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Showing posts from March, 2016

Unequal acaedemic labour: Time and work in culture-centered projects

unequalacademiclabor> In 2004, I wrote 15 peer reviewed articles drawing upon quantitative large-scale survey data that I had "not" gathered. I had not done the field work for this research (mostly conducted by large survey companies). Also, in 2004, I published 14 peer-reviewed journal articles, mostly in top tier disciplinary and sub-disciplinary journals. Once again, most of these articles were quantitative articles, drawing upon quantitative analysis of data I had not myself gathered. A couple of these pieces are among my most highly cited pieces, one of them putting forth a theory I had developed on the basis of my quantitative analysis. Something else also happened in 2004. It was the year that I published my first ethnography in the journal Communication Theory. The piece titled "The unheard voices of Santalis" was drawn from my ethnographic fieldwork started in 1998. Dutta‐Bergman, M. J. (2004). The unheard voices of Santalis: Commun

The tech savvy professional Sangh woman

The emergence of the Sangh in post-liberalization India rides on the participation of tech-savvy men and women, empowered yuppies in tech centers, Internet-empowered corporate executives with MBAs, and now-arrived NRIs in US, UK, Singapore etc. who see the Sangh as a tool for returning their lost dignity. The Sangh is the ride to the market, Indian ishtyle. These are the Sanghi net warriors. The trolls that inundate the Internet. The Twitterati feeding cycles of Sanghi propaganda. The likes of Shilpi Tiwari. Tech savvy. Sanghi minded. And full of hatred for the "other." Particularly salient in these groups is the presence of the tech-savvy, professional Sangh woman. The Sangh woman is convent educated, professionally trained, tech-empowered, and consumer savvy. She had heard of feminism and enfranchisement and is vocal about gender rights. She has found her joy ride to the tech centers of Noida and Bangalore. Or perhaps a ride to Silicon Valley. The tech sav