Devika Narayan
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford where I co-lead a research project on the digital transformation of work.
As an interdisciplinary sociologist, I study the changing structure of markets, new digital platforms, and the emergent workplace structures that shape contemporary capitalism. I am particularly interested in managerial practices and workplace transformations in the business-facing software sector.
My research has been published by EPA: Economy and Space, Work, Employment & Society, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), Water International, and Economic and Political Weekly. I have a forthcoming article in New Media & Society. Many of these papers have received awards from the American Sociological Association and other organizations. Most recently, an article I co-authored won the IJURR Best Paper Award 2021.
I hold a Ph.D in Sociology from the University of Minnesota (with a Minor in Development Studies). At Minnesota, I was a Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change and a Resident at the Charles Babbage Institute, a center for computing history. Here is a brief profile by the University of Minnesota's Graduate School.
My dissertation titled Between the cloud and a hard place: a study of industrial transformation in the platform age, investigated the technological, organizational, and workplace shifts catalyzed by the rise of cloud infrastructure. I focused on the restructuring of India's globally networked software industry.
In parallel, I have been a researcher with an NSF - funded collaborative project, This allowed me to pursue an interest in financialization and speculative capital. As part of the team, I examined how global private equity alters local real estate practices and introduces new speculative logics in global south economies.
As a teacher, I emphasize critical and creative thinking, helping students make sense of a perplexing and unequal social world. I look forward to continuing to mentor students and teach courses that draw from social theory and economic sociology.
I have an M.Phil. and M.A. in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics and a B.A. (Sociology) from St. Xavier's College, Bombay.