#IAS_NUQ Global Postdoctoral Scholar Colloquium
Northwestern University in Qatar
Education City, Qatar +974 4454 5100
Get directions
Nepal announced the national digital identification system in 2009 with financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). IDEMIA – a multinational IT company headquartered in France – played a major in the development of the identification infrastructure. This presentation explores the political economy of Nepal’s identification system to understand the roles of these foreign actors. I will propose a new concept, Digital ID Dependency, to account for how environments related to the global economy and technological development evolved in contexts of international development actors and information technology conglomerates.
Harsha Man Maharjan is a Global Postdoctoral Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar (#IAS_NUQ). His current research centers on the critical evaluation of the social, political, technological, and economic implications of 'smart cards' in Nepal. Previously, he worked as a senior researcher at Martin Chautari, a research institute in Kathmandu, beginning his research in 2008. He has coauthored two books and coedited three books in Nepali, and his work on digital journalism, media/digital practices, development communication, media/digital policies, and media history has been published in various international and national journals and books. He has taught courses on mass communication theories, South Asian media, media industries, media research, and thesis writing at Tribhuvan University and Purbanchal University in Nepal. He earned his PhD from Kyoto University in 2019 and served as the Academic/Research Head at Polygon College in Nepal from December 2020 to May 2023.
DATE
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
TIME
1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
LOCATION
Room 1-300