Dr Janaki Srinivasan

Janaki Srinivasan has short grey hair and glasses. She is wearing a navy blue dress with embroidered details around the neckline, and large silver earrings.
Associate Professor, Digital South Asian Studies

Janaki's research examines the political economy of information technology-based development initiatives. She uses ethnographic research to examine how gender, caste and class shape the use of such technologies. Her work has explored these interests in the context of Indian digital inclusion initiatives focussed on community computer centres, mobile phones, identity systems and open information systems. Some of this work appeared in her recent monograph, The Political Lives of Information published by MIT Press. Janaki’s work on the politics of informational and digital exclusion is currently focussed on privacy and the algorithmic control of labour. For the past several years, as co-investigator on the Fairwork India team, she has been involved in researching and advocating for change in the precarious working conditions of gig workers in India.

Janaki was previously on the faculty at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore and convenor of its Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy. She has a PhD in Information Management and Systems from UC Berkeley and Masters degrees in Physics and in Information Technology from IIT Delhi and IIIT Bangalore.

Besides OSGA, Janaki is also associated with the Oxford Internet Institute and St Antony’s College.

Research Interests

Research Cluster:

 

Contact Information

Email: janaki.srinivasan@area.ox.ac.uk

CV and publications

Books

  • Srinivasan, Janaki. 2022. The Political Lives of Information: Information and the Making of Development in India. Information Society Series. MIT Press.

Articles

  • Hanbal, Rajesh Dinesh; Amit Prakash and Janaki Srinivasan. 2023. "Seeing data like a state: A case of Open Government Data in India’s livelihoods program." Information Polity 28,(2):, 259-275.
  • Chaudhuri, Bidisha; Meenakshi D'Souza and Janaki Srinivasan. 2022. “Bringing the missing women back: CS education for women in India's engineering institutions.” Communications of ACM 65(11): 65-67.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki and Elisa Oreglia. 2020. “The Myths and Moral Economies of Digital ID and Mobile Money in India and Myanmar.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 60, 215-236. DOI:10.17351/ests2020.276
  • Oreglia, Elisa and Janaki Srinivasan. 2020. “Human and Non-Human Intermediation in Rural Agricultural Markets.” Journal of Cultural Economy 13(4), 353-367. DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2018.1544918
  • Srinivasan, Janaki; Savita Bailur; Emrys Schoemaker and Sarita Seshagiri. 2018. “The Poverty of Privacy: Understanding Privacy Trade-Offs From Identity Infrastructure Users in India.” International Journal of Communication 12, 1–20.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki; Megan Finn and Morgan Ames. 2017. “Information Determinism: The Consequences of the Faith in Information.” Information Society 33 (1).
  • Oreglia, Elisa and Janaki Srinivasan. 2015. “ICT, Intermediaries, and the Transformation of Gendered Power Structures.” MIS Quarterly.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki and Jenna Burrell. 2015. “On the Importance of Price Information to Fishers and to Economists: Revisiting Mobile Phone Use Among Fishers in Kerala.” Information Technologies & International Development Vol. 11 (1).
  • Srinivasan, Janaki. 2012. “Looking Beyond Information Provision: The Importance of being a Kiosk Operator in the Sustainable Access In Rural India (SARI) Project, Tamilnadu.” Information Technologies & International Development Vol 8: 101-114.
  • Parthasarathy, Balaji and Janaki Srinivasan. 2008. “How the Development of ICTs Affects ICTs for Development: Social Contestation in the Shaping of Standards for the Information Age.” Science Technology & Society 13: 279-301

Book chapters

  • Srravya Chandhiramowuli; Janaki Srinivasan and Pradyumna Taduri. 2023. "Precarious Disruption: Revisiting Worker Control and Consent in the Age of Algorithms and Apps." In Gurminder K. Bhambra, Lucy Mayblin, Kathryn Medien and Mara Viveros-Vigoya (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Global Sociology. Sage.
  • Bertolini, Alessio; Mark Graham; Mounika Neerukonda; Sanna Ojanperä; Balaji Parthasarathy; Janaki Srinivasan; Pradyumna Taduri and Funda Ustek-Spilda. 2023. "Platformizing informality: One gig at a time." In Aditi Surie and Ursula Huws (eds.). Platformization and Informality: Pathways of Change, Alteration, and Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki. 2021. “The Social Meaning of Mobile Money: Navigating digital payments, savings and credit in the Global South.” In V. Sridhar (ed.). Data-centric living: Algorithms, Digitization and Regulation. Routledge.
  • Chaudhuri, Bidisha; Janaki Srinivasan and Onkar Hoysala. 2021. “Learning as Participation: Open Practices and the Production of Identities.” In Arul Chib, Caitlin M. Bentley and Matthew L. Smith (Eds.) Critical Perspectives on Open Development. Empirical Interrogation of Theory Construction. MIT Press, 81-101.

Latest reports

  • Balaji Parthasarathy, Janaki Srinivasan, Mounika Neerukonda, Bilahari M, Raktima Kalita, Meghashree Balaraj, Tony Mathew, Aditya Singh, Alessio Bertollini, and Mark Graham. 2024. Fairwork India Ratings 2024: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy. Bengaluru, India; Oxford, United Kingdom.
  • Parthasarathy, Balaji; Janaki Srinivasan; Mounika Neerukonda; Bilahari M; Aditya Singh; Raktima Kalita; Meghashree Balaraj; Kavita Dattani; Anjali Krishan; Funda Ustek-Spilda and Mark Graham. 2023. Fairwork India Ratings 2023: Labour Standards in the Platform Economy. Bengaluru, India; Oxford, United Kingdom.

Peer-reviewed Conference Papers

  • Tampubolon, Hotma and Janaki Srinivasan. Forthcoming in December 2023. "Even More Work for Mother?: Online schooling and asymmetric parental involvement in Indonesia." Working Groups 8.2 and 9.4 Joint IFIP Conference,Hyderabad.
  • Petelka, Justin; Elisa Oreglia; Megan Finn and Janaki Srinivasan. 2022. “Generating Practices: Investigations into the Double Embedding of GDPR and Data Access Policies.” Proceedings of the ACM Human Computer Interaction 6, CSCW2 (November), 1-26.
  • Hanbal, Rajesh Dinesh, Amit Prakash and Janaki Srinivasan. 2020. “Who Drives Data in Data-Driven Governance? The Politics of Data Production in India’s Livelihood Program.” In ACM Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ICEGOV 2020, 485–493.
  • Chaudhuri, Bidisha; Purnabha Dasgupta; Onkar Hoysala; Linus Kendall and Janaki Srinivasan. 2017. “Actor-Networks and Practices of Development: Impact of a Weather Information System in West Bengal.” In 14th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (ICT4D), Yogyakarta, Indonesia. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology Vol 504: 809-81.
  • Chaudhuri, Bidisha; Linus Kendall; Janaki Srinivasan; Onkar Hoysala, and Purnabha Dasgupta. 2017. “Understanding capabilities through everyday practice: The case of a weather information system for farmers in West Bengal.” In ACM Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD ’17), Lahore, Pakistan.
  • Johri, Aditya and Janaki Srinivasan. 2014. “Aligning with Data: Populating the ‘Unique Identity’ Infrastructure in India.” In ACM Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Baltimore.
  • Finn, Megan; Janaki Srinivasan and Rajesh Veeraraghavan. 2014. “Seeing with Paper: Government Documents and Material Participation.” In IEEE Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Hawaii. Awarded the Best paper award in the Digital and Social Media track.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki and Jenna Burrell. 2013. “Revisiting the Fishers of Kerala, India.” In IEEE Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development, Cape Town.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki and Aditya Johri. 2013. “Creating Machine Readable Men: Legitimizing the ʻAadhaarʼ Mega E-Infrastructure Project in India.” In IEEE Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development, Cape Town.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki. 2010. “From Telecom Switches to Telecenters: Changes in the “Telecom for Development” Discourse in India (1947-1999).” In IEEE Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development, University of London.
  • Srinivasan, Janaki. 2007. “The Role of Trustworthiness in Information Kiosk Projects.” In IEEE Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development, Bangalore, 345-352.