Strategic Oscillation: Shepherding and Gatekeeping for Survival in Manipur's Contested Digital Spaces

This study examines how emergent roles enable marginalized Indigenous communities to strategically oscillate between social networking platforms during violent conflict. It responds to recent research in CSCW that recognizes the importance of platform-switching strategies and roles that enable broader publics to achieve political goals during conflict. To this, we contribute a typology of the emergent roles people assume that facilitate communication across online platforms under high-risk conditions, such as conflicts—particularly in Global South conflicts where digital resistance intersects with physical survival. In this article, we research the 2023 inter-Indigenous ethnic conflict in Manipur, where the Kuki and Zomi tribes were displaced and vilified as “illegal immigrants” by non-tribal Meitei groups on X (formerly Twitter). We found that WhatsApp functioned as a networked enclave for strategizing counter-narratives, while X served as a networked counterpublic space for delivering these resisting narratives. Two emergent roles on WhatsApp structured this oscillation: shepherding and gatekeeping. Shepherding equipped community members with the skills to engage effectively on X—despite limited prior platform familiarity—while gatekeeping ensured the enclave's integrity by vetting participants and mitigating surveillance risks. These roles were dynamically adapted to crisis, adding to CSCW's earlier models of social networking resistance during conflicts. By focusing on the emergent roles through oscillating across platforms, this study advances CSCW literature to understand the significance of paying attention to emergent roles that enable safety and resistance in contested digital spaces.