Soma Basu

Most comprehensive study yet of Assam’s Foreigners Tribunals — It reveals a legal system in deep crisis: over 165,000 people have already been declared “foreigners,” with 85,000+ cases pending and more than 1 million NRC appeals headed to these opaque tribunals.

RSVP: forms.gle/Tr9wWaTHaTpF...

Thanks Nidah Kaiser for organising this workshop - Progressive Patriarchs: Manifestations of Patriarchy in Liberal Spaces - and giving me the opportunity to moderate the panel on Patriarchal Scripts in Intimate, Digital and Legal Lives.
Such a space for solidarity and affirmative action!

Call for paper - full description

📢 #CFP: Digital Mediation & Urban Spatialities in Contemporary India (Full description attached)
🗓 Abstracts (≤300w) due: July 15, 2025
📘 To be published in a peer-reviewed South Asia journal by Brill
📩 Submit: digitalmediationindia@gmail.com

#UrbanStudies #DigitalIndia #SouthAsia

#LatePost: @hindustan-times.bsky.social interviewed me and published a story based on my research on "crying videos".

Link to the original research: bit.ly/45UIBkK

Story link: www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/ar...

#CryingVideos #SadBait #Selfies #MediaStudies #ScreenCultures

What does backgammon have to do with Playboy? This talk explores how 20th century media encoded masculinity, intimacy, and control through board games, tech, and leisure aesthetics. #GameStudies #MediaHistory #PlayboyArchive

Happy #WorldEnvironmentDay!

Are you interested in getting published? We are currently accepting academic articles and creative work!

Visit www.uwa.edu.au/limina/submissions for more information.

#academicsky

Contested Meanings of Hate Speech and the Post-Truth Condition on Digital Platforms - Kaarina Nikunen, Paula Haara, Heidi Kosonen, Aleksi Knuutila, Reeta Pöyhtäri, Tuija Saresma, 2025 In the everyday context, the term “hate speech” has become increasingly politicized and emotionally charged, yet these vernacular constructions of hate speech r...

@kaarinan.bsky.social+team study 290,000 messages to reveal how confusion, ridicule, and censorship are articulated in a post-truth context. Hate speech is a political struggle entwined with challenges to institutional authority and democratic norms.
#HateSpeech
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

call for paper for symposium on patriarchy in liberal spaces

The submission deadline for this very relevant and timely call (hybrid) - Manifestations of Patriarchy in Liberal Spaces - has been extended to June 1, 2025. If you are an early-career scholar or independent researcher, send a 300-word abstract to nk.52@soas.ac.uk. #Patriarchy #MeToo #GenderStudies

I warmly invite you to submit a chapt proposal for The Bloomsbury Handbook of Queering Research Methods. This volume explores how every phase of the research process: design, methods, tools, analysis, communication – can be Queered.

deadline: 6/30/25
deets/submission: tinyurl.com/queeringrese...

Congratulations, Aska! Can’t wait to read.

The image shows a screenshot of a webpage, featuring the title " Playful Somaesthetic Technology Practices. Characteristics, Conditions, and Frameworks across Arts, Games, and Augmentation", author information and a DOI link, as well as an Abstract. The abstract reads: "This paper explores playful instances of somaesthetic technology practices. Based on a multiple case study strategy, a preliminary framework will be provided for playfulness in technology practices which are focused on somaesthetic experience, appreciation, and transformation. To illustrate the understanding of playful somaesthetic technology practices, three selected cases are introduced (Alternative Game Controllers, Medical Performance Art, Human Tail Augmentations), their playful features defined, and their conditions of practice analysed."

Happy to share that my paper "Playful Somaesthetic Technology Practices" is now out in "The Journal of Somaesthetics"! I looked at playful cases of somaesthetically transformative technology practices across Arts, Alternative Game Design, and Prosthetics:
journals.aau.dk/index.php/JO...

Bitwa o prawdę. Dezinformacja rozkręca konflikt Indii z Pakistanem szybciej niż rakiety Odkryj, jak prorządowe media w Indiach kreują wydarzenia w konflikcie z Pakistanem. Poznaj mechanizmy cenzury mediów.

This article (in Polish) carries my two bits on the (dis)information war between India and Pakistan and how digital informality has become statecraft under the current regime in India (and elsewhere).

xyz.pl/bitwa-o-praw...

Meta Used Books and Research Papers to Train Its AI - Was Yours One of Them? - NordMedia Network Meta has illegally used millions of books and scientific papers to train its AI models. We explain how to check if your work has been pirated, and what steps you can take if it has.

NordMedia Network & Finnish Literary Copyright Society (Sanasto) list steps you can take if Meta lifted/pirated your work to train its AI Models.

@maaritjii.bsky.social @annapacholczyk.bsky.social

nordmedianetwork.org/latest/news/...

Before shit hit the fan... Facing increasing pushback on mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook, right-wing groups turned to domestic alternatives such

Draft in process, tempted to finalise the sub head.

In Oslo on the 24th of April, for this timely conference on academia and activism (with the co-founder of the BDS movement)

www.saih.no/no/saih-conf...

It is spring 2025 and the book is today officially out ✨💫

I hope it will be useful to those of you who are interested in exploring how our ways of seeing impact on how we relate to each other, our selves, and the various worlds we inhabit.

If interested, you can save 20% by using code 25ESA1

I am moderating this round table on social media moderation policies. Register below! We have a great lineup of speakers @muendges.bsky.social @ovinhas.bsky.social @sandervdwaal.bsky.social @waag.bsky.social
Sarah Eskens, MacKenzie fomer @reutersinstitute.bsky.social Meta Oversight Board.

Best mail is books arriving in mail! I was excited to blurb this book - although they do tend to cut 70% of the nice, thoughtful things you have to say 😁. The Kids Are Online by @ysabel.bsky.social is smart, carefully researched, compassionate to varying anxieties in this space and so so timely

📰 #NewPublication

thewire.in/politics/thr...

In @thewire.in, I examine Tamil Nadu's resistance to Hindi imposition through C.N. Annadurai’s Rajya Sabha speeches (1963–65) and argue that his warnings on linguistic domination and federalism remain relevant amid the National Education Policy (2020).

🎙️ Hear me ramble about work (& life) in this #10DaysOfConflictMemory interview series with John Coster, director of the Documentary Media Centre, Leicester!

☀️ Thanks @pauljreilly.bsky.social @katjalehtisaari.bsky.social @vsalojarvi.bsky.social @docmediacentre.bsky.social @kaarinan.bsky.social.

Vol 18 Nro 3 (2024): Queerit kriisit / Queer Crises

Bilingual Special issue Queerit kriisit/Queer Crises edited by myself and Jarmo Jantunen is out! I will do a thread to introduce each piece in due course. It is Open Access accessible from the link: #queer #disasterstudies #crises #sqslehti

journal.fi/sqs/issue/vi...

bsky.app/profile/h-te...

Transcript journeys through Sápmi, from Jåhkåmåhkke to Vájsáluokta: ”By questioning what we should take with us to the next world, "The End of This World" suggests the importance of collective grieving: the need to come together to elaborate and process experiences of collective trauma and loss.”

TikTok + Grief: An Online Symposium on TikTok, Loss and Connection Join us for a deep dive into the world of TikTok, grief, and how we can find connection through it all.

I'll discuss my research on why people cry on Insta/TikTok at this online symposium on TikTok (Insta), grief, and connection on March 10th.

Keynotes: @moaerikssonkrut.bsky.social & Johanna Sumiala.
Organizers: Larissa Hjorth, Katrin Gerber & Crystal Abidin.

Register: tinyurl.com/3t9sx7e9

Porn, Protests, and Politics: Hindu Male Imaginations of Muslim Women “How to make Muslim women Hindu cock whore—Conquer, Humiliate, Breed”—r/Hindudom This was the text of a meme found on scrolller.com, an image aggregation platform, in the r/Hindudom discussion thre...

#NewPublication 📣 Politicization of the sexual and not sexualization of the political (discourse): through an ethnography of prngraphic sites, I attempt to explore how ethnicized intimate erotic fantasies are entwined with the vision of a Hindu Rashtra. journals.openedition.org/samaj/9764#t...

No is Not a Lonely Utterance I have been immersed in writing No is Not a Lonely Utterance and have just now sent a revised version back to my editor at Penguin.

No is not a lonely utterance. Written with affection. And other fighting feelings! feministkilljoys.substack.com/p/no-is-not-...

Open Cultural Studies Open Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal that explores the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts. It interprets culture in an inclusive sense, in different theoretical, geo...

CFP #openculturalstudies issue on Challenging nihilism: an exploration of culture and hope.
The aim of the issue of is to ask how to defy nihilism and speak of
hope in the current conjuncture.
DL April 30
Edited by Juan A. Tarancón.
degruyter.com/culture

“Why do Indians cry passionately on Insta?”: Grief performativity and ecologies of commerce of crying videos The article attempts to explore the specific performative and digital practice of users sharing digital self-images and videos on social media platforms in which they cry, with or without a ‘tear f...

Link to my (open access) article - “Why do Indians cry passionately on Insta?”: Grief performativity and ecologies of commerce of crying videos - in South Asian Popular Culture: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

'Sadbait': Why algorithms, audiences and creators love to cry online People say they don't want to be sad, but their online habits disagree. Content that channels sorrow for views has become a ubiquitous part of online culture. Why does it work?

Excited to share that my 2023 research on why people cry passionately on Insta/TikTok was featured in this BBC article.
Huge thanks to @aidanwalker.bsky.social for reaching out & articulating my insights so thoughtfully in this fascinating piece on 'sadbaiting': www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Good for me, I am learning Finnish on Duolingo and the innumerable times I have practiced “olen velho” (I am a wizard) makes me feel good 😊