The potential (and limitations) of digital media for sexual health interventions in India

In a new study, researchers in the UK and India have been investigating how digital platforms can be used to complement traditional community mobilisation and sexual health prevention approaches in West Bengal. In this article, Rohit K Dasgupta and Pawan Dhall discuss the key findings, and the extent to which digital media could be effective in reaching out to gay men, MSM and trans* women with information and services

Alternating sexualities: sociology and queer critiques in India

Questions of alternation might be read as intrinsic to sociological approaches to sexual difference and diversity. By this we mean ways in which the sexual as social scientific subject/object has oft been conceived of against the background of fluctuating conceptual and contextual registers. Terms for the empirical description, recognition and analysis of sexual life-worlds have most often been contested and queried. This might be especially so with regard to ‘sexually dissident’ subjects - those for whom terms of depiction in research and polity might be especially vexed and complex because running counter to claims to ‘normative’ modes of representation. Such processes, in turn, might be seen to respond to the alternating experiential and political framings of contemporary and historical sexual life-worlds. This has been evident in India in recent times, for instance, as non-cis-gendered and non-heteronormative subjects have found themselves on the cusp of legislative and social changes

'Grindr is basically interactive porn': ethnographic observations from Kolkata on queer intimacies and 'pic exchange' on Grindr and PlanetRomeo

No abstract available

Viral assemblages and witnessing extraordinary times: queer patchworks of intimacy, precarity and affect in an Indian city

This article is based on ethnographic field work conducted in Kolkata during 2019–2021 with queer and trans people during the COVID pandemic. This article develops a new framework of queer patchworks and discusses the various ways through which queer and trans communities are navigating survival during these non-normative times. This paper particularly responds to how digital media is being used by individuals and organisations as a form of witness, belonging, intimacy and care. Queer people in India live within different forms of marginality and precarity, homophobia, caste violence, unemployment and homelessness. This article brings together patchworks of whatsapp texts, broken zoom conversations, cooking gossip and addas on the banks of river Hooghly as a nod to these new realities which are reshaping queer identities; thus, offering new ways to also acknowledge, accommodate and ‘queer’ what counts as knowledge. A particular focus was moving away from totalising narratives and instead examine the tensions of being queer in contemporary India alongside the many contradictions. In turn, this engenders wider questions about queer desire, nationalism and belonging

Digital Queer Spaces: Interrogating Identity, Belonging and Nationalism in Contemporary India

Contemporary Indian sexual identities are constructed out of the multiple effects of tradition, modernity, globalisation and colonialism. The nation as we understand it is constructed on the basis of a commonality which ‘binds’ its citizens, and also banishes and expels those who do not conform to this commonality. Within this logic of disenfranchisement I firmly place the Indian queer male. This thesis examines the online ‘queer’ male community in India that has been formed as a result of the intersection and ruptures caused by the shifting political, media and social landscapes of urban India. Through multi-sited ethnography looking at the role of language, class, intimacy and queer activism, this thesis explores the various ways through which queer men engage with digital culture that has become an integral part of queer lives in India. Through this approach, this thesis makes a significant contribution to knowledge. Widely available scholarship has explored the historical, literary and social debates on queer sexualities in India. To reach a more holistic understanding of contemporary Indian queer sexualities it is necessary to engage with the digital landscape, as India’s global power stems from its digital development. By looking at the multiple ways that the queer male community engages with the digital medium, I illustrate the multifaceted, complex and sometimes contradictory ways in which this community understands, accesses and performs their sexual identities within both the context of the nation and their local space. This thesis combines textual and visual analysis along with ethnographic data collected through field research in India using multiple research sites including online forums and digital spaces such as Planet Romeo, Facebook groups and Grindr as well as engaging with individuals in offline spaces (New Delhi, Kolkata, Barasat). Studying digital queer spaces across several research sites especially a cross-ethnic and cross-social comparison is unusual in this field of study and produces new insights into the subjects explored

Mourning a queer aunty: kinship, creative resilience and world-making

Indian queer and trans activist Agniva passed away in 2016. This article draws on memoir, anecdote, research interviews and digital ethnography to explore the impact that Agniva had on a range of queer and trans people. The author details experiences he shared with Agniva and analyses virtual memorials and obituaries for her in order to account for the emotional labour that queer aunties do for their kin. This article thus explores the aunty-niece relationships that exist as a form of queer kinship, especially in the context of heteronormative homo/transphobic social systems and structures. It is also a narration of queer grief, exploring creative resistance and public mourning for a person who was variously a mother, a trans activist, a human rights warrior and a mashi (aunt) to the author

Introduction: Perceptions of masculinity and challenges to the Indian male

Introduction: Perceptions of masculinity and challenges to the Indian mal

Between visibility and elsewhere : South Asian queer creative cultures and resistance

This article draws on existing interviews and creative material from LGBTQ + South Asians who have lived and spent significant time in the UK as part of the Cross Border Queers project. It begins by considering creative forms of diasporic activism and creativity in the UK that have emerged from South Asian LGBTQ + communities and individuals. We discuss the ways in which South Asian LGBTQ + diasporic organising was formed through a sense of shared racial and class solidarity and especially under the umbrella of political Blackness. We then move on to the role played by cultural activism to see how artists have used culture as a way to advance social change and increase the visibility of South Asian LGBTQ + communities in the UK. We place different genres of visual culture, curation, performance and oral history to evoke how South Asian queer migrants articulate a distinct form of subjectivity and aesthetic practice

Queer creative Indian city: queer film festivals, precarious cultural work and community making in Kolkata

In this article, we offer a new concept of the “queer creative city”, through a critical examination of how a regional queer Bengali film culture has emerged in Kolkata as a result of the convergence of certain urban policies, queer political organising and cultural activism. We explore two queer film festivals in Kolkata – the Siddharth Gautam Film Festival and Dialogues, both having a very significant impact in transforming LGBTQ + lives in Kolkata. Through archival research, autoethnography and conducting extensive interviews with organising committees, venue sponsors and owners, and viewers, we show how these film festivals and a pre-existing Bengali film culture engendered the emergence of a prolific creative queer city, which became a site of resistance, and community building that created a solid base for queer counterpublics. Queer film festivals, we argue, are critical sites for charting the dynamics of the public sphere in contemporary India

Between visibility and elsewhere: South Asian queer creative cultures and resistance

This article draws on existing interviews and creative material from LGBTQ + South Asians who have lived and spent significant time in the UK as part of the Cross Border Queers project. It begins by considering creative forms of diasporic activism and creativity in the UK that have emerged from South Asian LGBTQ + communities and individuals. We discuss the ways in which South Asian LGBTQ + diasporic organising was formed through a sense of shared racial and class solidarity and especially under the umbrella of political Blackness. We then move on to the role played by cultural activism to see how artists have used culture as a way to advance social change and increase the visibility of South Asian LGBTQ + communities in the UK. We place different genres of visual culture, curation, performance and oral history to evoke how South Asian queer migrants articulate a distinct form of subjectivity and aesthetic practice