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Showing posts with the label sustainable development goals

New Book with Harvard Press out

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My US publicist clicked this photo at Barnes & Noble in New York, Union Square These months have been absolutely exciting as my new book  'The Next Billion Users: Digital Life beyond the West' with Harvard University Press  has come out! This is my first non-academic book, written for a wider audience interested in technology, society and globalization. After two years and multiple revisions later, guided by the brilliant ruthlessness of my editor, I have emerged with my sanity restored again. Now its time to reap the benefits and sit back and relax a bit. I had to really rethink what good writing is and to be honest, unlearn some seriously bad writing habits I picked up with my time in academia. What is my book about? Check out the book cover which states... A digital anthropologist examines the online lives of millions of people in China, India, Brazil, and across the Middle East—home to most of the world’s internet users—and discovers that what they are doin

Talk at Humboldt Berlin on Tech, Law and Access to Justice

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On 28th and 29th of November 2018, I participated and spoke at a workshop titled  “ The Future of Law: Technology, Innovation and Access to Justice” at the Humboldt University of Berlin.   The workshop was organised by the Chair for  Public Law and Comparative Law, Humboldt University of Berlin and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung for Freedom . My talk was titled, "Above the law and below poverty: Databased obfuscations, activism and publicity from the global South." My talk argues that  contrary to seeking to be protected through anonymity as the bulk of the current research alludes to, some of those at the margins may choose to put themselves at high risk by being visible and heard. The GDPR, rooted in the Western ideology of individual choice and rights, may have created a privacy universalism, begging the question of whether privacy is a privilege and a luxury. This talk draws from a decade of fieldwork and activism among vulnerable communities beyond the West to grappl