Digital ID Dependency: The Political Economy of the National Identification System in Nepal

Speaker

Harsha Man Maharjan

Harsha Man Maharjan is a Global Postdoctoral Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South, Northwestern University, Qatar. He holds a Ph.D. from Kyoto University, specializing in interdisciplinary fields, including media studies and science and technology studies. He has over 15 years of experience in research on media, digital/technology policies, and practices in Nepal. He has worked as a senior researcher at Martin Chautari in Kathmandu. He has co-authored two books and co-edited three more in Nepali. His work on media/digital practices, development communication, media/digital policy, 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, and media research at two universities in Nepal. From December 2020 to May 2023, he worked as an Academic/Research Head at Polygon College in Nepal. He is interested in critical data/digital studies, media studies, infrastructure studies, and science and technology studies. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Communication, Culture & Critique and Samaj Adhyayan, and is researching national digital identification in Nepal to understand the relationship of data/digital systems to governance, global economy, citizenship, and social change.