Children’s Digital Experiences in Indian Slums

Kiran Vinod Bhatia is a digital anthropologist working at the intersection of marginalization and digital media. She is a Senior Researcher at FemLab and leads projects in the field of creator economy, user behaviors/interactions, digital cultures, social movements, and networked activism.

This well-argued and powerfully articulated work provides a provocative critique of the accepted notions of children's agency. The author offers rich insights based on immersive fieldwork through a nuanced treatment of the Jugaad culture that acts as a strategic and constitutive force in these children's quotidian negotiations. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in the global South or young people's digital cultures. Manisha Pathak-Shelat, Professor, Communication and Digital Media & Strategies, MICA and Co-Author of Gen Z, Digital Media, and Transcultural Lives. This book masterfully speaks about the majority of the world's youth living outside the West, who have fast become the biggest digital users and online creators. Digital anthropologist Bhatia impressively weaves a new imaginary of their online engagements that are both global and granular and serves as a counternarrative to legacy understandings of such demographics as utility-driven. This book is an essential read for those interested in building global policies and platforms that take into account the rest of the world., Payal Arora, Professor at Utrecht University and Author of 'Next Billion Users'.

• 1. Introduction, 2. Living in a Technological Utopia, 3. Fair is Lovely; Boys will be Boys: Notes on Gender, Class, and Technologies, 4. (Non)Negotiating Caste in Digital Encounters, 5. Digital Traces of Religious Identities: On Belongingness and Anxiety, 6. Inhabiting A Digital Dystopia? Index, About the Author.