Debjani Chakraborty
355 posts
@desiphdstory
PhD candidate, India | Communication Research| Rural India | Ethnographer| Rural Roots| Former Print Journalist (TT,TOI,MI)| Dev Comm Specialist| I write
#OutNow in #iCS Drawing on 34 interviews with low-income Latina/o/x adults in the U.S., this article shows how struggles with digital access are shaped not only by individual resources but also by household, community and institutional factors. doi.org/10.1080/136911…
You can never take an Indian out of an Indian. This is from a metro station in Kolkata.
I had the honor of presenting my research on U.S. low-income adults' barriers and strategies related to maintaining the quality of their digital devices at the #CommHorizons Conference at UC Davis! 🧵
Today, I had gone to the ATM. After withdrawing my money, an elderly lady in a BBMP sweeper's uniform, gave me her card and requested me to withdraw 10,000 rupees from her account. I was initially hesitant, but then I realised she was genuine, and truly helpless. So I agreed The PIN was scribbled in that paper case that ATM cards come in and illegible. I even made one wrong entry. On the second attempt, it worked (one digit was ambiguously written). We often tend to take our privilege for granted. For me, it is trivial to walk into an ATM and withdraw cash. For someone like this however, it was to put her entire savings account at the hands of a complete stranger. Yet, she had no other choice. Now think of the hundreds and thousands of people running into an invisible barrier with every new tech and app taking away their old ways of working. Digitalization is not a boon for everyone.
