The Narrative Gravity of Weepingsikkim.blogspot.com

Abstract

Initiated in June 2007, weepingsikkim is a mediated ‘framed’ cyberspace censored/operated by a blogger/ webmaster(s) in order to narrate a particular perspective and disseminate information about the multi-sited activities and protests enacted by some indigenous people against the proposed and ongoing construction of hydropower projects over River Teesta in Sikkim and North Bengal in India. The activists reiterate emphatically in words and through visual content that they want to cherish and preserve their fragile Himalayan landscape from greedy capitalists. The visual narrative frames and represents the Lepchas as environmentalists and the true custodians of Sikkim’s environment. The blog has functioned as an electronic bulletin board, an online chronicle of the activities, and is subsisting in cyberspace as a multimedia archive about the Teesta movement (2007-09).