Manisha Pathak-Shelat
Biographic Data
| ID | 316725 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Manisha Pathak-Shelat |
| GIVEN NAMES | Manisha |
| FAMILY NAME | Pathak-Shelat |
| SIGNATURE | PATHAK-SHELAT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7586-7301 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Negotiating Digital Autonomy in Rural Kerala: Gendered Constraints and Everyday Resistance
This study examines how intersecting identities of gender, caste, class, and religion shape rural women’s smartphone usage and perceptions of privacy in Kerala, India. Despite Kerala’s high literacy rates and progressive gender policies, entrenched patriarchal norms continue to regulate women’s digital autonomy. Based on qualitative fieldwork including interviews, and focus group discussions, the research highlights gendered disparities in smartp…
Nurturing roots; growing wings: Strategies for negotiating transcultural solidarities and resilience through digital activism
The paper examines the experiences of Gen Z digital activists from India, Sudan, and other countries of the Global South in navigating transcultural solidarity and interplay between global and local movements. Aligning with the Cultural Discourse Studies approach and drawing from a six-year-long ethnography in five cities of India with 68 Gen Z digital media users in the age group of 15–24, along with ethnographic research in Sudan and analysis o…
Men in Beauty Work and Feminization of Digital Labor Platforms
Extant research on the gendered dynamics on digital labor platforms and care work is divided in terms of focus: (migrant) men involved in supposedly 'masculine' work such as driving and delivery, and home-based repair work, and the feminized invisible work performed by women in home-based care-work such as domestic work and beauty work. While such scholarship has merit, it completely dismisses the particularities of the South Asian context where …
Participatory conflict as an intrinsic dimension of participatory communication: An ethnographic study of women self-help groups from Uttarakhand, India
Global influencers’ content creation strategies: Negotiating with platform affordances to practice vernacular creativity
We examine how globally oriented-influencers from India utilize specific strategies of content creation to negotiate with the dominant logic of platform affordances to engage with global audiences. It involves individual negotiations by the influencers with the platform affordances in creating content that foregrounds their cultural realities and aspirations while remaining relevant to global audiences. We do so by deploying the critical technocu…
Reconceptualizing ICTD: Prioritizing Place-Based Learning Experiences, Socio-Economic Realities, and Individual Aspirations of Young Students in India
This paper critically examines the neo-liberal conceptualization of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD), which imposes the linear and simplistic notions of empowerment and development on the users from the global South. Using the rapidly growing EdTech segment in India as a case, this paper observes that EdTech has been touted as a magic multiplier and a savior for countries like India that aspire to educate their larg…
Impact of social media on artistic ecosystems: An overview of DIY music cultures in India
This article offers an overview of the Indian DIY (do-it-yourself) music ecosystem in relation to current broad debates on DIY scenes, their connections to mainstream cultural industries, platform capitalism, and national policies. This article specifically focuses on the impact of social media on India's artistic ecosystem as social media have been one of the most recent influencing socio-technological factors that have changed the dynamics of I…
Gen Z, Digital Media, and Transcultural Lives: At Home in the World
Most books on young people in the global South focus on how Gen Z consumes content and are thus receivers of global cultural flows. Gen Z, Digital Media, and Transcultural Lives: At Home in the World offers narrative exploration of how Gen Z in the global South uses digital media and technologies to not only engage with global cultural content, but also create content for employment, leisure, advocacy, and awareness. This book offers a new perspe…
Reimagining Religiously Segregated Spaces: Building Interfaith Sites Through Participatory Photography
This article discusses the findings of a participatory photography project that was conceptualized to help Hindu and Muslim students reimagine the religiously marked public spaces they inhabit in their villages. This study is a part of a 2-year long ethnographic project undertaken by the researchers to codesign, with 180 students, critical media literacy curriculum to counter religious discrimination among adolescents in three villages of the San…
Challenging Discriminatory Practices of Religious Socialization among Adolescents: Critical Media Literacy and Pedagogies in Practice
Media experiences in community-driven rural areas: Exploring children’s media cultures in rural Gujarat, India
In this paper, we examine how social structures of gender, caste, and religion, within which children in India operate, inform their engagements with media technologies/narratives. We demonstrate our approach using the case of three villages in the Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, India. We examine children’s media cultures using ethnographic methods which occasion long-term immersion and paying attention to children’s narratives. We also argue tha…
Using Applied Theater Practices in Classrooms to Challenge Religious Discrimination Among Students
The authors illustrate how applied theater practices were used in media literacy classes to educate students about acts of religious discrimination in their societies. These practices helped students acknowledge their role in reifying or dismantling these prejudices in and through their classroom interactions with their peers from other religions (in academic discourse, the religious other). The analysis demonstrates how students created and perf…
Young people as global citizens: Negotiation of youth civic participation in adult-managed online spaces
With the proliferation of new media technologies, online spaces for civic engagement are being used as new sites by the young people for enacting global citizenship. Some of these online civic spaces are managed by parent organizations and guide the participants towards accomplishing goals that align with the institutional policies. We use Stuart Hall’s theoretical framework to ground the two methods we used for empirical research- textual analys…
A Polycentric Approach to Comparative Research: Reflections on an International Youth Media Participation Study
Eurocentrism in comparative research on youth media has been a major constraint in arriving at a truly global understanding of the social phenomena under study. In this commentary, we suggest several possibilities for diverse and culturally sensitive research practices. Reflecting on our five-country research on youth media participation we show how certain epistemological and methodological choices contribute toward a polycentric approach, albei…
Rethinking Youth Media Cultures in the Global and Digital World
Two recently released works on youth and their media cultures address how globalization and digital media have impacted youth cultures around the world. Interestingly, both products are the result
Digital youth cultures in small town and rural Gujarat, India
This paper examines youth digital cultures in rural/small town Gujarat, India and brings forth a perspective from the Global South in understanding the net generation. We examine how the location and dominant discourses intersect with digital technologies and re-configure aspects of daily lives, such as study, leisure, and friendship; how youth negotiate their interactions with digital media as one aspect of their larger lifeworlds; and how these…
Young People’s Interaction with Media in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya
In contemporary information society, finding, evaluating and using information is a key survival skill. Conventional and new media such as libraries, archives, mass media and the Internet serve an important function in society as the sources of information. This chapter will focus on findings from research that was carried out in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya. Based on empirical research, it gives an overview of how young people toda…
Digital youth cultures in small town and rural Gujarat, India
This paper examines youth digital cultures in rural/small town Gujarat, India and brings forth a perspective from the Global South in understanding the net generation. We examine how the location and dominant discourses intersect with digital technologies and re-configure aspects of daily lives, such as study, leisure, and friendship; how youth negotiate their interactions with digital media as one aspect of their larger lifeworlds; and how these…
Global influencers’ content creation strategies: Negotiating with platform affordances to practice vernacular creativity
We examine how globally oriented-influencers from India utilize specific strategies of content creation to negotiate with the dominant logic of platform affordances to engage with global audiences. It involves individual negotiations by the influencers with the platform affordances in creating content that foregrounds their cultural realities and aspirations while remaining relevant to global audiences. We do so by deploying the critical technocu…
Young people as global citizens: Negotiation of youth civic participation in adult-managed online spaces
With the proliferation of new media technologies, online spaces for civic engagement are being used as new sites by the young people for enacting global citizenship. Some of these online civic spaces are managed by parent organizations and guide the participants towards accomplishing goals that align with the institutional policies. We use Stuart Hall’s theoretical framework to ground the two methods we used for empirical research- textual analys…
Men in Beauty Work and Feminization of Digital Labor Platforms
Extant research on the gendered dynamics on digital labor platforms and care work is divided in terms of focus: (migrant) men involved in supposedly 'masculine' work such as driving and delivery, and home-based repair work, and the feminized invisible work performed by women in home-based care-work such as domestic work and beauty work. While such scholarship has merit, it completely dismisses the particularities of the South Asian context where …
Reconceptualizing ICTD: Prioritizing Place-Based Learning Experiences, Socio-Economic Realities, and Individual Aspirations of Young Students in India
This paper critically examines the neo-liberal conceptualization of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD), which imposes the linear and simplistic notions of empowerment and development on the users from the global South. Using the rapidly growing EdTech segment in India as a case, this paper observes that EdTech has been touted as a magic multiplier and a savior for countries like India that aspire to educate their larg…
Reimagining Religiously Segregated Spaces: Building Interfaith Sites Through Participatory Photography
This article discusses the findings of a participatory photography project that was conceptualized to help Hindu and Muslim students reimagine the religiously marked public spaces they inhabit in their villages. This study is a part of a 2-year long ethnographic project undertaken by the researchers to codesign, with 180 students, critical media literacy curriculum to counter religious discrimination among adolescents in three villages of the San…
Young People’s Interaction with Media in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya
In contemporary information society, finding, evaluating and using information is a key survival skill. Conventional and new media such as libraries, archives, mass media and the Internet serve an important function in society as the sources of information. This chapter will focus on findings from research that was carried out in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya. Based on empirical research, it gives an overview of how young people toda…
Young People’s Interaction with Media in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya
In contemporary information society, finding, evaluating and using information is a key survival skill. Conventional and new media such as libraries, archives, mass media and the Internet serve an important function in society as the sources of information. This chapter will focus on findings from research that was carried out in Egypt, India, Finland, Argentina and Kenya. Based on empirical research, it gives an overview of how young people toda…
Digital youth cultures in small town and rural Gujarat, India
This paper examines youth digital cultures in rural/small town Gujarat, India and brings forth a perspective from the Global South in understanding the net generation. We examine how the location and dominant discourses intersect with digital technologies and re-configure aspects of daily lives, such as study, leisure, and friendship; how youth negotiate their interactions with digital media as one aspect of their larger lifeworlds; and how these…
A Polycentric Approach to Comparative Research: Reflections on an International Youth Media Participation Study
Eurocentrism in comparative research on youth media has been a major constraint in arriving at a truly global understanding of the social phenomena under study. In this commentary, we suggest several possibilities for diverse and culturally sensitive research practices. Reflecting on our five-country research on youth media participation we show how certain epistemological and methodological choices contribute toward a polycentric approach, albei…
Rethinking Youth Media Cultures in the Global and Digital World
Two recently released works on youth and their media cultures address how globalization and digital media have impacted youth cultures around the world. Interestingly, both products are the result
Young people as global citizens: Negotiation of youth civic participation in adult-managed online spaces
With the proliferation of new media technologies, online spaces for civic engagement are being used as new sites by the young people for enacting global citizenship. Some of these online civic spaces are managed by parent organizations and guide the participants towards accomplishing goals that align with the institutional policies. We use Stuart Hall’s theoretical framework to ground the two methods we used for empirical research- textual analys…
Challenging Discriminatory Practices of Religious Socialization among Adolescents: Critical Media Literacy and Pedagogies in Practice
Media experiences in community-driven rural areas: Exploring children’s media cultures in rural Gujarat, India
In this paper, we examine how social structures of gender, caste, and religion, within which children in India operate, inform their engagements with media technologies/narratives. We demonstrate our approach using the case of three villages in the Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, India. We examine children’s media cultures using ethnographic methods which occasion long-term immersion and paying attention to children’s narratives. We also argue tha…
Using Applied Theater Practices in Classrooms to Challenge Religious Discrimination Among Students
The authors illustrate how applied theater practices were used in media literacy classes to educate students about acts of religious discrimination in their societies. These practices helped students acknowledge their role in reifying or dismantling these prejudices in and through their classroom interactions with their peers from other religions (in academic discourse, the religious other). The analysis demonstrates how students created and perf…
Reimagining Religiously Segregated Spaces: Building Interfaith Sites Through Participatory Photography
This article discusses the findings of a participatory photography project that was conceptualized to help Hindu and Muslim students reimagine the religiously marked public spaces they inhabit in their villages. This study is a part of a 2-year long ethnographic project undertaken by the researchers to codesign, with 180 students, critical media literacy curriculum to counter religious discrimination among adolescents in three villages of the San…
Impact of social media on artistic ecosystems: An overview of DIY music cultures in India
This article offers an overview of the Indian DIY (do-it-yourself) music ecosystem in relation to current broad debates on DIY scenes, their connections to mainstream cultural industries, platform capitalism, and national policies. This article specifically focuses on the impact of social media on India's artistic ecosystem as social media have been one of the most recent influencing socio-technological factors that have changed the dynamics of I…
Gen Z, Digital Media, and Transcultural Lives: At Home in the World
Most books on young people in the global South focus on how Gen Z consumes content and are thus receivers of global cultural flows. Gen Z, Digital Media, and Transcultural Lives: At Home in the World offers narrative exploration of how Gen Z in the global South uses digital media and technologies to not only engage with global cultural content, but also create content for employment, leisure, advocacy, and awareness. This book offers a new perspe…
Participatory conflict as an intrinsic dimension of participatory communication: An ethnographic study of women self-help groups from Uttarakhand, India
Global influencers’ content creation strategies: Negotiating with platform affordances to practice vernacular creativity
We examine how globally oriented-influencers from India utilize specific strategies of content creation to negotiate with the dominant logic of platform affordances to engage with global audiences. It involves individual negotiations by the influencers with the platform affordances in creating content that foregrounds their cultural realities and aspirations while remaining relevant to global audiences. We do so by deploying the critical technocu…
Reconceptualizing ICTD: Prioritizing Place-Based Learning Experiences, Socio-Economic Realities, and Individual Aspirations of Young Students in India
This paper critically examines the neo-liberal conceptualization of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD), which imposes the linear and simplistic notions of empowerment and development on the users from the global South. Using the rapidly growing EdTech segment in India as a case, this paper observes that EdTech has been touted as a magic multiplier and a savior for countries like India that aspire to educate their larg…
Men in Beauty Work and Feminization of Digital Labor Platforms
Extant research on the gendered dynamics on digital labor platforms and care work is divided in terms of focus: (migrant) men involved in supposedly 'masculine' work such as driving and delivery, and home-based repair work, and the feminized invisible work performed by women in home-based care-work such as domestic work and beauty work. While such scholarship has merit, it completely dismisses the particularities of the South Asian context where …
Negotiating Digital Autonomy in Rural Kerala: Gendered Constraints and Everyday Resistance
This study examines how intersecting identities of gender, caste, class, and religion shape rural women’s smartphone usage and perceptions of privacy in Kerala, India. Despite Kerala’s high literacy rates and progressive gender policies, entrenched patriarchal norms continue to regulate women’s digital autonomy. Based on qualitative fieldwork including interviews, and focus group discussions, the research highlights gendered disparities in smartp…
Nurturing roots; growing wings: Strategies for negotiating transcultural solidarities and resilience through digital activism
The paper examines the experiences of Gen Z digital activists from India, Sudan, and other countries of the Global South in navigating transcultural solidarity and interplay between global and local movements. Aligning with the Cultural Discourse Studies approach and drawing from a six-year-long ethnography in five cities of India with 68 Gen Z digital media users in the age group of 15–24, along with ethnographic research in Sudan and analysis o…
Sociology (14 works) · Political science (12 works) · Art (6 works) · Negotiation (6 works) · Ethnography (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · ICT in Developing Communities (5 works) · Media studies (5 works) · Social media (5 works) · Social Media and Politics (5 works)