Sign in

Soma Basu

@somabasu.com
1.9K followers 743 following 94 posts

Anthropologist of outsourced selves and distributed humans. somabasu.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 30/09/2026
This research broke my heart. Six years on, the violence of the 2020 Delhi pogrom endures across bodies, homes, mobile screens through what I theorise as “entangled skinscapes” and “haptic pulses.” #OpenAccess: doi.org/10.3167/aia.... @berghahnbooks.bsky.social @jaffrelot.bsky.social #Anthropology
Screenshot of the journal page with the title, DOI, keywords with the article title: Entangled Skinscapes
011
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 24/09/2026
In a world becoming increasingly adversarial and antagonistic, I am looking forward to thinking with others about the different ways we find and create knowledge, and what becomes possible when scientific and artistic practices meet. So excited!
000
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 24/09/2026
I will screen a 360° VR film from my Northeast Delhi fieldwork at a scientific-artistic festival, with ethnographic poems. It asks what a 360° camera cannot see when violence slips from view and how the past bears on futures yet to be made. www.ru.nl/en/about-us/...
ru.nl
Reclaiming Our Futures | Radboud University
On 26 and 27 September, the two-day artistic–scientific festival “Reclaiming our Futures” will take place at the Lindenberg Culture House in Nijmegen.
110
Reposted by Soma Basu
Jaakko Stenros @jaakkostenros.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
MIT Press is hyping our book! Such a great honour to be featured next to The Well-Played Game, one of my all-time fave books on games and play. It originally came out in the golden year of game books, 1978, same year as The Grasshopper and From Ritual to Record.
1283
Reposted by Soma Basu
Jason Read @jasonread.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
www.diagrammes.fr/en/folders/a...
diagrammes.fr
Affective Resistances - DIAGRAMMES
"It is very important to broaden the scope of the political—particularly by incorporating the issue of attachments and emotions—because fascism has already done so. The definition of the political in ...
021
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 09/09/2026
What a surprise to have my photo series selected for the annual photo festival by #Tampere #Photographic Society! The five photos are now up at the historic #Haihara manor, dating back 1800s. #PhDLife #Tip: Non-academic hobbies are important! The series is a tribute to my soul dog, Sultan ♥️
020
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 09/09/2026
You are there, Pekka, in spirit, of course 😀
010
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 09/09/2026
Our research center's cool video featuring all the research groups, including our own Media Studies led by @kaarinan.bsky.social! 📣 Spot the wonderful people of Taru in video, such as, @fransmayra.bsky.social @pisotalus.bsky.social @markmaletska.bsky.social @sumanghosh.bsky.social ++ #TampereUni
youtube.com
Taru – Tampere University Research Centre for Communication Sciences
YouTube video by Tampere University
120
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 24/08/2026
I would be the #firstgeneration #doctorate in my family. When I explain PhD vs previous degrees to my parents, I have often used the analogy of a Test match in cricket. And yet, when Google Scholar shares that I hv 100 citations, feels like one too. In a lonely academic journey, each win matters. 🤌🏽
020
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 18/08/2026
Published in Indian Politics & Policy (Spring 2026)'s special issue introduced by Rahul Mukherji @unihd-sai.bsky.social, guest edited by Mohsin Alam Bhat, with contributions by @jaffrelot.bsky.social, Nidah Kaiser, Shaikh Mujibur Rehman. Link to the entire issue: www.ippjournal.org/volume-6-num...
ippjournal.org
Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2026​
Introduction Rahul Mukherji Guest Editor’s Introduction Governing through Violence: Democracy, Law, and Hindutva’s New Political Order Mohsin Alam Bhat RESEARCH Riot Imaginaries and Anticipatory Inf...
021
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 18/08/2026
#OpenAccess: Anticipated violence becomes infrastructural and eventually operates as a mode of governance. I take anticipation beyond a way of relating to possible futures to show how its distributed maintenance can organize conduct before violence. Link: www.ippjournal.org/riot-imagina...
142
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 14/08/2026
Edited by #KatrinGerber, #LarissaHjorth, and #CrystalAbidin, this timely collection examines how digital platforms reshape grief, remembrance, and whose losses are amplified or erased online. doi.org/10.4324/9781... @routledgebooks.bsky.social #DigitalMourning #NewBookAlert
doi.org
The Digital Life of Grief | Online Mourning in the Age of Hashtags, Al
This book investigates how mourning is transformed in the digital age, where grief is mediated by algorithms, circulated through hashtags, and shaped by the
011
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 14/08/2026
I conceptualise rumour as an anticipatory form of this afterlife, and “algorithmic resurrection” as the mechanism through which past violence is repeatedly reactivated within necropolitical infrastructures, keeping some deaths politically active and usable across time. doi.org/10.4324/9781...
doi.org
Networked afterlives | 12 | Necropolitical algorithms and rumours as a
This chapter examines how digital rumours and violent imagery shape the ongoing presence of the dead in Delhi after the 2020 pogrom. It introduces the concept
100
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 14/08/2026
Drawing on sensory ethnography of the 2020 Delhi pogrom, my chapter develops “networked afterlife” to theorise how violent deaths continue to act politically through the circulation and misattribution of images, rumours, and digital traces. doi.org/10.4324/9781...
doi.org
Networked afterlives | 12 | Necropolitical algorithms and rumours as a
This chapter examines how digital rumours and violent imagery shape the ongoing presence of the dead in Delhi after the 2020 pogrom. It introduces the concept
100
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 14/08/2026
Edited by Katrin Gerber, Larissa Hjorth, and Crystal Abidin, The Digital Life of Grief is a timely, wide-ranging collection on how mourning and the politics of loss are being transformed by algorithms, hashtags, platform cultures, and digital memorial practices. doi.org/10.4324/9781...
100
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 14/08/2026
Very excited to share my chapter, “Networked Afterlives: Necropolitical Algorithms and Rumours as Acts of Resurrection,” in the new edited collection The Digital Life of Grief: Online Mourning in the Age of Hashtags, Algorithms, and Social Media. doi.org/10.4324/9781...
120
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 07/08/2026
Heartburn and bitter mouth with the colonial, utter insensitivity and hero complex in Jeremy Wade’s Ganges episode, I now turn to funny puppy videos on YouTube to reign in my anxiety over deadlines that await me once my vacation ends in a few days.
000
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 07/08/2026
Back to Jeremy Wade’s River Monster while I finish the yoke of my Dune cardigan.
100
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 07/08/2026
First attempt at baking “artisanal” bread: Failed!
100
Reposted by Soma Basu
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 31/05/2026
Reposting my article from the special issue. Link: doi.org/10.1080/0958... It shows how an ordinary, neglected municipal infrastructure becomes a haunted social archive: a place where bodies, rumours, imagination, and memory gather to keep violence alive in everyday life.
doi.org
Phantoms of the drains: imaginations of conflict in everyday infrastructures
This article traces how the network of ordinary municipal drains (nullahs) in Northeast Delhi became a ‘trauma trove’ in the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi pogrom. Drawing on three years of sensory et...
121
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 17/07/2026
This article synthesises interdisciplinary research to argue that protest art, memory, and immersive media together function as a counter-archival empathy machine, preserving and reimagining collective resistance. Read #OpenAccess: doi.org/10.1108/USS-... #MuseumWithoutWalls #ShaheenBagh #AntiCAA
doi.org
Literature review: virtual museum of protest art as empathy machine
Purpose. This study offers an integrative narrative review of interdisciplinary scholarship on protest art, digital circulation, surveillance, memory and immersive media. It aims to examine how memori...
051
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 22/06/2026
Yay! Congratulations!
010
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 22/06/2026
Congratulations!
100
Reposted by Soma Basu
Contemporary South Asia Journal @csajournal.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Thanks @jaffrelot.bsky.social for the introduction to the special section 'New forms of anti-Muslim violence in India' and to the section authors. Article links here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....; tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....; tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....; tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Perseverance mechanisms of minority upper-middle-classes
How do the upper-middle classes persevere when facing marginalisation? This study qualitatively analyses the various reactions of upper-middle-class Muslim professionals in Mumbai in the backdrop o...
033
Reposted by Soma Basu
Christophe Jaffrelot @jaffrelot.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Hindu-Muslim violence is changing: till recently riots were instrumentalised to polarise the voters & help BJP win elections; today BJP is in office: pogroms, lynchings, bulldozers are the order of the day. A great special issue of CSA explains why and how www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Introduction – new forms of anti-Muslim violence in India: Hindu Xenophobia in the post-instrumental Era
Violence between Hindus and Muslims in India has traditionally taken a single form – the riot. The interpretation of this phenomenon has changed over time. First, it was marked by ‘primordialism,’ ...
012
Reposted by Soma Basu
Christophe Jaffrelot @jaffrelot.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
In this issue, you’ll find outstanding texts by Soma Basu on the Delhi riots, by Vihang Jumle on the situation of Muslims in Mumbai today, by Nidah Kaiser on the many facets of anti-Muslim persecution in UP & Fahad Zuberi on the Hindu nationalist use of bulldozer. @sciencespo
012
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 31/05/2026
When your own university decides to highlight your work and suddenly it’s a full-on photo-sess and such… 😎 About my research and life in #Finland: www.tuni.fi/en/tau/news-... Thanks, Tampere Research Centre for Communication Sciences and @koneensaatio.fi!
tuni.fi
Concerns over press and academic freedom brought researcher Soma Basu to Finland to study online hate | Tampere University
Doctoral researcher Soma Basu was gaining global awards as an investigative journalist. Then, journalistic and academic freedom took a turn towards worse in India.
053
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 31/05/2026
Derrida’s #hauntology and Avery Gordon’s #InfrastructuralHaunting help me understand the nullah as infrastructure through which unresolved histories, rumours, and trauma become socially present. Thanks @csajournal.bsky.social, @americananthro.bsky.social, #BASAS for reviews+feedback.
doi.org
Phantoms of the drains: imaginations of conflict in everyday infrastructures
This article traces how the network of ordinary municipal drains (nullahs) in Northeast Delhi became a ‘trauma trove’ in the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi pogrom. Drawing on three years of sensory et...
011
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 31/05/2026
Reposting my article from the special issue. Link: doi.org/10.1080/0958... It shows how an ordinary, neglected municipal infrastructure becomes a haunted social archive: a place where bodies, rumours, imagination, and memory gather to keep violence alive in everyday life.
doi.org
Phantoms of the drains: imaginations of conflict in everyday infrastructures
This article traces how the network of ordinary municipal drains (nullahs) in Northeast Delhi became a ‘trauma trove’ in the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi pogrom. Drawing on three years of sensory et...
121
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 31/05/2026
Thanks, @jaffrelot.bsky.social, for this brilliant introduction to the #BASAS @csajournal.bsky.social Special Issue: New Forms of Anti-Muslim Violence in India: Hindu Xenophobia in the Post-Instrumental Era. Introduction link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Introduction – new forms of anti-Muslim violence in India: Hindu Xenophobia in the post-instrumental Era
Violence between Hindus and Muslims in India has traditionally taken a single form – the riot. The interpretation of this phenomenon has changed over time. First, it was marked by ‘primordialism,’ ...
122
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 07/04/2026
“And in the face of that certainty (death), we can only love as ardently as we can, for as long as we are here.” Reminiscing about love in Kolkata cemeteries in this very cool article by @varishatariq.bsky.social for @vogueindia.bsky.social. www.vogue.in/content/gen-...
vogue.in
Gen Z thinks the most romantic date spot is a graveyard
Haunted and eerie? More like cosy and serene. Gen Z is bringing their love stories to life among the dead
011
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 02/04/2026
Grateful to the editors and reviewers at @csajournal.bsky.social for a thoughtful and rigorous peer review.
021
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 02/04/2026
#MustRead: Nidah Kaiser's new article in Contemporary South Asia examines the transition of ethno-religious violence beyond episodic or spontaneous, toward a broader ethnocratic order. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Anti-Muslim violence in India’s religious ethnocracy
-This article examines the changing nature of anti-Muslim violence in India under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), by building on the concept of a ‘religious ethnocracy’. It argues that, since 201...
000
Reposted by Soma Basu
Feminist Killjoy @saranahmed.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
10 years. A love letter to diversity workers. And gratitude for my complaint collective. substack.com/@feministkil...
substack.com
Sara Ahmed (@feministkilljoys)
Ten years ago this month, I resigned from my post and my profession in protest at the failure of my institution to deal with the problem of sexual harassment. It was a lot to give up. But it was neces...
02510
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 01/04/2026
In my new article, I examine Delhi’s drains as “haunted infrastructures” of violence. Through sensory ethnography, I explore how everyday spaces come to hold memory, rumor, and anticipation of conflict, shaping how violence is lived, remembered, and imagined over time. #OpenAccess: bit.ly/4NulLaH
bit.ly
Phantoms of the drains: imaginations of conflict in everyday infrastructures
This article traces how the network of ordinary municipal drains (nullahs) in Northeast Delhi became a ‘trauma trove’ in the aftermath of the 2020 Delhi pogrom. Drawing on three years of sensory et...
182
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 13/03/2026
@kaarinan.bsky.social’s research explores how emotions shape how we interpret and act through media. Through her work on #MediaSolidarities, she shows how media can also generate new forms of collective connection. More about her work: shorturl.at/ygss8 #MediaStudies #TampereUniversity #Finland
shorturl.at
Media and emotions are at the center of Professor Kaarina Nikunen’s research. | Tampere universities
Professor Kaarina Nikunen never runs out of research ideas. She is interested in human encounters and the ways that emotions shape our relationship with the media.
031
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 13/03/2026
💡 New Special Issue (Eds: @corneliabrantner.bsky.social, @kaarinan.bsky.social & Georgia Aitaki) explores #DigitalGeographiesOfHope: how action, solidarity, alternative futures emerge in a datafied, platformized world. From feminist & anti-war organizing to AI governance debates tinyurl.com/37rb2v6k
tinyurl.com
Digital Geographies of Hope: Situated Futures in a Data-Driven World | Editorial | Media and Communication
Cornelia Brantner, Kaarina Nikunen, Georgia Aitaki
011
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 13/03/2026
Thought-provoking afternoon at TARU, Tampere University, with a screening of #HumansInTheLoop. Thanks to writer-director Aranya Sahay & audiences in Finland & India (NIT Silchar) for a discussion on hidden invisible labour, language hierarchies and data colonisation. #AIEthics #PluriversalAI
000
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 18/07/2025
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...
031
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 14/07/2025
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!
010
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 09/07/2025
📢 #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
Call for paper - full description
031
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 10/06/2025
#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
hindustantimes.com
000
Reposted by Soma Basu
Tom Apperley @t0mm7.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
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
1176
Reposted by Soma Basu
Limina @liminajournal.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
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
uwa.edu.au
About us
021
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 04/06/2025
@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/...
journals.sagepub.com
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...
021
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 26/05/2025
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
call for paper for symposium on patriarchy in liberal spaces
011
Reposted by Soma Basu
Dr. Jess Parris Westbrook (they/them) 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @jesswestbrook.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
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...
2114
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 13/05/2025
Congratulations, Aska! Can’t wait to read.
110
Reposted by Soma Basu
amayer.bsky.social @amayer.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
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...
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."
1105
Soma Basu @somabasu.com · 13/05/2025
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...
xyz.pl
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.
010