Richa Kumar is interested in how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are being used to promote socioeconomic development in rural areas of countries like India. She is conducting fieldwork in villages in India to understand the complex relationships between technology, entrepreneurship and social change. Through the study of the history of technology and entrepreneurship, she wants to place her anthropological work in the postcolonial historical context of India. The lenses of caste, class and gender will be a useful tool for her to study the interaction between technology and local power relations as well as understanding technological agency in bringing about social change.
Richa is conducting fieldwork in central India on rural development, agriculture, and information and communication technologies (ICTs). She has studied anthropology of development, history of American agriculture, history and politics of colonial and modern India, and ICTs and development as her generals fields. She has studied several "ICT for development" projects in north, central, and south India including TARAhaat, Drishtee, ITC eChoupals, and n-Logue (IIT Madras). She is currently affiliated with the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore.
information technology and rural development; neoliberalism and agriculture; history of modern India
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