The Political Lives of Information

Biography

Janaki Srinivasan is Associate Professor, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIITB), and the convenor of the Institute’s Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP). Her research examines the politics of information technology-based development. Her work has shown how gender, class and caste shape Indian digital inclusion initiatives focussed on community computer centres, mobile phones, identity systems and open information systems. Currently, she is exploring privacy, algorithmic control and fairness in platform work. Janaki earned her PhD in Information Management and Systems from the University of California Berkeley. The Political Lives of Information is her first book.

Talk Abstract

Information has fundamentally reshaped development discourse and practice. This talk will examine the political implications of the idea of information for poverty alleviation. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research on three cases from India—the circulation of price information in a fish market in Kerala, the provision of government information in computer kiosks operated by a nonprofit in Puducherry, and a political campaign demanding a right to information in Rajasthan—the talk will counter claims that information is naturally and universally empowering. It will demonstrate, instead, how the production and leveraging of information -- and its very definition -- are shaped by caste, class, and gender.