The Political Lives of Information Information and the Production of Development in India

How the definition, production, and leveraging of information are shaped by caste, class, and gender, and the implications for development. Information, says Janaki Srinivasan, has fundamentally reshaped development discourse and practice. In this study, she examines the history of the idea of "...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Srinivasan, Janaki (auth)
Format: Electronic Book Chapter
Language:English
Published: Cambridge The MIT Press 2022
Series:Information Society Series
Subjects:
Online Access:DOAB: download the publication
DOAB: description of the publication
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

MARC

LEADER 00000naaaa2200000uu 4500
001 doab_20_500_12854_93883
005 20221118
003 oapen
006 m o d
007 cr|mn|---annan
008 20221118s2022 xx |||||o ||| 0|eng d
020 |a mitpress/10889.001.0001 
020 |a 9780262370363 
020 |a 9780262544047 
040 |a oapen  |c oapen 
024 7 |a 10.7551/mitpress/10889.001.0001  |c doi 
041 0 |a eng 
042 |a dc 
072 7 |a JPH  |2 bicssc 
072 7 |a HBJF  |2 bicssc 
072 7 |a JPQB  |2 bicssc 
100 1 |a Srinivasan, Janaki  |4 auth 
245 1 0 |a The Political Lives of Information  |b Information and the Production of Development in India 
260 |a Cambridge  |b The MIT Press  |c 2022 
300 |a 1 electronic resource (276 p.) 
336 |a text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a computer  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a online resource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
490 1 |a Information Society Series 
506 0 |a Open Access  |2 star  |f Unrestricted online access 
520 |a How the definition, production, and leveraging of information are shaped by caste, class, and gender, and the implications for development. Information, says Janaki Srinivasan, has fundamentally reshaped development discourse and practice. In this study, she examines the history of the idea of "information" and its political implications for poverty alleviation. She presents three cases in India-the circulation of price information in a fish market in Kerala, government information in information kiosks operated by a nonprofit in Puducherry, and a political campaign demanding a right to information in Rajasthan-to explore three uses of information to support goals of social change. Countering claims that information is naturally and universally empowering, Srinivasan shows how the definition, production, and leveraging of information are shaped by caste, class, and gender. Srinivasan draws on archival and ethnographic research to challenge the idea of information as objective and factual. Using the concept of an "information order," she examines how the meaning and value of information reflect the social relations in which it is embedded. She asks why casting information as a tool of development and solution to poverty appeals to actors across the political spectrum. She also shows how the power to label some things information and others not is at least as significant as the capacity to subsequently produce, access, and leverage information. The more faith we place in what information can do, she cautions, the less attention we pay to its political lives and to the role of specific social structures, individual agency, and material form in the defining, production, and use of that information. 
540 |a Creative Commons  |f https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/  |2 cc  |4 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 
546 |a English 
650 7 |a Political structure & processes  |2 bicssc 
650 7 |a Asian history  |2 bicssc 
650 7 |a Central government policies  |2 bicssc 
653 |a Politics of information 
653 |a Right to Information RTI campaign 
653 |a price information 
653 |a informational determinism 
653 |a information orders 
653 |a information kiosks 
653 |a India 
856 4 0 |a www.oapen.org  |u https://giving.mit.edu/taxonomy/term/162#3920880  |7 0  |z DOAB: download the publication 
856 4 0 |a www.oapen.org  |u https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/93883  |7 0  |z DOAB: description of the publication