Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T05:03:20.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How to Be Visible in Student Politics: Performativity and the Digital Public Space in Bangladesh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2020

Julian Kuttig Open the ORCID record for Julian Kuttig [Opens in a new window]  and
Bert Suykens
Julian Kuttig
Affiliation:
Julian Kuttig (julian.kuttig@ugent.be) is PhD Fellow in the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University.
Bert Suykens
Affiliation:
Bert Suykens (bert.suykens@ugent.be) is Associate Professor in the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University.
Get access

Abstract

In Bangladeshi student politics, political performances in public spaces play an essential role in establishing patronage relationships and determining local authority structures. As Thomas Blom Hansen has famously argued, “visibility means everything” in such a context. With the emergence of social networking sites like Facebook, new digital public spaces have appeared. Focusing on ruling-party student activists at Rajshahi University, this article examines how student politicians in Bangladesh utilize Facebook to become visible in their everyday politicking. It shows how longstanding performative repertoires in the nondigital public space have gained a new salience through performances in the digital public space. It is those digital spaces that allow the performer to rearticulate even mundane everyday events as political performances. As these new digital public spaces impact the politics of visibility, it is crucial to integrate them in our efforts to understand local politics in South Asia and beyond.

Keywords

Bangladeshdigital public spaceFacebookpolitical performancesocial mediaSouth Asiastudent politics
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , August 2020 , pp. 707 - 738
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc., 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Alexander, Anne, and Aouragh, Miriyam. 2014. “Egypt's Unfinished Revolution: The Role of the Media Revisited.” International Journal of Communication 8:890–915.Google Scholar
Amnesty International. 2018. “Bangladesh: New Digital Security Act Imposes Dangerous Restrictions on Freedom of Expression.” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/09/bangladesh-new-digital-security-act-imposes-dangerous-restrictions-on-freedom-of-expression/ (accessed January 16, 2019).Google Scholar
Andersen, Morten Koch. 2013. “The Politics of Politics: Youth Mobilization, Aspirations and the Threat of Violence at Dhaka University.” PhD thesis, Roskilde University.Google Scholar
Andersen, Morten Koch. 2016. “Time-Use, Activism and the Making of Future.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 39(2):415–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrighetti, Traci. 2016. “How Facebook Has Changed Politics.” Lifewire, October 19. https://www.lifewire.com/facebook-and-politics-1240558 (accessed February 7, 2017).Google Scholar
Auslander, Philip. 2016. “Reactivation: Performance, Mediatization, and the Present Moment.” In Interfaces of Performance, eds. Chatzichristodoulou, Maria and Jefferies, Janis, 81–95. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Balandier, Georges. 1980. Le pouvoir sur scènes [The power on stage]. Paris: Baudrillard.Google Scholar
BCL Leader 1 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, September 29 (accessed January 20, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BCL Leader 2 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, August 4 (accessed January 20, 2019).Google Scholar
BCL Leader 3 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, September 17 (accessed January 20, 2019).Google Scholar
BCL Leader 4 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, October 1 (accessed January 20, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BCL Leader 5 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, August 1 (accessed January 20, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BCL Leader 6 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, October 2 (accessed January 20, 2019).Google Scholar
BCL Leader 7 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, September 8 (accessed January 20, 2019).Google Scholar
BCL Leader 8 [name redacted]. 2016. Facebook post, August 31 (accessed January 20, 2019).Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2008. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Biju, P. R. 2017. Political Internet: State and Politics in the Age of Social Media. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Boyd, Danah. 2008. “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” In Youth, Identity, and Digital Media, ed. Buckingham, David, 119–42. John D. and MacArthur, Catherine T. Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, Danah M., and Ellison, Nicole B.. 2007. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1):210–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Das, Veena. 2004. “The Signature of the State: The Paradox of Illegibility.” In Anthropology in the Margins of the State, eds. Das, Veena and Poole, Deborah, 225–52. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Das, Veena. 2007. Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Donath, J., and Boyd, D.. 2004. “Public Displays of Connection.” BT Technology Journal 22(4):71–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enli, Gunn Sara, and Skogerbø, Eli. 2013. “Personalized Campaigns in Party-Centred Politics.” Information, Communication & Society 16(5):757–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esherick, Joseph W. 2007. “Afterword: The Heisenberg Principle of Political Performance.” In Staging Politics: Power and Performance in Asia and Africa, eds. Strauss, Julia C. and Cruise O'Brien, Donal B., 243–50. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Gaffney, Devin. 2010. “#iranElection: Quantifying Online Activism.” In Proceedings of the Web Science Conference. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.630.7927 (accessed September 2, 2019).Google Scholar
Gayer, Laurent. 2007. “Guns, Slums, and ‘Yellow Devils’: A Genealogy of Urban Conflicts in Karachi, Pakistan.” Modern Asian Studies 41(3):515–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gayer, Laurent. 2014. Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1980. Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas Blom. 2001. Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Thomas Blom. 2004. “Politics as Permanent Performance: The Production of Political Authority in the Locality.” In The Politics of Cultural Mobilization in India, eds. Zavos, John, Wyatt, Andrew, and Hewitt, Vernon Marston, 19–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haque, A. N. M. Nural. 2015. “Social Media in City Corporation Elections.” Daily Sun (Dhaka), May 5. http://www.daily-sun.com/arcprint/details/41975/Social-media-in-citycorporation-elections/2015-05-05 (accessed September 2, 2019).Google Scholar
Hasan, Manzoor, ed. 2006. The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2006: Knowledge, Perceptions, Reality. Dhaka: Centre for Governance Studies, BRAC University and BRAC Research and Evaluation Division.Google Scholar
Heder, Steve. 2007. “Political Theatre in the 2003 Cambodian Elections: State, Democracy and Conciliation in Historical Perspective.” In Staging Politics: Power and Performance in Asia and Africa, eds. Strauss, Julia C. and Cruise O'Brien, Donal B., 151–72. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Hoek, Lotte. 2012. “Mofussil Metropolis: Civil Sites, Uncivil Cinema and Provinciality in Dhaka City.” Ethnography 13(1):28–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Philip N., and Hussain, Muzammil M.. 2011. “The Upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia: The Role of Digital Media.” Journal of Democracy 22(3):35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Crisis Group. 2015. Mapping Bangladesh's Political Crisis. Brussels.Google Scholar
Jaoul, Nicolas. 2007. “Dalit Processions: Street Politics and Democratization in India.” In Staging Politics: Power and Performance in Asia and Africa, eds. Strauss, Julia C. and Cruise O'Brien, Donal B., 173–93. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Craig. 2010. Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Henry. 2013. “Twitter Revolutions?” Spreadable Media. http://spreadablemedia.org/essays/jenkins/#.WnhdTmaZNAZ (accessed February 6, 2018).Google Scholar
Juris, Jeffrey S. 2012. “Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social Media, Public Space, and Emerging Logics of Aggregation.” American Ethnologist 39(2):259–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaviraj, Sudipta. 2007. “The Politics of Performance: Gandhi's Trial Read as Theatre.” In Staging Politics: Power and Performance in Asia and Africa, eds. Strauss, Julia C. and Cruise O'Brien, Donal B., 71–89. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Kochanek, Stanley A. 2000. “Governance, Patronage Politics, and Democratic Transition in Bangladesh.” Asian Survey 40(3):530–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kong, Lily, and Yeoh, Brenda S. A.. 1997. “The Construction of National Identity through the Production of Ritual and Spectacle: An Analysis of National Day Parades in Singapore.” Political Geography 16(3):213–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumar, Neha. 2014. “Facebook for Self-Empowerment? A Study of Facebook Adoption in Urban India.” New Media & Society 16(7):1122–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kumar, Satendra. 2012. “Ethnography of Youth Politics: Leaders, Brokers and Morality in a Provincial University in Western Uttar Pradesh.” History and Sociology of South Asia 6(1):41–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuttig, Julian. 2019. “Urban Political Machines and Student Politics in ‘Middle’ Bangladesh: Violent Party Labor in Rajshahi City.” Critical Asian Studies 51(3):403–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuttig, Julian. 2020. “Posters, Politics, and Power: Mediated Materialisation of Public Authority in Bangladesh Party Politics.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 43(6).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maihack, Henrik. 2015. Entwicklung vor demokratie: Bangladesch auf dem weg zum “Singapur-Modell”? [Development before democracy: Bangladesh on the way to the “Singapore Model”?]. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Referat Asien und Pazifik.Google Scholar
McLeod, James R. 1999. “The Sociodrama of Presidential Politics: Rhetoric, Ritual, and Power in the Era of Teledemocracy.” American Anthropologist 101(2):359–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Daniel. 2011. Tales from Facebook. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Miller, Daniel, Costa, Elisabeth, Haynes, Nell, McDonald, Tom, Nicolescu, Razvan, Sinanan, Jolynna, Spyer, Juliano, Venkatraman, Shriram, and Wang, Xinyuan. 2016. How the World Changed Social Media. London: UCL Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moniruzzaman, M. 2009. “Party Politics and Political Violence in Bangladesh: Issues, Manifestation and Consequences.” South Asian Survey 16(1):81–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullick, Haider A. H. 2008. “Towards a Civic Culture: Student Activism and Political Dissent in Pakistan.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 9(2):5–12.Google Scholar
Nakassis, Constantine V. 2016. Doing Style: Youth and Mass Mediation in South India. Chicago: Chicago University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nations, Daniel. 2016. “How President Obama Used Web 2.0 to Run for President.” Lifewire, October 18. https://www.lifewire.com/barack-obama-web-2-0-3486613 (accessed February 7, 2017).Google Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2001. “Talking Dirty about Politics: A View from a Bengali Village.” In The Everyday State and Society in Modern India, eds. Fuller, C. J. and Bénéï, Véronique, 115–36. London: C. Hurst.Google Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2010. “To Create a Crowd: Student Leaders in Dhaka.” In Power and Influence in India: Bosses, Lords and Captains, eds. Price, Pamela G. and Ruud, Arild Engelsen, 70–95. New Delhi: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2014. “The Political Bully in Bangladesh.” In Patronage as Politics in South Asia, ed. Piliavsky, Anastasia, 303–25. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen. 2019. “The Politics of Contracting in Provincial Bangladesh.” In The Wild East: Criminal Political Economies in South Asia, eds. Barbara Harriss-White and Lucia Michelutti, 262–87. London: UCL Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruud, Arild Engelsen, and Islam, Mohammad Mozahidul. 2016. “Political Dynasty Formation in Bangladesh.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 39(2):401–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schechner, Richard. 2004. Performance Theory. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shawon, Anaet. 2016. “AL Post Seekers Turn to FB for Campaign.” Daily Observer (Dhaka), October 6. http://www.observerbd.com/details.php?id=37002 (accessed September 12, 2019).Google Scholar
Snellinger, Amanda Thérèse. 2018. Making New Nepal: From Student Activism to Mainstream Politics. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Stepanova, Ekaterina. 2011. “The Role of Information Communication Technologies in the ‘Arab Spring.’” PONARS Eurasia 15(159):1–6. http://www.ponarseurasia.com/sites/default/files/policy-memos-pdf/pepm_159.pdf (accessed September 12, 2019).Google Scholar
Strauss, Julia C., and Cruise O'Brien, Donal B.. 2007. “Introduction.” In Staging Politics: Power and Performance in Asia and Africa, eds. Strauss, Julia C. and Cruise O'Brien, Donal B., 1–14. London: I.B. Tauris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suykens, Bert. 2017. “The Bangladesh Party-State: A Diachronic Comparative Analysis of Party-Political Regimes.” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 55(2):187–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suykens, Bert. 2018. “‘A Hundred Per Cent Good Man Cannot Do Politics': Violent Self-Sacrifice, Student Authority, and Party-State Integration in Bangladesh.” Modern Asian Studies 52(3):883–916.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suykens, Bert, and Islam, Aynul. 2013. “Hartal as a Complex Political Performance: General Strikes and the Organisation of (Local) Power in Bangladesh.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 47(1):61–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suykens, Bert, and Islam, Aynul. 2015. The Distribution of Political Violence in Bangladesh (2002–2013). Ghent: Conflict Research Group.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 2008. Contentious Performances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles, and Tarrow, Sidney G.. 2006. Contentious Politics. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles, and Tarrow, Sidney G.. 2015. Contentious Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Van Schendel, Willem. 2009. A History of Bangladesh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vitak, Jessica, Zube, Paul, Smock, Andrew, Carr, Caleb T., Ellison, Nicole, and Lampe, Cliff. 2011. “It's Complicated: Facebook Users’ Political Participation in the 2008 Election.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14(3):107–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolfsfeld, Gadi, Segev, Elad, and Sheafer, Tamir. 2013. “Social Media and the Arab Spring: Politics Comes First.” International Journal of Press/Politics 18(2):115–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar