GDI Lecture: The Political Lives of Information - Janaki Srinivasan
| Dates: | 5 November 2025 |
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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, Adults, Current University students, General public |
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Speaker: Janaki Srinivasan, University of Oxford
My talk will be based on my 2022 book, The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Production of Development in India, which examines the history of the idea of “information” and its political implications for poverty alleviation in India. We live in a world that sees information as empowering and democratising. But how does information work in practice and who does it work for? The book examined three cases in India—the circulation of price information on mobile phones in a fish market in Kerala, government information in computer kiosks operated by a non-profit in Puducherry, and a political campaign demanding a right to information in Rajasthan—to explore their divergent uses of information to support goals of social change. Drawing on the book and these cases, the talk will challenge claims that treat information as naturally empowering for everyone. It will use the alternative construct of an “information order” to refocus attention on how caste, class, and gender shaped who got to define and leverage information in the cases it considers.
Janaki’s research examines the political economy of information technology-based development initiatives. She uses ethnographic research to examine how gender, caste and class shape the use of such technologies. Her work has explored these interests in the context of Indian digital inclusion initiatives focussed on community computer centres, mobile phones, identity systems and open information systems. Some of this work appeared in her recent monograph, The Political Lives of Information published by MIT Press. Janaki’s work on the politics of informational and digital exclusion is currently focussed on privacy and the algorithmic control of labour. For the past several years, as co-investigator on the Fairwork India fair.work team, she has been involved in researching and advocating for change in the precarious working conditions of gig workers in India.
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