The Information System Seminar Series features, Åshild Kolås, a social anthropologist and Research Professor at PRIO
Time: –
Abstract
How is e-governance and the Internet of Things (IoT) changing the everyday lives of the people of India and China, and how are these multifaceted changes affecting international relations?
'e-Topia', refers to the place of the digital in visions of the future. Despite their differences, India and China both have “e-Topian” ambitions of harnessing “smart” solutions to revolutionize governance, services and a range of industries, while digitalization drives economic growth. Travel between India and China is on the rise, although their high-altitude border remains unresolved.
As the Asian contribution to the “smart technology” market continues to grow, the relationship between India and China is increasingly dependent on the compatibility of their digitalization efforts. China's Belt and Road initiative seeks to open up new transportation routes between China and South Asia, which requires new thinking about the use of electronic passports. As China and India expand the use of biometric data registration and Unique IDs in their digitalization schemes, biometric borders are where the “e-Topian” futures of India and China will meet.
Åshild Kolås is a social anthropologist and Research Professor at PRIO. She was the head of PRIOs Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Program from 2005 to 2011. Her core research interests are ethnicity, identity politics and peacebuilding. She has conducted long-term fieldwork in multi-ethnic communities in India and China, and has written on Tibet, Nepal, Inner Mongolia and Northeast India with a focus on governance and governmentality, identity politics, discourse and representation. Among her latest books are Women, Peace and Security in Myanmar: Between Feminism and Ethnopolitics (Routledge, 2019) and Sovereignty Revisited: The Basque Case (Routledge, 2017, co-edited with Pedro Ibarra Güell). She is also the author of Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition. A Place Called Shangrila (Routledge, 2008) and On the Margins of Tibet: Cultural Survival on the Sino-Tibetan Frontier (University of Washington Press, 2005; 2015, with Monika P. Thowsen). From 2006 to 2018, she coordinated an institutional cooperation between PRIO and the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyzes (IDSA) in New Delhi. She currently leads the project e-Topia: China, India and Biometric Borders, funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN). She is also a member of the editorial board of the European Bulletin of Himalayan Research (EBHR) and Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. India and Biometric Borders, funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN). She is also a member of the editorial board of the European Bulletin of Himalayan Research (EBHR) and Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. India and Biometric Borders, funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN). She is also a member of the editorial board of the European Bulletin of Himalayan Research (EBHR) and Alternatives: Global, Local, Political.
