Call for Papers by adrian athique
Since 2008, the targeting of unbanked populations in the Global South by a range of mobile financ... more Since 2008, the targeting of unbanked populations in the Global South by a range of mobile financial services has dovetailed with equally significant interventions elsewhere in credit, currencies and commerce channelled through the super platforms of the smartphone decade. This confluence has engendered the worldwide spread of 'everyday fintech', with far-reaching ambitions for a 'great integration' of markets, exchanges and lifeworlds networked through digital transactions. Digital transactions have become central to the strategic design and operation of digital ecosystems, social laboratories and eGovernance regimes around the world. This larger convergence of the finance and technology sectors requires scholars across disciplines to pay closer attention to the transactional architecture of the Internet.
Digital Transactions in Asia VI takes up this challenge by exploring the multi-faceted role of digital transactions in the evolution of contemporary Asian Internets, detailing the role of transaction platforms and design of transaction chains within platform ecosystems, as well as highlighting the informal transaction chains assembled by everyday users. In an evolving policy domain dominated by technocratic visions of sustainable development, we emphasise the social and cultural implications of the transaction orders emerging in Asia as a consequence of digitisation, along with the social shaping of digital transactions amongst businesses, workers, consumers and citizens in a culturally diverse region.
The Asian region is passing through a period of unprecedented social and economic change, and dig... more The Asian region is passing through a period of unprecedented social and economic change, and digital transaction platforms operate at the centre of these processes. Transaction platforms take a number of forms, including point of sale payment apps, money transfer services, trading platforms, micro credit apps and the multi-faceted exchange mechanisms built into retail, service and social media platforms. Together, they constitute a larger ecology of digital exchange that has enabled the rapid growth of online commerce, network economies and e governance across the varied political, cultural and economic geography of the region.
Media International Australia, 2020
It does not need to be said that we live in extraordinary times. A world of unprecedented mobilit... more It does not need to be said that we live in extraordinary times. A world of unprecedented mobility has come to a shuddering stop. The majority of the world's population is living under some form of quarantine, and work, sustenance and sociability have been almost entirely mediatised. As scholars of media and communication, there are critical developments in play that deserve our attention and our voice. There has never been a time in which media systems have been able to convey such detailed and universal coverage of an historical event in real time, with the added capacity to keep us all in touch and to give us a voice too. At the same time, the vast social narrative of this pandemic has been visibly characterised by confusion, misinformation, disinformation, charges of conspiracy, cover-ups and multi-vocal denials. Despite the failure of promises given on their capacity for prediction of precisely this scenario, the world's tech companies are rapidly developing a host of systems to help us all negotiate life in the time of coronavirus. Some of these, such as tracing apps, are likely to prove controversial, while the products of the online economy are enjoying intense demand from grateful housebound populations. In amongst this, public health experts have been thrust into the limelight, as they try to guide nations and their leaders, as have economists seeking to secure our futures in the absence of a machine that was never intended to stop. Media experts, too, have their part to play in helping people to make sense of the times that we are living through. With this in mind, Media International Australia would like to invite submissions of essays, commentaries and articles for an extraordinary issue of MIA that discusses the global, national, local and intensely personal aspects of media and communication in the time of the coronavirus. We welcome these contributions from colleagues across all places and disciplines. We invite submissions in two categories: 1) Essays and commentaries, up to 2,000 words, on current developments and issues related to the pandemic and communication. 2) Detailed articles, of 6,000 to 8,000 words, addressing aspects of media and communications in key areas, such as: health communication, social media, journalism and public discourse, commerce, politics, culture and logistics. We intend to publish a selection of submissions received before the end of 2020, and to meet the urgency of the moment, we therefore invite submissions by 14th June 2020. We understand that this tight turnaround means that contributors will be likely be sharing their evolving thoughts and experiences, without time in many cases to prepare detailed empirical papers. Nonetheless, we feel that our obligation as scholars, and as a journal, is to come together in conversation and to make sense of the multi-faceted role of media and communication in this extraordinary moment.
International Communication Association 2020 Preconference
Gold Coast, Australia
**Digital Cultu... more International Communication Association 2020 Preconference
Gold Coast, Australia
**Digital Cultures of South Asia:Inequalities, Infrastructures, Informatization**
Date & Time: 9:00 am to 5.00 pm, Thursday, May 21, 2020
Location: Onsite, 2020 ICA Main Conference Venue, Gold Coast, Australia
Organizers: Radhika Parameswaran (rparames@indiana.edu, Indiana University), Sangeet Kumar (kumars@denison.edu, Denison University), Kalyani Chadha (kchadha@umd.edu, University of Maryland), Adrian Athique (a.athique@uq.edu.au, University of Queensland) and Pradip Thomas (pradip.thomas@uq.edu.au, University of Queensland).
Conference Coordinator: Roshni Susana Verghese, roshnisusana@gmail.com
ICA Division Affiliations: Global Communication and Social Change, Popular Communication, Intercultural Communication, Ethnicity &Race in Communication, and the South Asian Communication Association (SACA).
Institutional Sponsors: The Media School, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA; The Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park, USA; Department of Communication, Denison University, Granville, Ohio, USA; School of Communication and Arts and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Australia.
Preconference Description
Characterized by a mobile phone led connectivity boom and the cheapest data prices in the world (McCarthy 2019), South Asia has emerged as a regionwith the greatest potential for the future growth of Internet users. Indeed, as such, the area is not only central to any attempts at imagining the future of digital media globally, but it also constitutes a fertile territorial and cultural space for scholarly inquiry into the various dimensions of expanding digital life in the region. Consequently, this preconference focuses on exploring digital developments and their political, economic, social and cultural implications in the context of postcolonial South Asia and its global diaspora. The preconference draws inspiration from scholars who have sought to de-westernize digital media studies through their granular and interdisciplinary accounts of varied aspects of digital life in non-western countries. It is also grounded in the notion that the historical, political and social specificities of postcolonial South Asia necessitate the production of knowledge on digital culture— both conceptual and empirical— that explores the heterogeneities and complexities of the diverse nations that constitute the region. We envisage this preconferenceto be a forum for illuminating the varied dialectical forces that are at play in South Asia in shaping digital culture in ways that are similar to but also quite different from other parts of the world.
In pursuit of these objectives, we invite submissions that cover a broad range of topics set in South Asia, including, but not limited to scholarly areas such as:
• Issues of digital access, connectivity and inequality (social asymmetries of caste, gender, sexuality, religion, language, and class)
• Online mobilization by activist communities to protest inequities and advocate for social change
• Nature and implications for sovereignty of governance and infrastructure regimes emerging across the region, particularly as they relate to data collection and commodification, security and privacy
• The political economy of digital media and the impact of digital technologies on the mainstream media landscape in entertainment and news media
• Rise of new genres of informational and artistic representation— including parody, satire, and humor—in online spaces such as YouTube
• Role of digital and social media in the transformation of contemporary politics, including campaigns and elections
• Transformations in the business and content of journalism, the rise of fake news, misinformation as well as hate and extreme speech
• Vernacular community formation in local, national and transnational/diasporic South Asian digital spaces
• New transnational digital circuits of cultural production and consumption—fueled by affinities of caste, gender, class and sexuality—within and beyond South Asia
The preconference aims to bring together ICA participants as well as scholars from around the world who are interested in digital culture in the Global South, with a particular focus on South Asia. Presentations and conversations at the preconference will be geared to achieve the following broad goals: build theory sensitive to the nuances of the region, strengthen analytical frameworks, foster interdisciplinarity, encourage critical thinking, and address empirical gaps in research.
Platform Capitalism, Communication and Culture in South Asia
South Asian Studies Association of A... more Platform Capitalism, Communication and Culture in South Asia
South Asian Studies Association of Australia (SASAA) Research Symposium 2019
We are pleased to announce that Curtin University, in conjunction with the University of Queensland’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), will be hosting a South Asian Studies Association of Australia (SASAA) research symposium: Platform Capitalism, Communication and Culture in South Asia between the 18th and 19th June 2019.
This research symposium aims to bring together original and up to date work on the emergence of platform economies in South Asia. Amongst the eight nations comprising the region, the sheer scale of the platform economy in India is conspicuous. For example, the size of India’s platform economy is commonly captured by its standing as the second-largest market globally for 'technology companies' such as Facebook and Uber. With nine major linguistic media markets, 150 million broadband users, and over 250 million people participating in the digital economy, India alone represents platform experiences as rich and as diverse as those in ASEAN or the EU. For India, the undeniably close relationship with Silicon Valley operates alongside domestic adaptations and usages of the platform model by commercial businesses, by civil society and by the state. In this setting, important roles are being played by digital platforms in capturing social economies that have long been outside of the accounting process. Platform logics have been equally crucial in facilitating the onset of radical experiments in universal biometrics and cashless transactions, domains where India is being used as a laboratory for a global digital society.
While India itself is comparable in scale, scope and diversity with other major regional markets in the digital economy, it is joined by other countries in South Asia that are seeking and seeing developments in digital infrastructure and services. For instance, over half of Sri Lanka’s population has access to 4G internet and the country was the first in South Asia to trial 5G internet. While Pakistan’s internet and broadband penetration is comparably lower, its country’s planning commission ‘Vision 2025’ views the rapid development of digital wireless networks as key to ‘smart and creative’ cities, a rejuvenated public service and the emergence innovative, knowledge-based industries. How such initiatives intersects with other information markets, wider national economies, regulatory structures and cultural dynamics in South Asia is waiting to be systematically explored. The latter is particularly important given the intrinsically embedded nature of the region’s multiple media and mediated economies and the concerns over the manner in which religious, political and cultural unrest has been facilitated by new media and communication platforms. The ambit of platform capitalism in South Asia has a wide range of distinctive features that will be explored in this research symposium.
Platform Capitalism, Communication and Culture in South Asia will examine the ways in which the growing platformisation of not just communications and media but business and governmental operations is occurring in South Asia. The symposium will provide space for a number of researchers, including early career and established researchers, as well as HDR students, will present on different aspects of this emerging platform economy, including:
• Platformisation of Media Content
• Populism, Politics and Public Speech
• Platforms, Sociability and Social Economies
• Digital India and eGovernance
• Information Infrastructure and Logistics
• Platform Labour and Markets
• Algorithms and Business Processes
• Access and Inequalities in Digital Systems
• Platforms Economies and Smart Cities
• Digitalisation and Organizational Change
• Ownership and Market Power in the Digital Economy
• Retail, Marketing and Distribution in the Digital Era
Registration: Registration is free of charge for SASAA members and $35 for non-members. To be included in the workshop program, please submit an individual abstract of 250 words or a panel proposal of four to five abstracts by 18 February 2019 to s.fitzgerald@curtin.edu.au. Colleagues are very welcome to attend the workshop without presenting a paper. The program will be finalised and circulated in March 2019
Organising Committee:
Scott Fitzgerald (Curtin University)
Adrian Athique (University of Queensland)
Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia University)
Shishir Jha (IIT Bombay)
Events by adrian athique
Since 2008, the targeting of unbanked populations in the Global South by a range of mobile financ... more Since 2008, the targeting of unbanked populations in the Global South by a range of mobile financial services has dovetailed with equally significant interventions elsewhere in credit, currencies and commerce channelled through the super platforms of the smartphone decade. This confluence has engendered the worldwide spread of 'everyday fintech', with far-reaching ambitions for a 'great integration' of markets, exchanges and lifeworlds networked through digital transactions. Digital transactions have become central to the strategic design and operation of digital ecosystems, social laboratories and eGovernance regimes around the world. This larger convergence of the finance and technology sectors requires scholars across disciplines to pay closer attention to the transactional architecture of the Internet.
Digital Transactions in Asia VI takes up this challenge by exploring the multi-faceted role of digital transactions in the evolution of contemporary Asian Internets, detailing the role of transaction platforms and design of transaction chains within platform ecosystems, as well as highlighting the informal transaction chains assembled by everyday users. In an evolving policy domain dominated by technocratic visions of sustainable development, we emphasise the social and cultural implications of the transaction orders emerging in Asia as a consequence of digitisation, along with the social shaping of digital transactions amongst businesses, workers, consumers and citizens in a culturally diverse region.
This conference forms part of a larger series of events undertaken across the Asian region since 2017. The core aim of the Digital Transactions in Asia programme is to provide an inter-disciplinary forum which allows researchers across the humanities, social sciences, technology and business fields to address the many different aspects of the digital transition across the region, with a primary focus on the implications for our communities and understanding the importance of both local contexts and international comparisons. Digital Transactions in Asia seeks to provide a rich forum for Inter-Asian academic networks and a platform for cutting edge research that details the experiences of the digital majority in the 21st century.
In the staging of Digital Transactions in Asia VI, we gratefully acknowledge our partnership with Universitas Brawijaya and the work of our UB colleagues in hosting this event in the beautiful city of Malang. We also thank the Australian Research Council and the University of Queensland for their continuing support of our collective work. Most of all, we would like to thank all of the delegates joining us in Malang for three days of stimulating discussion and debate. We welcome back valued colleagues from our previous events and look forward to meeting researchers who are joining us for the first time. We hope that you find the programme stimulating and generative for your current and future work, and that together we can work to ensure the best possible digital futures for the people of our region.
Digital Transactions in Asia, 2024
In adopting digital systems, local communities and users adapt transactional affordances in line ... more In adopting digital systems, local communities and users adapt transactional affordances in line with their own environments, means and norms. As a consequence, the embedding and acculturation of digital transactions is a critical factor in the digital transformation in Asian societies, making culture a key determinant of transactional relationships. In our first post-COVID physical conference, Digital Transactions in Asia V seeks to take stock of the acceleration of digital transactions during and after the pandemic, exploring the many ways in which everyday fintech has made lasting changes to the social, cultural and economic landscapes of Asia. We invite paper submissions from researchers across all disciplines working on the past, present and future of Digital Transactions in Asia.
The Asian region is passing through a period of unprecedented social and economic change, and dig... more The Asian region is passing through a period of unprecedented social and economic change, and digital transaction platforms operate at the centre of these processes. Transaction platforms take a number of forms, including point of sale payment apps, money transfer services, trading platforms, micro credit apps and the multi-faceted exchange mechanisms built into retail, service and social media platforms.
The capture of transactional processes within platform ecosystems actively converges social, economic, and cultural exchanges in novel ways. Transactional cultures are thus a fundamental building block in the transformation of Asian societies since, in adopting digital systems, localised communities adapt their transactional cultures in line with their own environments, means and norms.
In an era of network effects, the sheer size of India makes her platform economies central to the... more In an era of network effects, the sheer size of India makes her platform economies central to the global digital economy. The overarching aim of this two days conference is to advance inter-disciplinary debates on the social impact, cultural dynamics and economic potentials of platform business models in India. We will address critical questions of urban infrastructure, entrepreneurship and labour conditions, human rights, governance and public services, culture and consumption, business law, platform ownership and regulation, and in all these dimensions: the founding propositions of equity and social justice.
As mobile internet emerges as the primary mediating technology within South East Asia, new modes ... more As mobile internet emerges as the primary mediating technology within South East Asia, new modes of currency, commodity and exchange are transforming our everyday experience of markets across the region. The rise of online shopping is re-ordering space and socialities within neighbourhoods and cities, and transforming intra-regional trade and power relations. New entertainment economies, their associated contents and user behaviours are engendering new modes of popular culture. Emerging platform economies initiate novel opportunities and contestations within the international division of labour. The affordances of digital technologies lend new forms of visibility to struggles for human and citizen rights, as well as enabling transactional forms of politics and religion. This conference considers the instances and processes through which new sets of social, economic and political transactions are being established between markets and publics, citizens and states, cultures and commodities in a Digital Asia.
Taking the historical example of the emporium, this paper attempts to situate India's emerging pl... more Taking the historical example of the emporium, this paper attempts to situate India's emerging platform economy within the historical evolution of market exchange in the subcontinent. I argue that the market systems constituted by media platforms are, like all markets within a true economy, significantly dependent upon their interaction with other markets. In India, this includes the aggregation of erstwhile media industries along with informal markets for ‘services’, increasingly under the aegis of finance capital and the operators of mobile digital infrastructure. From this wider perspective, we can trace the expansion of a ‘mediated economy’ through which an increasing number of exchanges are being aggregated within portals designed to value capture from social economies. Rather than framing this process as disruptive, this paper seeks to illustrate how India's platform economy has been shaped by pathways established within the distinctive economics of media systems.
The reconfiguration of social, cultural, economic and political relationships in parallel with th... more The reconfiguration of social, cultural, economic and political relationships in parallel with the pervasive application of digital technologies has been regarded as an epochal shift in the Western world. In contemporary Asia, the breathtaking rapidity and scale of digitisation provides us with an even greater remaking and reinvigorating of human relationships. This is an era where rapid commercial growth across the region proceeds in tandem with the spread of digital media devices.
For ordinary people, social media platforms offer new economic opportunities along with the monetisation of the personal and the everyday. In the public domain, Asian state systems are having to contend with explosions of popular expression, public debate and political mobilisation, even as these activities are highly contested and contestable. Asian markets are increasingly determined by flows of virtual capital, information commodities, consumers and labour. In this context, it is increasingly evident that the rise of a Digital Asia is accompanied by new aspirations and understandings of modernisation, participation and development.
This conference considers the instances and processes through which new sets of social, economic and political transactions are being established between citizens and states, markets and publics, cultures and commodities in a Digital Asia.
The conference, to be held from October 10-12, 2018 at the campus of De La Salle University in Manila, is co-hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland and the Department of Communication, De La Salle University in Manila.
The conference will include two full days of presentations for a public audience 10-11th October, followed by a research workshop for paper presenters on 12th October.
Given the inter- and trans-disciplinary nature of its theme, the conference is intended to be of interest to researchers from a diverse variety of backgrounds and disciplinary orientations in the Humanities and Social Sciences. We will also consider submissions of creative and technical works, along with professional contributions from industry and non-governmental organisations.
Submission Guidelines
We are currently inviting abstract submissions (500 words) addressing the following themes:
● Development and (In)equalities
● Currencies and Commodities
● Populism and Public Speech
● Mobilities and mobilisation
● Intimacies and Moral Economies
● Governance and Citizenship
● Mobile and Informal Economies
● Innovation and Disruption
A limited number of bursaries covering economy air travel and accommodation for the duration of the event are available on a competitive basis for paper presenters working at institutions within the ASEAN region. If you wish to be considered for a bursary, please indicate your interest and affiliation in your abstract submission. We will subsequently contact you regarding the bursary selection process that will occur in June 2018.
For all selected participants, a final paper of 6,000 words will be requested by 31 July 2018 for review in the SAGE journal Media International Australia and for inclusion in an edited volume with a major international publisher. For further enquiries and for the submission of abstracts, please contact the conference organising committee via digitaltransactions.asia@gmail.com
Key dates
* May 9, 2018: Deadline for the submission of abstracts
* May 28, 2018: Acceptance of abstracts/papers
* June 30, 2018: Results of travel grant application
* July 31, 2018: Final paper submission
* October 10-12, 2018: Conference and workshops
Organising committee
● Adrian Athique (University of Queensland)
● Cheryll Soriano (De La Salle University)
● Sun Sun Lim (Singapore University of Technology and Design)
● Emma Baulch (Queensland University of Technology / Monash U Malaysia)
● Jozon Lorenzana (Ateneo de Manila University)
Digital Transactions in Asia 2
De La Salle university Manila
10-12 October 2018
Books by adrian athique
Indian media: Global approaches
Introduction: A Global Approach to the Indian Media Chapter One: Mass Media and the Making of Mod... more Introduction: A Global Approach to the Indian Media Chapter One: Mass Media and the Making of Modern India Chapter Two: Media Development and Mixed Messages Chapter Three: Liberalisation, Diversity and the Age of Television Chapter Four: The Global Dynamics of Indian Media Piracy Chapter Five: Digital India: Software, Services and Cybercultures Chapter Six: Bollywood, Brand India and Soft Power Chapter Seven: Media Provision and the New Leisure Economy Afterword: Indian Media and the Asian Century References
Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements inv... more Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong. represent the views of the University of Wollongong.
The multiplex in India: A cultural economy of urban leisure
During the decade of its existence in India, the multiplex cinema has been very much a sign of th... more During the decade of its existence in India, the multiplex cinema has been very much a sign of the times both a symptom and a symbol of new social values. Indicative of a consistent push to create a 'globalised' consuming middle class and a new urban environment, multiplex ...
This volume provides a critical examination of the evolution of platform economies in India. Cont... more This volume provides a critical examination of the evolution of platform economies in India. Contributions from leading media and communications scholars present case studies that illustrate the social and economic ambitions at the heart of Digital India. Across interdisciplinary domains of business, labour, politics, and culture, this book examines how digital platforms are embedding automated systems into the social fabrics of everyday life. Encouraging readers to explore the phenomenon of platformisation in context, the book uncovers the distinctive features of platform capitalism in India.
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Call for Papers by adrian athique
Digital Transactions in Asia VI takes up this challenge by exploring the multi-faceted role of digital transactions in the evolution of contemporary Asian Internets, detailing the role of transaction platforms and design of transaction chains within platform ecosystems, as well as highlighting the informal transaction chains assembled by everyday users. In an evolving policy domain dominated by technocratic visions of sustainable development, we emphasise the social and cultural implications of the transaction orders emerging in Asia as a consequence of digitisation, along with the social shaping of digital transactions amongst businesses, workers, consumers and citizens in a culturally diverse region.
Gold Coast, Australia
**Digital Cultures of South Asia:Inequalities, Infrastructures, Informatization**
Date & Time: 9:00 am to 5.00 pm, Thursday, May 21, 2020
Location: Onsite, 2020 ICA Main Conference Venue, Gold Coast, Australia
Organizers: Radhika Parameswaran (rparames@indiana.edu, Indiana University), Sangeet Kumar (kumars@denison.edu, Denison University), Kalyani Chadha (kchadha@umd.edu, University of Maryland), Adrian Athique (a.athique@uq.edu.au, University of Queensland) and Pradip Thomas (pradip.thomas@uq.edu.au, University of Queensland).
Conference Coordinator: Roshni Susana Verghese, roshnisusana@gmail.com
ICA Division Affiliations: Global Communication and Social Change, Popular Communication, Intercultural Communication, Ethnicity &Race in Communication, and the South Asian Communication Association (SACA).
Institutional Sponsors: The Media School, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA; The Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park, USA; Department of Communication, Denison University, Granville, Ohio, USA; School of Communication and Arts and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, Australia.
Preconference Description
Characterized by a mobile phone led connectivity boom and the cheapest data prices in the world (McCarthy 2019), South Asia has emerged as a regionwith the greatest potential for the future growth of Internet users. Indeed, as such, the area is not only central to any attempts at imagining the future of digital media globally, but it also constitutes a fertile territorial and cultural space for scholarly inquiry into the various dimensions of expanding digital life in the region. Consequently, this preconference focuses on exploring digital developments and their political, economic, social and cultural implications in the context of postcolonial South Asia and its global diaspora. The preconference draws inspiration from scholars who have sought to de-westernize digital media studies through their granular and interdisciplinary accounts of varied aspects of digital life in non-western countries. It is also grounded in the notion that the historical, political and social specificities of postcolonial South Asia necessitate the production of knowledge on digital culture— both conceptual and empirical— that explores the heterogeneities and complexities of the diverse nations that constitute the region. We envisage this preconferenceto be a forum for illuminating the varied dialectical forces that are at play in South Asia in shaping digital culture in ways that are similar to but also quite different from other parts of the world.
In pursuit of these objectives, we invite submissions that cover a broad range of topics set in South Asia, including, but not limited to scholarly areas such as:
• Issues of digital access, connectivity and inequality (social asymmetries of caste, gender, sexuality, religion, language, and class)
• Online mobilization by activist communities to protest inequities and advocate for social change
• Nature and implications for sovereignty of governance and infrastructure regimes emerging across the region, particularly as they relate to data collection and commodification, security and privacy
• The political economy of digital media and the impact of digital technologies on the mainstream media landscape in entertainment and news media
• Rise of new genres of informational and artistic representation— including parody, satire, and humor—in online spaces such as YouTube
• Role of digital and social media in the transformation of contemporary politics, including campaigns and elections
• Transformations in the business and content of journalism, the rise of fake news, misinformation as well as hate and extreme speech
• Vernacular community formation in local, national and transnational/diasporic South Asian digital spaces
• New transnational digital circuits of cultural production and consumption—fueled by affinities of caste, gender, class and sexuality—within and beyond South Asia
The preconference aims to bring together ICA participants as well as scholars from around the world who are interested in digital culture in the Global South, with a particular focus on South Asia. Presentations and conversations at the preconference will be geared to achieve the following broad goals: build theory sensitive to the nuances of the region, strengthen analytical frameworks, foster interdisciplinarity, encourage critical thinking, and address empirical gaps in research.
South Asian Studies Association of Australia (SASAA) Research Symposium 2019
We are pleased to announce that Curtin University, in conjunction with the University of Queensland’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), will be hosting a South Asian Studies Association of Australia (SASAA) research symposium: Platform Capitalism, Communication and Culture in South Asia between the 18th and 19th June 2019.
This research symposium aims to bring together original and up to date work on the emergence of platform economies in South Asia. Amongst the eight nations comprising the region, the sheer scale of the platform economy in India is conspicuous. For example, the size of India’s platform economy is commonly captured by its standing as the second-largest market globally for 'technology companies' such as Facebook and Uber. With nine major linguistic media markets, 150 million broadband users, and over 250 million people participating in the digital economy, India alone represents platform experiences as rich and as diverse as those in ASEAN or the EU. For India, the undeniably close relationship with Silicon Valley operates alongside domestic adaptations and usages of the platform model by commercial businesses, by civil society and by the state. In this setting, important roles are being played by digital platforms in capturing social economies that have long been outside of the accounting process. Platform logics have been equally crucial in facilitating the onset of radical experiments in universal biometrics and cashless transactions, domains where India is being used as a laboratory for a global digital society.
While India itself is comparable in scale, scope and diversity with other major regional markets in the digital economy, it is joined by other countries in South Asia that are seeking and seeing developments in digital infrastructure and services. For instance, over half of Sri Lanka’s population has access to 4G internet and the country was the first in South Asia to trial 5G internet. While Pakistan’s internet and broadband penetration is comparably lower, its country’s planning commission ‘Vision 2025’ views the rapid development of digital wireless networks as key to ‘smart and creative’ cities, a rejuvenated public service and the emergence innovative, knowledge-based industries. How such initiatives intersects with other information markets, wider national economies, regulatory structures and cultural dynamics in South Asia is waiting to be systematically explored. The latter is particularly important given the intrinsically embedded nature of the region’s multiple media and mediated economies and the concerns over the manner in which religious, political and cultural unrest has been facilitated by new media and communication platforms. The ambit of platform capitalism in South Asia has a wide range of distinctive features that will be explored in this research symposium.
Platform Capitalism, Communication and Culture in South Asia will examine the ways in which the growing platformisation of not just communications and media but business and governmental operations is occurring in South Asia. The symposium will provide space for a number of researchers, including early career and established researchers, as well as HDR students, will present on different aspects of this emerging platform economy, including:
• Platformisation of Media Content
• Populism, Politics and Public Speech
• Platforms, Sociability and Social Economies
• Digital India and eGovernance
• Information Infrastructure and Logistics
• Platform Labour and Markets
• Algorithms and Business Processes
• Access and Inequalities in Digital Systems
• Platforms Economies and Smart Cities
• Digitalisation and Organizational Change
• Ownership and Market Power in the Digital Economy
• Retail, Marketing and Distribution in the Digital Era
Registration: Registration is free of charge for SASAA members and $35 for non-members. To be included in the workshop program, please submit an individual abstract of 250 words or a panel proposal of four to five abstracts by 18 February 2019 to s.fitzgerald@curtin.edu.au. Colleagues are very welcome to attend the workshop without presenting a paper. The program will be finalised and circulated in March 2019
Organising Committee:
Scott Fitzgerald (Curtin University)
Adrian Athique (University of Queensland)
Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia University)
Shishir Jha (IIT Bombay)
Events by adrian athique
Digital Transactions in Asia VI takes up this challenge by exploring the multi-faceted role of digital transactions in the evolution of contemporary Asian Internets, detailing the role of transaction platforms and design of transaction chains within platform ecosystems, as well as highlighting the informal transaction chains assembled by everyday users. In an evolving policy domain dominated by technocratic visions of sustainable development, we emphasise the social and cultural implications of the transaction orders emerging in Asia as a consequence of digitisation, along with the social shaping of digital transactions amongst businesses, workers, consumers and citizens in a culturally diverse region.
This conference forms part of a larger series of events undertaken across the Asian region since 2017. The core aim of the Digital Transactions in Asia programme is to provide an inter-disciplinary forum which allows researchers across the humanities, social sciences, technology and business fields to address the many different aspects of the digital transition across the region, with a primary focus on the implications for our communities and understanding the importance of both local contexts and international comparisons. Digital Transactions in Asia seeks to provide a rich forum for Inter-Asian academic networks and a platform for cutting edge research that details the experiences of the digital majority in the 21st century.
In the staging of Digital Transactions in Asia VI, we gratefully acknowledge our partnership with Universitas Brawijaya and the work of our UB colleagues in hosting this event in the beautiful city of Malang. We also thank the Australian Research Council and the University of Queensland for their continuing support of our collective work. Most of all, we would like to thank all of the delegates joining us in Malang for three days of stimulating discussion and debate. We welcome back valued colleagues from our previous events and look forward to meeting researchers who are joining us for the first time. We hope that you find the programme stimulating and generative for your current and future work, and that together we can work to ensure the best possible digital futures for the people of our region.
The capture of transactional processes within platform ecosystems actively converges social, economic, and cultural exchanges in novel ways. Transactional cultures are thus a fundamental building block in the transformation of Asian societies since, in adopting digital systems, localised communities adapt their transactional cultures in line with their own environments, means and norms.
For ordinary people, social media platforms offer new economic opportunities along with the monetisation of the personal and the everyday. In the public domain, Asian state systems are having to contend with explosions of popular expression, public debate and political mobilisation, even as these activities are highly contested and contestable. Asian markets are increasingly determined by flows of virtual capital, information commodities, consumers and labour. In this context, it is increasingly evident that the rise of a Digital Asia is accompanied by new aspirations and understandings of modernisation, participation and development.
This conference considers the instances and processes through which new sets of social, economic and political transactions are being established between citizens and states, markets and publics, cultures and commodities in a Digital Asia.
The conference, to be held from October 10-12, 2018 at the campus of De La Salle University in Manila, is co-hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland and the Department of Communication, De La Salle University in Manila.
The conference will include two full days of presentations for a public audience 10-11th October, followed by a research workshop for paper presenters on 12th October.
Given the inter- and trans-disciplinary nature of its theme, the conference is intended to be of interest to researchers from a diverse variety of backgrounds and disciplinary orientations in the Humanities and Social Sciences. We will also consider submissions of creative and technical works, along with professional contributions from industry and non-governmental organisations.
Submission Guidelines
We are currently inviting abstract submissions (500 words) addressing the following themes:
● Development and (In)equalities
● Currencies and Commodities
● Populism and Public Speech
● Mobilities and mobilisation
● Intimacies and Moral Economies
● Governance and Citizenship
● Mobile and Informal Economies
● Innovation and Disruption
A limited number of bursaries covering economy air travel and accommodation for the duration of the event are available on a competitive basis for paper presenters working at institutions within the ASEAN region. If you wish to be considered for a bursary, please indicate your interest and affiliation in your abstract submission. We will subsequently contact you regarding the bursary selection process that will occur in June 2018.
For all selected participants, a final paper of 6,000 words will be requested by 31 July 2018 for review in the SAGE journal Media International Australia and for inclusion in an edited volume with a major international publisher. For further enquiries and for the submission of abstracts, please contact the conference organising committee via digitaltransactions.asia@gmail.com
Key dates
* May 9, 2018: Deadline for the submission of abstracts
* May 28, 2018: Acceptance of abstracts/papers
* June 30, 2018: Results of travel grant application
* July 31, 2018: Final paper submission
* October 10-12, 2018: Conference and workshops
Organising committee
● Adrian Athique (University of Queensland)
● Cheryll Soriano (De La Salle University)
● Sun Sun Lim (Singapore University of Technology and Design)
● Emma Baulch (Queensland University of Technology / Monash U Malaysia)
● Jozon Lorenzana (Ateneo de Manila University)
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