South Asian Technospaces

This book provides perspectives on how South Asian often, more specifically, Indian diasporas inhabit techno-mediated environments through their economic and socio-cultural activities. The themes examined include religion, caste, language, and gender in online communities and call centers, and the roles of these factors in the global economy, Bollywood online and offline, digital music, websites for arranging marriages, and so on. The book attempts to map «South Asia» in relation to global technospaces produced through and as a consequence of economic globalization efforts.

Autorentext

The Editors: Radhika Gajjala is Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. She is the author of Cyber Selves: Feminist Ethnographies of South Asian Women (2004).
Venkataramana Gajjala is Associate Professor in the School of Business at Tiffin University, Ohio.

Klappentext

This book provides perspectives on how South Asian - often, more specifically, Indian - diasporas inhabit techno-mediated environments through their economic and socio-cultural activities. The themes examined include religion, caste, language, and gender in online communities and call centers, and the roles of these factors in the global economy, Bollywood online and offline, digital music, websites for arranging marriages, and so on. The book attempts to map «South Asia» in relation to global technospaces produced through and as a consequence of economic globalization efforts.

Zusammenfassung
"This collection provides an important contribution to the emerging field of cyberculture studies. By assembling essays that consider technology from a variety of angles, the editors reveal the blind spots of new media theories, postcolonial theory, and diaspora studies. The volume elucidates the remarkable woof and warp of labor, education, and communication strategies, using South Asia as place to complicate prevailing assumptions concerning globalized cyberspace and the advent of worldwide participation in digital technologies." (from the preface by Jillana Enteen, Northwestern University)

Inhalt
Contents: Radhika Gajjala/Venkataramana Gajjala: Introduction: South Asian Digital Networks and Global Technospaces Linda Leung: From «Victims of the Digital Divide» to «Techno-Elites»: Gender, Class, and Contested «Asianness» in Online and Offline Geographies Venkataramana Gajjala: The Role of U.S.-based Indian Diasporas in the Entrepreneurship and Globalization Processes in the IT Industry Radhika Gajjala: South Asian Technospaces and «Indian» Digital Diasporas? Nabeel Zuberi: Sampling South Asian Music Amit S. Rai: On Purple Pleasures: Digitally Assembling Bollywood P. Thirumal: Situating the New Media: Reformulating the Dalit Question Vinita Agarwal/Patrice M. Buzzanell: Spatial Narratives of the Local: Bringing the Basti Center Stage Archana Sharma: Caste on Indian Marriage dot-com: Presence and Absence Rohit Chopra: The Virtual State of the Nation: Online Hindu Nationalism in Global Capitalist Modernity Anustup Nayak/Natalia Rybas: The Hybrid Cultures of Cyborg Diasporas: Making Sense of the Expatriate Odias' Conversations Ananda Mitra: Working in Cybernetic Space: Diasporic Indian Call Center Workers in the Outsourced World Kiran Mirchandani: Practices of Global Capital: Gaps, Cracks, and Ironies in Transnational Call Centers in India Divya C. McMillin: «Around Sourcing»: Peripheral Centers in the Global Office Radhika Gajjala: Conclusion: Moving On, Re-mixing It Up: Web 2.0, Offline/Online Intersections, Globalization through NGOs, Machinima, Mash-ups....