Short Bio

I received my PhD from the University of Mumbai and M.Phil from the Delhi School of Economics. My doctoral thesis analyzed a variety of print propaganda in Tamil politics as instantiation of broader regional political culture. Before joining MSR India, in 2005, I lectured for several years at colleges in Delhi and Mumbai and have been part of the editorial team for the journal Economic and Political Weekly. 

At MSR, my primary interests are the adoption and dissemination of information and communication technologies in emerging market spaces

• Small businesses offering shared access internet, PC and mobile phone services: cyber cafés, computer training institutes, PC assembling and trouble shooting units, mobile phone hardware and software repairing units, networking and software servicing
• Domestic usages and sharing of media, communication and information technologies: PCs, mobile phones and television

I conduct research in two contexts;

• The urban middle-class home were technology is shared as a way to pool resources and disseminate skill and usage
• The urban slum community were technology dissemination and appropriation are organic, intensely dynamic and a mix of formal and non-formal socio-economic relations

Publications

Journals and Book Chapters

Sambasivan N, Rangaswamy N, Toyama K, Nardi B, Encountering Development Ethnographically, forthcoming, ACM Interactions, November/December 2009

Rangaswamy, N (2009) The non-formal business of cyber cafes: a case-study from India, Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 7, (2/3)

Rangaswamy, N (2008) Telecentres and Cyber cafes: The case for ICTs in small business, Asian Journal of Communication, 18(4) pp 365-378

Donner, Jonathan. Rangaswamy, N., Steenson, M. W., & Wei, C. (2008). "Express yourself" / "Stay together": Tensions surrounding mobile communication in the middle-class Indian family. In J. Katz (Ed.), Handbook of mobile communication studies (pp 325- 337) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Rangaswamy, N, (2003). Disruptive IT in Sought India in Shaping Technologies: SARAI reader 03, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

Conference Papers

Rangaswamy N, Nair, S, The Mobile Phone Store Ecology in a Mumbai Slum Community: Hybrid Networks for Enterprise, AiOR09Mobile Phones and the Developing World Pre-Conference Workshop, Milwaukee, October 2009

Sambasivan N, Rangaswamy N, Cutrell E, Nardi B, Ubicomp4D: Infrastructure and Interaction for International Development—the Case of Urban Indian Slums, 11^th International conference on Ubiquitous Computing, Orlando, September 2009

Rangaswamy, N (2009) Keywords in Communication: Mesh-economy and business channels in an Indian urban slum, ICA 2009, pre-conference on India and Communication Studies, May 21 2009, Chicago

Rangaswamy, N (2009) ICT for Mesh-economy: Case study of an urban slum, IFIP 2009, May 26-28, Dubai

Rangaswamy, N (2009) Personalizing the shared mobile phone, panel paper on Mobile Money: Design for Inclusion, Internationalization, Design and Global development, HCII 2009, 19-24 July San Diego

Rangaswamy, N. Toyama, K (2009) Computing for Sustainable Socio-Economic Development, Panel on Internationalization, Design and Global development, HCII 2009, 19-24 July San Diego

Rangaswamy, N (2008) The rise of ICT for commerce in small product offerings: case studies from India, ACIS, Christchurch, December 2008

Rangaswamy, N (2008) My TV is the family oven/toaster/grill: Personalizing TV for the Indian audience, UXTV, San Francisco

Rangaswamy, N (2008) There is no entertainment without TV: Changing TV environments in India, EUROITV 2008, Salzburg,

Rangaswamy, N (2008) Telecentres and Cyber cafes: A case for ICT in small business", 58th Annual International Conference of the International Communication Association, Montreal

Rangaswamy, N (2007), "Representing the non-formal: The Business of Internet Cafes in India", International Conference on Ethnographic Praxis in Industry

Rangaswamy, N (2007, August 23) " Paying for ICT's: Allocating for a Changing Communication Repertoire in Middle Class Indian Homes", Paper presented at the panel on living and livelihoods at HOIT2007: Home/community oriented ICT for the next billion, IIT Madras, Chennai, India. Presentation

Rangaswamy, N, (2007) ICT for development and commerce: A case study of internet cafés in India, 9^th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 2007

Rangaswamy, N, (2006) Social Entrepreneurship as Critical Agency: A study of Rural Internet kiosks, Proceedings of the International Conference on ICT and Development. 143-152, Berkeley University Press, Berkeley, CA

Rangaswamy, N (2006) 'Global Events Local Impacts': India's Rural Emerging Markets, Proceedings of the International Conference on Ethnographic Praxis in Industry pp 198-213, Portland, USA

Rangaswamy, N. (2005) Consumption Patterns of the Urban Indian Middle Class. International Conference on Ethnographic Praxis in industry,November 2005, Seattle, USA

Rangaswamy, N (2005) Sociology of ICT: Rural Internet Kiosk as Shared Space, HCII 2005, Las Vegas, USA

Bio

Projects

Publications