India

In this final report, CIS India shares the findings and recommendations of a 2-year research project studying the entry of digital platforms in the domestic and care work in India, as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network.

COVID-19 pandemic has led to a spike in gender-based violence in India. Helpline numbers and digital tools have been used to reach out to survivors, given the absence of physical services. But those women who cannot use phones, email or social media are most likely to be entirely excluded from these systems.

This piece was written as a part of a CIS project.

During the lockdown in India, the circumstances of marginalised population groups, including gender and sexual minorities (GSM), has worsened. Community and peer support has been critical, but in many cases it depends on phone and/or internet connectivity. The author wonders if informed choices regarding internet usage is possible in this context.

Privacy concerns have been raised about the use of digital technologies to combat the spread of the COVID-19. But what is at stake is not merely our informational privacy, but our autonomy, dignity, bodily integrity, and equality. This piece by Tanisha Ranjit is part of an ongoing research on bodies and data at the Internet Democracy Project.

As part of the Feminist Internet Research Network, we are including a series of short pieces on reflections by researchers on the ground, and in this piece a researcher talks about the experience of doing research with workers, unions and companies and of trying to determine the extent of sexual harassment or caste prejudice in the platform economy around domestic labour

As part of the Feminist Internet Research Network, we are including a series of short pieces on reflections by researchers on the ground, and in this piece, the researcher speaks of the difficulties of setting up interviews with domestic workers, often torn between home and work obligations.

As part of the Feminist Internet Research Network, we are including a series of short pieces on reflections by researchers on the ground, and in this piece, the writer explores how it is possible but also difficult for her to do social work and awareness building, and shift to doing research.

Women who do domestic work are able to now find employers through online platforms, but does this new avenue and promise of the digital economy ensure that their labour rights are upheld? In this short series, we read about four researchers who directly interviewed with workers as part of a project in the Feminist Internet Research Network. Here are the reflections of the researchers on ethics…

For some of us pleasure in our work is possible, even if it is to find the breaking and bending points in the institutions of policy and law. But even though political and particularly feminist frameworks make space for pleasure, where is the space for that in legal or policy language at the international or national level?

Sanitary Panels is an ironic yet hard hitting series where social commentary masquerades as humour and makes us rethink many of our assumptions. In this comic Sanitary Panels looks at the difference that women and men achievers face and what assumptions are imposed by social and cultural ideas around gender.