Campus Climates brings to you student, alumnus voices. Students recall.
The second phase of the Campus Climates initiative moved from secondary research to community and solidarity building via a network of Action Shero Story Gatherers (members of Blank Noise community) and Storytellers ( students and alumni across campuses who either led protests, participated in protests or witnessed protests). The research from phase 1 enabled Blank Noise team (Eeshita and Jasmeen) to identify colleges, team of storytellers and gatherers. A total of 12 storytellers with 7 story gatherers have built this project.
The Campus Climates Podcast project interviewed and documented first person narratives of student resistance to patriarchy, victim blame and sexual harassment on campus through audio. The production in phase 2 is towards building a podcast series on student leadership and dissent, methods of mobilising, patterns of injustices across campuses.
The project has explored the relationship between research, community building and network forming, solidarity building and activism. { Action Shero Campus Network }
As of 1st April, 2020 , all interviews are complete. The production of the podcast will happen in phase 3.
The project has been built on the following principles:
Collaboration
Community building
Movement building / Action Shero building
Personal inquiry
Collective inquiry
Creating a feminist network
Identifying patterns of injustices across campuses
Identifying the use of victim blame across campuses
Identifying the relationship between a simmering whisper network and a protest.
Re imagining the ideal.
Introducing the Action Shero Story Gatherers:
Aishwarya Shrivastav
Aishwarya is a journalist based out of Bhopal reporting on gender, culture, mental health and social issues. She reads research papers on feminist theories and writes poetry to combat anxiety.
“I believe, to understand any movement it's important to be a part of it in any way we can manage so as to understand resistance in its raw form. By documenting campus protests in Bhopal for media I understood the power of first person accounts and how it has the potential to speak to a larger audience to connect with the experience. These stories of change have to be remembered to remind us 'all stories matter'.”
atreyee Majumder
Atreyee is an anthropologist and lawyer. She teaches at the O P Jindal Global University in Sonipat, Haryana.
Atreyee is involved in the campus climates project to dispel the notion that students are benign creatures, easily brainwashed and so on. The project unravels the stories of resistant action, mature political thinking and strong mobilising abilities among students across campuses in India in the current milieu.
Insiya Poonawala
Insiya Poonawala is an editor based on Kolkata. She is also co-founder of Bong Eats, which is a project to document the culinary traditions of Bengal.
‘There seems to be an inherent hypocrisy in the way the State deals with students—it both infantalises them (what do the youngsters know? go back to your studies!) and treats them as massive threats (bad influences at best, seditious urban naxals at worst). The Campus Climates project has the potential to explore how the students themselves contextualise their struggles on campus, especially those related to gendered violence and sexual assault. It will be a great opportunity to the hear directly from students on campuses across the country, and understand the various sites of feminist/LGBTQ+ struggle and victim blame. The hope is for a narrative to emerge that will show us the connected threads as well as points of departure of the various movements, shed light on why protests matter, how they can be made more effective, and what the very act of protest means.’
Neha Chaturvedi
Neha is a transdisciplinary practitioner and founder member of a community space in Agra. I work primarily with the visual arts and performance and collaborate with/assist people with conceptualizing and team building.
‘The Campus Climate project interests me for two reasons. One, I have been part of various campuses over the last many years and been part of/witness to protests/movements/campaigns. In the current context, it is important to hear stories of those who have been part of protests and make the workings of what makes up campus politics accessible to a larger audience. Two, issues related to gender equality, sensitization and community building are an important part of my area of work.’
Shuktara Lal
Shuktara Lal is a drama therapist and counsellor, teacher and theatre director. She also writes and works with an independent publishing house. She is based in Kolkata.
‘While there certainly is greater awareness about sexual harassment on campuses, there is still a frightening gap in the manner in which universities respond to student complaints, and in the general attitude towards students who talk about their experiencing of harassment. Until there are concrete shifts in how investigations are conducted, until institutes actually put into practice a policy of zero tolerance towards sexual harassment (not simply articulating this in eloquently strung together sentences), projects like these are critical because they serve as interventions that remind all of us the extent of ground that colleges and universities must cover urgently to make campuses safe for students instead of making them safe for perpetrators in positions of power.’
Srusti mangaraj
Srusti Mangaraj is a student who's soon going to graduate. She is from Odisha, but currently based in Varanasi.
‘I want to be a part of this project because! I have witnessed the protests in 2017 at BHU. I have seen students unite against what they thought was wrong in a huge number. Now, I want to bring out these stories from within for everyone to listen to and take something
from it.’
Ujjwala Sharma
Ujjwala is an MPhil Student, in Calcutta, who is a part of this project as she believes in the transformative power of protests.
Team & Credits
Blank Noise Office Team : Abhaya Tatavarti, Eeshita Kapadiya, Somya Matta with Jasmeen Patheja
Transcription team: Aarushi Mittal (Intern 2020) , Amitha Murugesh (Intern 2020) , Johanna Hashmi (Intern 2020) , Josika Mahindru (Intern 2020) Pratik Chakraborty (Intern 2020) , Rishma Banerjee (Intern 2020) , Saanika Amembal (Intern 2020) Sana Khan (Intern 2020) , Shahrukh Mubhasir (Volunteer 2020) , Snehal Kilanjar (Volunteer 2019) ,Somya Matta (Intern 2020) , Srimoyee Biswas (Intern 2020) , Vriddhi Bhagat (Intern 2020)
Graphics / Text : Akanksha Yadav (2021 intern)
We also thank Mahima Taneja and Nilofar Shahmin Haja for their support.
The primary and secondary research for this project was undertaken with support from the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. The third phase of this research and community building project includes publication, community and network building towards campuses and feminist futures.
