through imdb or Shazam, creates movie videos with her favourite toys on imovies and makes cyber buddies and pen pals through her Vlog channel, she also practices her Mathematic equations through an internet site, Matheletics and researches for her school projects through Google. After a long stroll on the beach or an involved summer afternoon in a park watching the ducklings, she soon comes back to her ipad to find out more regarding the changing tides or the different varieties of swans and ducks. Curiosity of today’s child need parents with the knowledge base of Google and Yahoo, so perhaps if she is not referring to it directly eventually we parents are directing her to find her answers on the internet. With such an overwhelming influence of the media on today’s children, it may be vital to consider its presence not in the background of their lives but rather embedded into their lives. 

Often marketers have used the term ‘catch them young’ to grasp the pristine and undivided attention of children and adolescents toward capitalistic and brand building motives. In the digital age additionally children are exposed to a variety of windows, which can make them wiser faster and/or can also expose them to a variety of threats and challenges in an effort to keep up with the pressures of the fast changing world. Digital media has become part of their academic curriculum and online games and digital apps have become integral to learning pedagogy. Most parents have to perform a tight-ropewalk between maintaining the digital media diet and allowing a healthy growth of knowledge and media skills. These are times for both parents and the young ones to tread the cyberspace with an informed and a poised comportment. By alienating children from such decision-making however is beneficial to neither. Hence, my constant endeavor is to understand the world of children as they are experiencing it and not just by proxy of what the parents choose for them.

Night Crawlers - Media Sensationalism

My advertising career has been marked by clients spending big money in mass media toward getting favorable publicity from the media and more often than not I have witnessed that such obligations are intricate which are frequently compromised debating media’s journalism ethics. The concept of media commercialization is not unambiguous. Journalistic content has often been market-adjusted that is often trivialized, tabloidized and sensationalized. Journalists have started becoming celebrities through image creations and media companies are driven more by commercial interests than journalistic ideals. Increasing competition toward gaining eyeballs has diverted the editorial focus on the audience rather than the news.

The movie ‘Night Crawlers’ portrays such a commercialization of American media. Director Dan Gilroy paints a gory, bloody and a very graphic image of media sensationalism, giving a very real picture of media practices which often the general public is oblivious of. Unemployed and desperate Jake Gyllenhal teams up with the blood-sport veteran, TV channel director Rene Russo to not just cover the crime in the city but also generate situations that can create the sensational crime news. In the breakneck, ceaseless search for footage, they both flourish along with the TV Channel as police siren equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into big bucks.

Once again I hint at the reality of fiction, as on one hand the extreme portrayal of such sensationalism maybe viewed as possible only in fiction and yet there is evidence that wars have been waged over such yellow journalism. The changing media landscape of digitized dialogue versus the old-fashioned mass media monologue has often been celebrated and yet the power of mass media continues to hold us ransom to such gory sport of blood. In my opinion, fictional tales such as ‘Night Crawlers’ warns us to be vary of our patterns of media consumption and perhaps hints us to alter our habits of media use, pointing more toward pull rather than the push structures.

Aesthetics of Poverty

I was depressed and visibly shaken while reading Katherine Boo's latest book "Behind the beautiful forevers" in which she is harshly depicting the slums of Mumbai city which is based on the lives of real people - a fictional tale based on her ethnographic research for over three yrs of these shanties. I have lived in Mumbai and have observed the conditions of these slum dwellers and have always felt helpless to see the contrast of the lifestyles of the city's extreme rich and the extreme poor. What left me wondering however is the reason for being so depressed and shaken; "Was it the reality of the fiction or the fictional portrayal of reality!!"

Davidov (2013) in his article regarding "Ethnographic Fictions" suggests that, "whether one looks at the discourses of development in fiction, or discourses of and around development as fiction, one must consider what these fictions reveal or conceal on a meta-narrative level, even as they may become fluid and transformed through circulation".

Representations in media have profound effects on the lives of the people portrayed, some of these media productions are designed with an objective in mind, such as humanitarian aid, attention to development and social change and at other times subconsciously they simply reinforce or create stereotypes. 

To quaver my psyche into understanding why i think Katherine Boo's depiction is dry and harsh,  I revisit my own media analysis of another similar transition between fiction and reality of the movie 'City of God' (2002) depicting a Brazilian favela based on a book by Paulo Lins (1997) and a true-life story of a little boy named Alexandre Rodrigues. 

My intention in the analysis of 'City of God' was to plough-up a fertile ground that may help to construct an alternative view and perception of issues such as poverty and human rights, which are often wedged in western hegemony and politics of power. I had made an attempt to address the intersection between, fiction, development and post-colonial studies under the title ‘Aesthetics of Poverty’ a term widely attached to the Cinema Novo genre of film-making, which originated in Latin America toward social equality with a participatory ideology. 

 

‘Cidade de Deus’ directed by Fernando Meirelles is a not rhetoric of oppression to create pity and attract humanitarian aid. It is an attempt to publicize a jarring counter image of what the world knows about Rio and what more Rio has to offer than sun, sand and beaches. There are many documentaries
and cinema novo films made to this purpose, however the reach of popular cinema and the creative genius of the director and his team toward creating ‘Cidade de Deus’ which has won many accolades internationally has certainly helped to achieve a great level of publicity toward bringing Rio’s underbelly to the worlds notice.

Almost the entire cast of 200 actors for the film were recruited and trained for acting from the favelas of Brazil, moreover the film has been shot in a nearby favela (less dangerous compared to Cidade de Deus) and in the original Portuguese language by a Brazilian director. Hence, the film has consciously maintained the authenticity of characteristic mannerisms, lingo, psyche and milieu. It can be compared to what Spivak (1988) cited in McEwan (2009 p.73) calls the ‘native informant’. The film hence narrates knowledge situated within the favela, as McEwan (2009, p.35) explains, “what counts as knowledge determines, who creates it, where it is generated and how and for whom it is disseminated”.

The narrative is neutral and candid, however the director does take liberties toward creating larger than life image of a psychopath such as Li’l Ze to alienate a monster and hence create the classic good vs evil story line. Consequently, the binaries of white and black, rich and poor, male and female, the educated and uneducated are also clearly apparent in the narrative. The scenes contrasting the urban slum with the affluent urban city are very few, such as the office, the super market where Rocket works. However, they accurately represent the juxtapositions of enormous GNP’s alongside of extreme poverty in Brazil. These scenes clearly portray race inequalities with majority white population in the urban city versus the majority pretos (blacks) in the urban slum. Moreover, women are mostly shown in the background and have no major role-play except for the purpose of sex in the favela, whereas the urban city office shows many white women at work. Conversely, if you follow
the storyline, most of the men feel doomed to live the favela life, unless women salvage them, to live better lives outside of crime. This is an alternative way of unpacking the plurality of feminist roles challenging western assumptions (McEwan, 2009, p.57-59).

Nonetheless, these representations of cultural pigeonholes are deliberate intentions of the director toward his overall objective of depicting bare, raw and earnest reality. Since, a majority of the actors starring in this movie were residents of favelas, the production team attempted to relocate them to safer areas, giving them opportunities of work and provide them with education and improved living conditions.

However, a research after 10 years of the film’s success suggests that out of approximate 200 actors, most of them insisted on living in the same neighborhood along with their family and friends, some have continued with their acting careers and many continue with their original lifestyle. Nevertheless, this genre of movie making, which is not only an artistic expression and a communication medium but also extends itself in to becoming a developmental project through local participation leads us to an interesting dialectic regarding the blurring boundaries between facts and fiction.

References:

Davidov, V., (2013) 'Pedagogical’ and Ethnographic Fictions and Meta-narratives of
Development: 1 World Manga, Journal of Development Studies, Vol.49, No.3, 398-411.

McEwan, C., (2009) Postcolonialism and Development. London and New York:
Routledge.

Information Couture

Tailored and customized clothing designed to fit your body contours is often referred to as "haute couture".  Eli Pariser  opens our eyes to what he calls the 'filter bubble' wherein the modern day digital algorithms seems to be snipping, cutting, contouring and filtering out information for each one of us like haute couture. He gives examples of Google's search engine which decides what information caters to your interests and other social media channels such as YouTube and Facebook customizes the feed as per the digital understanding of your personality, likes and interests. Such tailoring sounds fine as long as you agree to remain in the customized bubble created especially for you but that defeats the definition of the Internet which promised to connect us to the world wide web.

However, one can argue that the world wide web information is enormous and hence it is inevitable and perhaps even intelligent to create a digital bubble which caters to our personality and interests. What one needs to then question is the integrity and authority of such tailoring which seems to assume the power of couturing for us as per their assumptions of our vital statistics. Furthermore these vital stats have a potential to change and does this couture culture allow such a change? Inventor of the world wide web Tim Berners-Lee himself is concerned of this couture culture and compares it to the Eagles number 'Hotel California', where you can check-out anytime you like but you can never leave.

James Smythe in his short story, “Trapped in a vortex of their own trivia” creates a hypothetical situation in which a user fails to realize that a war has broken out, because his internet feed simply supplies him with endless reviews of war films. Is it possible for us to break free of such a matrix, how can we be more vigilant of what information about us is becoming public or that we are going to be judged by. Are the current privacy settings and choices on the social media and search engines enough to prevent such a scenario? Can we become smart enough to construct a desired data-mining avatar that fits our needs? There are proxy servers such as "hide my ass" and secured 'https' and cached browsing patterns which hides your digital footprint as illustrated by Colin Jacobs however it is not established how much is still visible to powerful data-miners such as Google. Julian Assange's statement that, "the Internet is the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen" sounds appropriate to describe such an "Information Couture".