Overview

The book explores the varying experiences and engagement of youth with smartphones and digital technologies in India and South Africa. It examines the process of meaning-making (identity construction) garnered through smartphone technology — specifically relating to notions of love, sex, and sexuality. A keen reappraisal of the smartphone revolution, the essays underline the constant negotiations between technology and social institutions such as, family, schools, colleges\universities, religious groups, traditional community leaders, media, police, law, and governments. The volume looks at new forms of digital-based surveillance on girls, women and gender minorities and maps the responses of state, civil society and women’s movements in tackling the divergent narratives of freedom versus control; empowerment versus violence. It specifically looks at how concepts of ‘privacy’, ‘agency’, ‘autonomy’ and ‘consent’ are being framed in the legal arena regarding young women, which may or may not be empowering of their agency and choices. Challenging notions about gender, technology and society, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of sociology and social anthropology, politics, gender studies, and Global South studies.

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9780367503932

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Author Information

Lakshmi Lingam was the Dean and Professor of the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, till February 2023, when she superannuated after working at the Institute for nearly 35 years. Currently, she is a Chair Professor with the School of Public Health at the D Y Patil University, Navi Mumbai, India. Lakshmi’s research interests lie in researching gender, employment, health, public policies, social movements, sexualities, social inequalities and digital citizenship. Nolwazi Mkhwanazi is a Professor of anthropology and Deputy Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Nolwazi’s research focuses on youth sexuality, sex education, and sexual health interventions. Her current project is called Reimagining Reproduction: Making Babies, Making Kin and Citizens in Africa.

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