Sociology, STS, Communication

Rajiv K. Mishra

I am an assistant professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar (NUQ) having a joint appointment with the communication and liberal arts programs, teaching courses on Introduction to Infrastructure Studies and Research Methods in Communication. I received my PhD in science, technology, and society studies (STS) from the Centre for Studies in Science Policy (CSSP), School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Having an interdisciplinary background in computer science, internet, sociology, science policy studies and STS, my research and teaching interest explores conceptual and methodological aspects of areas such as large technological systems and infrastructures; digital technologies and development; biometrics, databases, and governmentality; digital health and universal health coverage; digital state and welfare; frugality, tinkering, and alternative S&T (science & technology) spaces. More so, I have a keen interest in developing novel conceptual and methodological interventions to understand the dynamics between technology and society in Global South. To this end, I use innovative qualitative, ethnographic, and mixed methods approaches to understand everyday interaction of people/users with technology, technological systems, and infrastructures and the way they negotiate its challenges and uncertainties. In this direction, my focus on digital technologies and infrastructures are both analytic and methodological entry points for my critical engagement with the Global Qualitative Sociology Network. An engagement to critically reflect upon the Eurocentric/Western dominated epistemologies and methods of sociology as a discipline and technology as a tool for development in the context of existing historical, social, colonial, and postcolonial realities of Global South.