ICII 2025
The International Conference on Invisible Infrastructures: Gender , Caste , and the Politics of Presence in India’s Digital Spaces, the academic event organized by the Faculty of School of Sciences & Humanities (VISH) at VIT-AP University Amaravati, Andra Pradesh, will mark its edition on November 14-15, 2025. This conference seeks to convene interdisciplinary voices scholars, academicians, artists, technologists, and activists to interrogate how power operates in digital spaces not only through spectacular forms of violence, but also through subtle, everyday mechanisms of control and exclusion. While centred on the Indian context, the discussions will situate these issues within broader Global South debates on digital justice, feminist epistemologies, and decolonial futures.
India’s digital sphere is often celebrated as a site of democratised access, creative expression, and political mobilisation. Yet beneath this narrative lie complex terrains where gendered, caste-based, and classed hierarchies are reproduced and reshaped through everyday interactions, algorithmic infrastructures, and platform governance. While scholarship has addressed online harassment, representation, and gendered violence, less attention has been paid to subtler forces structuring digital life, particularly micro-surveillance, caste capital, and the emotional labour of online presence. Micro-surveillance by family, employers, or community elders blurs boundaries between public and private, constraining the autonomy of women, queer persons, and gender-diverse communities (Udupa, 2018). Caste capital, meanwhile, shapes legitimacy, visibility, and safety online (Nagaraj & Anuradha, 2020).
Alongside this, digital economies, from gig work to influencer culture, demand sustained affective labour, particularly from marginalised genders, who must continually curate their online selves to navigate casteist-gendered scrutiny, reputational risks, and platform precarity (Ravindran, 2021; Sharma & Das, 2023). The psychological toll of such hyper-visibility remains underexplored, especially where state surveillance, data colonialism, and corporate extractivism converge (Couldry & Mejias, 2019).
This conference aims to convene interdisciplinary voices, scholars, activists, technologists, and artists, to interrogate how power operates in digital spaces not only through spectacular violence but also through subtle, everyday mechanisms of control and exclusion. While centred on India, the discussions will also engage broader Global South debates on digital justice, feminist epistemologies, and decolonial futures.
• Everyday micro-surveillance in family, community, workplace, and educational contexts.
• Algorithmic casteism, gender bias, and embedded hierarchies.
• State surveillance, platform moderation, and the silencing of marginalised voices.• Invisible emotional and affective labour in digital activism, gig work, and influencer culture caste.
• Capital and economic precarity in economic systems.
• Algorithmic inequities in content visibility.• Digitisation of gendered and caste-marked narratives.
• Body image, desirability politics, and representation.
• Queer and trans visibility.• Trolling, doxxing, image-based abuse, and coordinated harassment.
• Mental health impacts of hyper-visibility and surveillance on marginalised genders.
• Consent and Digital intimacy.• Feminist approaches to AI, data governance, and digital design.
• Alternative infrastructures for safe and inclusive participation.
• Cross-movement solidarities and alliances between gender, caste activists in digital spaces.We propose to host the conference in a hybrid mode. This approach would allow in-person discussions wherever possible, fostering closer, more personal, and elaborate interactions. Additionally, it would broaden the scope of the conference to a global audience, facilitating participation from key contributors across diverse fields and borders. This also ensures a diverse and comprehensive exchange of ideas and insights, enriching the overall experience and outcomes of the conference.
The conference will be structured around keynote addresses, panel discussions, and breakout sessions, concluding with a cultural event that will showcase the vibrancy of Indian tradition and culture. Keynote speakers will comprise renowned experts from academia, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations. Moreover, the panel discussions will provide diverse perspectives on the key themes, as well as breakout sessions offering in-depth discussions and networking opportunities.
14-15 November, 2025
VIT-AP University, Amaravati, Hybrid Mode