The International Conference on Invisible Infrastructures: Gender, Caste, and the Politics of Presence in India’s Digital Spaces (ICII), the academic event organized by the faculty of School of Sciences & Humanities (VISH) at VIT-AP University, Amaravati, Andhra 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.

Concept Note

India’s digital sphere is often celebrated as a site of democratised access, creative expression, and political mobilisation. However, beneath this narrative lies a complex terrain where gendered, caste-based, and classed hierarchies are reproduced and reshaped through everyday interactions, algorithmic architectures, and platform governance. While scholarship has addressed online harassment, representation, and gendered violence, there is a pressing need to focus on the less visible forces shaping digital life, particularly micro-surveillance, caste capital, and the emotional labour of online presence. Micro-surveillance: whether enacted by family members, employers, community elders, or peers blurs boundaries between public and private, limiting autonomy for women, queer persons, and gender-diverse communities (Udupa, 2018). Caste capital further complicates these dynamics by influencing who is granted legitimacy, visibility, and safety online (Nagaraj & Anuradha, 2020).Yet, this is only one part of a larger socio-technical ecosystem. Digital economies, from gig work to influencer culture demand sustained emotional labour, especially from marginalized genders. This includes constant curation of self-presentation to manage reputations, navigate casteist-gendered scrutiny, and maintain community solidarity in the face of trolling, shadow banning, and de-platforming (Ravindran, 2021; Sharma & Das, 2023). The psychological toll of such hyper-visibility remains underexplored, particularly in contexts where state surveillance, data colonialism, and corporate extractivism intersect (Couldry & Mejias, 2019).

Conference Tracks

Track 1: Surveillance, Governance, and the Politics of Presence 

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

Track 2: Labour, Economy, and Infrastructural Inequality

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

Track 3: Representation, Narratives, and Cultural Memory

Digitisation of gendered and caste-marked narratives Body image, desirability politics, and representation Queer and trans visibility

Track 4: Violence, Safety, and Well-being

Trolling, doxxing, image-based abuse, and coordinated harassment Mental health impacts of hyper-visibility and surveillance on marginalised genders Consent and digital intimacy

Track 5: Futures and Feminist-Decolonial Interventions

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