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VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20250924T091844Z
DTSTART:20251105T163000Z
DTEND:20251105T180000Z
SUMMARY:GDI Lecture: The Political Lives of Information - Janaki Srinivas
 an 
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DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Janaki Srinivasan\, University of Oxford\n\nMy talk 
 will be based on my 2022 book\, The Political Lives of Information: Info
 rmation 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 a
 s empowering and democratising. But how does information work in practic
 e and who does it work for? The book examined three cases in India—the c
 irculation of price information on mobile phones in a fish market in Ker
 ala\, government information in computer kiosks operated by a non-profit
  in Puducherry\, and a political campaign demanding a right to informati
 on in Rajasthan—to explore their divergent uses of information to suppor
 t goals of social change. Drawing on the book and these cases\, the talk
  will challenge claims that treat information as naturally empowering fo
 r everyone. It will use the alternative construct of an “information ord
 er” to refocus attention on how caste\, class\, and gender shaped who go
 t to define and leverage information in the cases it considers.\n\nJanak
 i’s research examines the political economy of information technology-ba
 sed development initiatives. She uses ethnographic research to examine h
 ow 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\, id
 entity systems and open information systems. Some of this work appeared 
 in her recent monograph\, The Political Lives of Information published b
 y MIT Press. Janaki’s work on the politics of informational and digital 
 exclusion is currently focussed on privacy and the algorithmic control o
 f labour. For the past several years\, as co-investigator on the Fairwor
 k India [fair.work] team\, she has been involved in researching and advo
 cating for change in the precarious working conditions of gig workers in
  India.\n
STATUS:TENTATIVE
TRANSP:TRANSPARENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
LOCATION:G32\, Humanities Bridgeford Street\, Manchester
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