"Studying Up" through Digital Ethnography: The Case of Conservative Caste Enclaves

Although the call to “study up” — directing the scholarly gaze towards elites — was made over half a century ago, HCI scholarship in this area remains underdeveloped. This paper demonstrates digital ethnography as a critical entry point, particularly for researchers from marginalised positionality facing refusals and deterrents when accessing elite social worlds. Drawing on 20 months of digital ethnography on Brahmin women food vloggers in Kerala, India, we show how caste-privileged cultural producers caste-code socio-technical practices of nichification, leverage platform affordances and constitute conservative caste enclaves in response to anxieties about threats to the prestige associated with Brahmin ways of life. These enclaves archive and circulate Brahmin food pedagogies, preserve caste customs and norms, guide younger Brahmin generations to remain connected to their roots, and seek recognition from wider publics. By foregrounding these dynamics, we expand methodological and political possibilities for “studying up” and critical caste and technology studies in HCI.