TY - JOUR AU - Grover, Rohan PY - 2021/09/15 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - INTERNET GOVERNANCE FOR WHOM? CIVIL SOCIETY, REPRESENTATION, AND DIGITAL RIGHTS JF - AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research JA - SPIR VL - 2021 IS - SE - Papers G DO - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.11927 UR - https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/11927 SP - AB - <p>Internet governance institutions embrace a multistakeholder approach, which calls for civil society organizations (CSOs) to represent community interests. How well do digital rights CSOs fulfill these expectations of “community representation”? Through a case study of the Internet Freedom Foundation, an Indian digital rights organization, this paper evaluates community engagement mechanisms through the lens of equity and democratization, and identifies a gap between expectations and observed practices. It concludes that evaluating representation in digital-native CSOs should account for both socioeconomic and technological dynamics in both transnational and national contexts. This paper offers a contribution to an emergent understanding of civil society’s role in internet governance, grounded in a postcolonial critique of representation and legitimacy, in order to understand whose voices are heard, and whose are still excluded, from internet governance processes.</p> ER -