The Political Lives of Information

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 “info...

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Главный автор: Srinivasan, Janaki
Формат: Online
Язык:английский
Опубликовано: The MIT Press 2022
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Online-ссылка:ONIX_20221118_9780262370363_4
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author Srinivasan, Janaki
author_browse Srinivasan, Janaki
author_facet Srinivasan, Janaki
author_sort Srinivasan, Janaki
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description 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.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-938832024-03-29T19:31:21Z The Political Lives of Information Srinivasan, Janaki Politics of information Right to Information RTI campaign price information informational determinism information orders information kiosks India thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPH Political structure and processes thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHF Asian history thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies 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. 2022-11-18T11:05:11Z 2022-11-18T11:05:11Z 2022 book ONIX_20221118_9780262370363_4 9780262370363 9780262544047 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/93883 eng Information Society Series image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://giving.mit.edu/taxonomy/term/162#3920880 The MIT Press The MIT Press 10.7551/mitpress/10889.001.0001 10.7551/mitpress/10889.001.0001 ae0cf962-f685-4933-93d1-916defa5123d 9780262370363 9780262544047 The MIT Press 276 Cambridge open access
spellingShingle Politics of information
Right to Information RTI campaign
price information
informational determinism
information orders
information kiosks
India
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPH Political structure and processes
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHF Asian history
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies
Srinivasan, Janaki
The Political Lives of Information
title The Political Lives of Information
title_full The Political Lives of Information
title_fullStr The Political Lives of Information
title_full_unstemmed The Political Lives of Information
title_short The Political Lives of Information
title_sort political lives of information
topic Politics of information
Right to Information RTI campaign
price information
informational determinism
information orders
information kiosks
India
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPH Political structure and processes
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHF Asian history
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies
topic_facet Politics of information
Right to Information RTI campaign
price information
informational determinism
information orders
information kiosks
India
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPH Political structure and processes
thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHF Asian history
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies
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