[liberationtech] Practice meets research: Technology and democracy in South Asia workshop

[S Vivek]

The Center for South Asia at Stanford will be organizing a workshop on
technology and democracy in South Asia on May 24 (different from the
graduate student conference panel earlier that month).  Details about the
workshop are copied below.  Please feel free to get in touch with me for
more details.

Thank you,

Vivek

 Practice meets research: Workshop on technology & democracy in South Asia

*Date:* 24 May 2012

*Time:* 9am – 5pm

*Place:* Stanford University

Over the past decade, information technology has become a powerful factor
in shaping, translating, and evaluating democracy across South Asia, from
the local to the trans-national level.  Technology is shaping citizen-state
engagement in complex, and at times contradictory ways through ambitious
government projects such as the Aadhar project to create comprehensive
bio-metric identities, online censorship systems, unprecedented electronic
transparency mechanisms and major e-governance initiatives to help citizens
navigate the government with much greater ease.  At the same time,
individuals are using information technology to reinvent ways of
understanding, enacting, and critiquing democracy in their daily lives.
The Center for South Asia will be hosting a one day workshop comprising of
practitioners and researchers working on these issues on 24 May 2012.

The workshop aims to foster a dialogue among people who are engaged on this
issue either as creators of technology projects or as academic researchers
in a rapidly evolving field.  The first part of the workshop will feature
paper presentations and demonstrations of projects.  The second part will
consist of active dialogue between participants based on a list of topics
that will be determined collectively.

*Workshop Objectives:*

·        Understanding new developments in the interface between technology
and democracy in the South Asian context

·        Investigating current innovations & challenges of
politically-engaged technology projects in India

·        Systematically exploring ways of studying technology initiatives
and their impact on democracy

·        Engaging with critical theories and evaluations of technology and
democracy

·        Improving our analytical understanding of the ways through which
technology projects can affect democracy, especially in the South Asian
context.

·        Creating a forum for people working on innovations for South Asia
to meet, develop synergies, and build collaborative networks.

*We Encourage Your Participation If You Are: *

·        A faculty members or graduate student with a recent paper or work
in progress on the theory, history, politics, evolution or evaluation of
technology and democracy in South Asia.

·        Any individual or a team that has created or is in the process of
creating technology for fostering civic engagement, mobilization, political
education, protecting people engaged in political change or other modes of
using technology for a more meaningful democracy in South Asia.

The conference is open for all. Even those who do not present will have a
substantive space to participate during the second part, which is designed
to engage all participants in discussion and debate on topics of their
choice.

*Cost *

There is no fee for participation.  The Center for South Asia will provide
lunch and the facilities for the conference at no charge to the
participants.  Limited budgetary support for travel is available for
outstation participants selected for the formal presentations.

*Deadlines*

If you wish to make a presentation, please send an abstract of your paper
or details about your project to [Bernie?] at the latest by *10 May 2012*.
We encourage you to send us the details by *20 April* if you would like us
to consider you for travel support. RSVP is required for all other
participants by *20 May 2012*.**




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Program on Liberation Technology,
Stanford University
http://liberationtechnology.stanford.edu

C 149 Encina Hall
616 Serra St.
Stanford, CA 94305

Phone: 1-801-784-8357, that is 1-801-S Vivek's!

Blog: http://viveks.info
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