Digital youth cultures in small town and rural Gujarat, India

Abstract

This paper examines youth digital cultures in rural/small town Gujarat, India and brings forth a perspective from the Global South in understanding the net generation. We examine how the location and dominant discourses intersect with digital technologies and re-configure aspects of daily lives, such as study, leisure, and friendship; how youth negotiate their interactions with digital media as one aspect of their larger lifeworlds; and how these negotiations influence cultural practices within structural environments. Youth in this study treat new media and technologies as one limited component of otherwise rich lives and social experiences. While new technologies promote individualistic mobility, Indian youth of small towns and rural places still live in collective social structures that shape their orientations. New media are at the periphery of their lives, as these youth have strong interpersonal connections that are rooted in geographic proximity and active school experiences.

Making place with mobile media: Young people’s blurred place-making in regional Australia

“…Speaking and interacting with friends who lived nearby in Shepparton was a key affordance, and was how mobile media were often conceptualised among the respondents. While this has been established elsewhere (boyd, 2014; Pathak-Shelat & DeShano, 2014), there was an intimate enmeshing of digital and spatial connections emerging from mundane socialites such as those described by Jayden and Sophie (see Gordon & de Souza e Silva, 2011).…”

“…Putting aside disruptor/enabler narratives (e.g., Ei Chew et al, 2011; Stern, 2008) regarding digital media technologies, participants across all focus groups explained that digital technologies were important and constituted a key means for interacting with close friends and family. Ultimately, while the spatio-temporal malleability available in online contexts could be taken advantage of, online interlocutors tended to be embedded in respondents’ everyday, material lives (see boyd, 2014; Pathak-Shelat & DeShano, 2014).…”

Using Applied Theater Practices in Classrooms to Challenge Religious Discrimination Among Students

“…According to scholars such as Bhatia () and Pathak‐Shelat and DeShano (), regional media in these villages reinforces the dominant discourse of discrimination. When young children repeatedly consume discriminatory narratives in the absence of the required critical skills, they start practicing these ideas in and through their everyday interactions in relation to other students in the classroom.…”

“…Adolescent students in this setting rely on their village communities and the communication thriving therein, such as family circles, peer groups, politico‐religious associations, and informal communication spaces such as village lanes, tea stalls, and markets, to interpret their relationships with students from a different religious community. In rural and semi‐urban areas of India, for instance, informal communication in the village lanes, community centers, and places of worship plays an important role in forging social ties (Banaji, ; Pathak‐Shelat & DeShano, ). Theatrical performances on streets, often referred to as nukkadnatak , can lure people to attend a performance that compels them to witness the questioning of discrimination practiced in their communities.…”

Digital Culture

“…Young people especially in the Western and urban area have experienced the intersection of new media technologies and globalization [3]. Digital culture has changed drastically over the past recent years.…”