Dot Com Mantra: Social Computing in the Central Himalayas

by Payal Arora

Billions of dollars are being spent nationally and globally on providing computing access to digitally disadvantaged groups and cultures with an expectation that computers and the Internet can lead to higher socio-economic mobility. This ethnographic study of social computing in the Central Himalayas, India, investigates alternative social practices with new technologies and media amongst a population that is for the most part undocumented. In doing so, this book offers fresh and critical perspectives in areas of contemporary debate: informal learning with computers, cyberleisure, gender access and empowerment, digital intermediaries, and glocalization of information and media.

206 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Payal Arora is the author of the award-winning Leisure Commons: A Spatial History of Web 2.0 and Dot Com Mantra: Social Computing in the Central Himalayas and is Associate Professor in the School of History, Culture, and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She has research and consulting experience in both the private and public sectors, including with Kellogg, the World Bank, Christie’s, Shell, hp, GE, the Ministry of Education in Jordan, Siemens, and UNESCO.