Originally published in 4S Backchannels on 17th September 2021. By: Ranjit Singh and Rigoberto Lara Guzmán The possibilities of leveraging Big Data and AI-based interventions are often poised to flow as innovations that emerge from the Global North to the rest of the world. Such flows tend to position the Global North as the active center […]
Resolution
Originally published on A New AI Lexicon on 18th August 2021. \ ˌre-zə-ˈlü-shən \ Definition: the act or process of resolving: such as the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones the act of determining the process or capability of making distinguishable the individual parts of an object, closely adjacent optical images, or sources of […]
Imbrication
Originally published on A New AI Lexicon on 13th July 2021. \ ˌim-brə-ˈkā-shən \ Definition: an overlapping of edges (as of tiles or scales) The tribal areas of Rajasthan [a state in the west of India] are very hilly. How would you get network [internet] there? Let me give you an example. The Fair Price Shop is […]
Mapping AI in/from the Global South
Originally published on Data & Society: Points on 26th January 2021. The possibilities of leveraging Big Data and AI-based interventions are often poised to flow as innovations emerging from the Global North to the rest of the world. Such flows tend to position the Global North as the active center and the Global South as […]
Orphaning
Paper Title: “The Living Dead”: Orphaning in Aadhaar-enabled Distribution of Welfare Pensions in RajasthanAuthors: Ranjit SinghJournal: PUBLIC Journal: Art Culture IdeasVolume: 30Issue: 60Pages: 92-104Year: 2020 Abstract: This paper follows the mutual shaping of the lives of citizens and their data records to illustrate how precarious forms of citizenship emerge in the use of biometrics-based data infrastructures for governance. It presents a case […]
Histories of Infrastructuring
Author: Ranjit SinghWorkshop: Fostering Historical Research in CSCW & HCI Venue: The 22nd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Date: 10 November 2019 Abstract: This paper outlines the evolution of my work to narrate the history of Aadhaar, India’s biometrics-based national identification infrastructure, in one of my dissertation chapters. I describe how and why this […]
Managing Aadhaar’s Scale
Paper Title: Give Me a Database and I Will Raise the Nation-StateAuthors: Ranjit SinghJournal: South Asia: Journal of South Asian StudiesVolume: 42Issue: 3Pages: 501-518 Year: 2019 Abstract: This paper draws on an ethnographic study of Aadhaar, India’s biometrics-based national identification infrastructure, to investigate how members of its design team conceptualised and understood their techno-bureaucratic enterprise of assigning unique numbers to Indian […]