GDI Lecture: The politics of complaint: Digitalizing discontent, in Bangladesh and beyond
| Dates: | 24 April 2024 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Naomi Hossain |
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The first quarter of the 21st century has seen so many mass protest movements that popular discontent barely registers any more. It may be no coincidence that digital platforms for registering discontent have simultaneously proliferated in tandem, from the ‘free speech’ platforms of social media to the highly constrained mechanisms for grievance redress operated by a growing number of governments and public agencies. How should we understand the growth and uptake of platforms for complaint at a time when people appear ever more willing to take to the streets to voice their anger? And what do these mechanisms tell us about the changing nature of the relationship between citizens and their states? This talk will draw on evidence from Bangladesh, where an increasingly authoritarian government is pushing a ‘Smart’ agenda of digital dialogue between people and public authorities. It will ask why governments, many of which are decreasingly democratic in their practices and ideals, invest heavily in ways of listening to their people. It will reflect on why it is so difficult to make an effective complaint, why governments are investing in these – often farcically bad – systems. And finally, it will evaluate the prospects for development of more effective, democratic, and people-focused systems of complaint.
Speaker
Naomi Hossain
Role: Professor of Development Studies
Organisation: SOAS University of London
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
G32
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
