media, information, the contemporary
Event

The Social and Cultural Life of Information Workshop: Discussions

The Social and Cultural Life of Information workshop was held in Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, on November 14-16 2013. It brought together a select group of media scholars, historians, anthropologists and geographers for an intensive three days workshop, and aimed at bringing together research on colonial and postcolonial information infrastructures, with a strong South Asian component.

Here are the recordings of discussions that followed the presentations at the workshop:

Day One

Technological Inertia: The Politics of Privacy and the Failure of Anglo-American Biometric Registration
Keith Breckenridge, University of Witwatersand

Discussant: Radhika Singha, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Download: .OGG / .MP3

De-Duplicating India: On the Promise of Immateriality
Lawrence Cohen, University of California, Berkeley

Discussant: Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Of Identity, Platform, and ‘New’ Information Infrastructures of Governance: Situating the Aadhaar Project within the History of Electronic Governance in India
Sumandro Chattapadhyay, The Sarai Programme, CSDS

Discussant: Nayanika Mathur, University of Cambridge

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Day Two

Speech Marks: Early Modern Information Geographies
Miles Ogborn, Queen Mary, University of London

Discussant: Ravi S. Vasudevan, The Sarai Programme, CSDS

Download: .OGG / .MP3

How to Spell Mohammedan? Note on Circulation, Standardisation & the Documentary Production of Empire
Brian Larkin, Barnard College, Columbia University

Discussant: Miles Ogborn, Queen Mary, University of London

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Punished by Surveillance: Legal Codification and Police Modernisation in Colonial India 1861-1923
Radhika Singha, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Discussant: Keith Breckenridge, University of Witwatersand

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Day Two (Continued)

Man-eaters of the Indian Himalaya: Identifying, Naming, and Hunting Big Cats in Uttarakhand
Nayanika Mathur, University of Cambridge

Discussant: Awadhendra Sharan, CSDS

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Data’s Discordances: The Political Life of Medical Information in Maputo, Mozambique
Ramah McKay, University of Minnesota

Discussant: Sarada Balagopalan, CSDS

Download: .OGG / .MP3

‘One Hearth, One Home, One Family’: Materiality and Affect in Urban Poor Enumeration
Tarangini Sriraman, Centre de Sciences Humaines

Discussant: Ramah McKay, University of Minnesota

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Day Three

Information, Transparency, and the New Urban Turn
Ravi Sundaram, The Sarai Programme, CSDS

Discussant: Lawrence Cohen, University of California, Berkeley

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Occupied and Possessed Cities: Territoriality, Information, and Techno-Managerial Politics
Solomon Benjamin, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Discussant: Sumandro Chattapadhyay, The Sarai Programme, CSDS

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Cinematic Information in the Colonial Archive, 1940-1946
Ravi S. Vasudevan, The Sarai Programme, CSDS

Discussant: Brian Larkin, Barnard College, Columbia University

Download: .OGG / .MP3

Of Hidden Cameras and Hidden Truths: Law and Visual Evidence in an Era of Digital Uncertainty
Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore

Discussant: Ravi Sundaram, The Sarai Programme, CSDS

Download: .OGG / .MP3