Breaking Caste Limitations Online : The Case of Ambedkarite Buddhist and Dalit Network
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The global rise of new media and mass communication on the internet in recent decades enabled to reshape the way information are transmitted and shared throughout modern society. The new communication alternatives greatly affected marginalised communities and social movements which struggle against discrimination and the freedom of speech suppression. One of such populations are also Dalit communities in India. This paper introduces a preliminary results of a research project mapping characteristics of the Dalit activist population, its specific discursive patterns, and its usage in mobilisation goals through the analysis of their texts published on Dalit blog platforms. The resulting model examines primarily interpretations of the figure of B. R. Ambedkar and Buddha, and Navayana Buddhism. Through the methodological approach of computational text analysis ("distant reading") and social network analysis (SNA) the paper strives to present more complex representative image of the observed population and uses the model to interpret the past and present mobilisation and resistance tendencies within the Dalit movement. |
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