Anant Kamath
I am a social scientist, with my training throughout in economics but my interests and writing spanning well outside of the discipline, into economic-sociology, technological change, and the political economy of development. Prior to NIAS, I was with the School of Development at Azim Premji University, Bangalore, for six years. My doctoral work was at the United Nations University / MERIT (The Netherlands), before which I have studied at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS, Trivandrum), Madras School of Economics (Chennai) and St. Joseph's College (Bangalore). I am also involved in the western classical music scene in Bangalore, as principal violinist of the Bangalore School of Music Chamber Orchestra.
Research Interests:
My interests lie in technological studies, within which my focus has been around the economic-sociology of technological outcomes, with conceptual foundations in social constructivist and feminist-historical perspectives on technology. Hence, concerns on social capital and spatiality, inequality, urban transition, social mobility, gender, and caste, have undergrid all my research thus far. Methodologically, I have experimented on and employed a variety of methods such as network analysis, archival work, oral histories, social construction of technology, focus group discussions, interviews, surveys, and quantitative methods. As a result, the broader political-economy dynamics have always framed the analytical and conceptual setting in every one of my research studies.
I have published in various international journals on technology and society. My latest book The Social Context of Technological Experiences released in 2020 under Routledge, while I also brought out a book in 2015 also under Routledge titled Industrial Innovation, Networks, and Economic Development. My third volume (co-authored) is on neoliberal urban transition and digital experiences among street-based sex workers in Bangalore city, which is under review with Cambridge University Press.