Call for Papers
This is a request for contributing papers for a proposed edited volume tentatively titled
Political Economy of New Technology in India: Concerns and Potentials. A brief note on the concerns of the volume has been provided as follows:
The complex and dynamic configurations in relations between technology, state and capital, especially as these have emerged in developing economies under the aegis of neoliberalism, have continued to engage the attention of scholars and policy makers. While capital accumulation through expropriation of resources – material and human knowledge – has been achieved through subordinating technological progress, unprecedented forms of challenges have digressed the foci of discourse away from mere wealth and income inequalities. New questions of 'surplus populations' and ecological sustainability have compounded the relationships now; the global rethink on industrial policy positioning SDG concerns centrestage is an important pointer towards the changing emphases on technology and society. Scholars suggest that 'living labour' is increasingly becoming redundant to capital accumulation while the climate implications of technologies call into question the ability to sustain development without jeopardizing the ecological basis of accumulation or ensuring bio-diversity. Further, rapid and far-reaching developments in communication and digital technologies - new and/or disruptive technologies as these are often termed - while creating new opportunities for work and income also pose considerable regulatory challenges for the worlds of commodity and capital flows. Rapid technological shifts also have brought to the fore the issue of capability formation at the national level that can ensure the ability of institutions to adapt to such shifts and sustain innovation. In the wake of these developments, from an Indian perspective, we seek papers in the following suggestive domains:
- New technology and global capital in India
- Technological changes and jobs
- Science, technology and innovation policies
- Sectoral/sub-sectoral studies of new technology industries
- New digitalization and the rural
- Industrial policy and the sustainability question
- Energy policy and sustainability
- Technology and control of agriculture/forestry/fishing by big capital
- New technology and the social divide
- Digitalization and capital flows
The above is not a closed list of areas on which we are expecting papers. We would be delighted if you could please agree to contribute a short paper of about 4000-5000 words. We may hold an authors' web-meet once draft papers are ready. We hope to bring the volume out through a globally established academic publisher.
Last date for receiving an abstract (of about 250 words) is
May 9, 2021.
