Presenter
N Ambujam Meenakshi - Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Oxford, United KingdomPanel
77 – Digitalisation of Welfare in South AsiaAbstract
What impact does digitalisation have on how land rights & records are captured and managed? Focussing on India’s efforts to incorporate advanced digital technologies to render land rights& records legible and transparent, this presentation examines the material practices of bureaucrats and tech consultants in the production of land information management systems. Heralded as technocratic solutions that would enhance efficiency and transparency by limiting ‘human interventions’ with algorithmic processes, digitalisation promises to produce error-free records, resolve land disputes, map every inch of land and enhance monetisation. Digitalisation, however, has transformed the nature of bureaucratic labour involved in the production of land data— i.e. altering inscription practices of government functionaries and their roles as custodians of records— and inducted third-party actors like e-governance and tech consultancies offering services such as surveying systems, remote sensing, & data processing. Based on preliminary fieldwork, and the analysis of policy reports & grey literature, this paper examines how digitalisation has reconfigured land bureaucracy, the interpretative work involved in the production of ‘accurate’ data, and how bureaucrats and consultancies interact. Ultimately, it probes how digitalisation of land governance reshapes bureaucracies and the perception of ‘legibility’, ‘efficiency’ & ‘transparency’ they aim to project.
