Participatory Action Research on Gender-Based Hate Speech Online with a Karnataka-Based Youth Group

Abstract

This report aims to contextualize a Participatory Action Research (PAR) exercise undertaken by IT for Change in collaboration with Samvada Baduku, an organization that empowers young people to be part of, and lead, social change. The initiative was undertaken as a part of the project Recognize, Resist, Remedy, which focuses on combating sexist hate speech online through legal and policy interventions by working with various stakeholders. The PAR component of the project aimed to co-evolve a proof-of-concept of a viable intervention model for young people that can promote a new online culture of zero tolerance for sexist speech. Working with 11 young people, the model sought to build awareness among the cohort about misogyny, and develop and implement strategies to counter it. Through training sessions, discussions, surveys, and a participant-led digital media campaign against sexist hate speech, the PAR reaffirmed the many established insights about the intersectional nature of gender power structures in the digital publics. It also enabled the participating collective to develop a high degree of self awareness about the nature of sexist hate, build informed perspectives, assume leadership, and confidently claim online spaces through local language materials for deepening feminist political discourse. At the same time, it brought home the challenges in confronting patriarchal tropes about permissible discourse, the visceral pushbacks that neutralize counterspeech, the corporeal consequences of being silenced, and the presence of a lurking gender police in familiar and stranger networks online. By the end of the study, the participants identified the need for systemic change, pointing to why a paradigm shift with respect to intimate interactions as well as institutional changes is necessary. They also began discovering their own political voice and laid claim to the digital publics, thereby enabling a meaningful contribution to locally responsive feminist leadership and activism.