Nishant Nikunj Shah

Curriculum

Dr. Nis­hant Shah is the co-foun­der and Di­rec­tor-Re­se­arch at the Centre for Internet and Society, Ban­ga­lo­re, In­dia. He is an In­ter­na­tio­nal Tan­dem Part­ner at the Cent­re for Di­gi­tal Cul­tu­res, Leu­pha­na Uni­ver­si­ty, Ger­ma­ny and a Know­ledge Part­ner with the Hivos Knowledge Programme, The Nether­lands. In the­se va­ried ro­les, he has been com­mit­ted to pro­du­cing in­fra­struc­tu­re, frame­works and col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons in the glo­bal south to un­der­stand and ana­ly­se the ways in which emer­gence and growth of di­gi­tal tech­no­lo­gies have shaped the con­tem­pora­ry so­ci­al, po­li­ti­cal and cul­tu­ral mi­lieu. He is the edi­tor for a se­ries of mo­no­graphs on ‘Histories of Internet(s) in India’ that looks at the com­pli­ca­ted re­la­ti­ons­hip that tech­no­lo­gies have with ques­ti­ons of gen­der, se­xua­li­ty, body, city, go­ver­nan­ce, ar­chi­ving and ga­ming in a coun­try like In­dia. He is also the prin­ciple re­se­ar­cher for a re­se­arch pro­gram­me that pro­du­ced the four-vo­lu­me an­tho­lo­gy ‘Digital AlterNatives With a Cause?’ that ex­ami­nes the ways in which young peop­le’s re­la­ti­ons­hip with di­gi­tal tech­no­lo­gies pro­du­ces chan­ges in their im­me­dia­te en­vi­ron­ments.

His Ph.D. the­sis tit­led ‘The Technosocial Subject: Cities, Cyborgs and Cyberspace’ builds a frame­work to ex­ami­ne the tech­no­so­ci­al iden­ti­ties that are pro­du­ced at the in­ter­sec­tion of law, di­gi­tal tech­no­lo­gies and ever­y­day cul­tu­ral prac­tices in emer­ging in­for­ma­ti­on so­cie­ties like In­dia. Nis­hant was an Asia Research fellow loo­king at the cost and in­fra­struc­tu­re of buil­ding IT Ci­ties like Shang­hai. He is the aut­hor of a re­cent thought-pie­ce tit­led ‘Whose Change is it Anyway? – Towards a future of digital technologies and citizen action in emerging information societies’ that seeks to re­vi­sit the de­ba­tes around di­gi­tal ac­tivism and chan­ge in the glo­bal con­text. His cur­rent in­te­rests are in critically intervening in de­ba­tes around Digital Humanities and con­di­ti­ons of chan­ge me­dia­ted by tech­no­lo­gies.

Nis­hant is on the stee­ring com­mit­tee of the Ma­cAr­thur Foun­da­ti­on’s Digital Media and Learning Pro­ject (USA) as well as on the Media Art Histories collec­tive (Lat­via). He has been de­eply in­vol­ved with the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Consortium (Tai­wan/​S. Ko­rea/​Hong Kong) and is one of the key part­ners of the glo­bal Network of Centres for Internet and Society hou­sed at the Berk­man Cent­re for In­ter­net & So­cie­ty, USA. His work is com­mit­ted to en­cou­ra­ging mul­ti-sta­ke­hol­der dia­lo­gue and hence he re­gu­lar­ly does pu­blic con­sul­ta­ti­ons and trai­nings for ci­vil so­cie­ty and NGOs, go­vern­ments, aca­de­mic part­ners and pri­va­te cor­po­ra­te en­t­i­ties. He is a re­gu­lar spea­ker at events like Re:publica and Video Vortex. He is a re­gu­lar co­lum­nist with In­dia’s lea­ding Eng­lish lan­gua­ge news­pa­per The Indian Express. His academic and research publications re­flect his po­li­ti­cal stan­ce on open ac­cess and open know­ledge in­fra­struc­tu­re and are all avail­able for free down­load and dis­tri­bu­ti­on un­der open li­cen­se.