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Virtual Tour

Chinar Mehta

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Assistant Professor

chinar.mehta@iiitb.ac.in

Education : Ph.D. (University of Hyderabad)

Chinar Mehta's research interests have to do with interdisciplinary approaches within Science and Technology Studies (STS), Digital & Feminist Media Studies, and Cultural Studies.

Chinar holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Hyderabad and an M.A. from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. During her doctoral studies, she was a Fulbright Fellow at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) at Carnegie Mellon University and a Research Associate at FemLabCo, a researcher-activist cooperative dedicated to optimizing digital platforms for human dignity and collectivization through a worker-centered and feminist approach.

Her academic journey also includes undergraduate training in Information Communication Technology, and she previously worked as a software engineer before transitioning to the social sciences.

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

  • Mehta, C., & Gupta, A. (2024). The Pundits of Technology: The Construction of Masculine Authority in Socio-technical Projects. Subversions: A Journal of Emerging Research in Media & Cultural Studies, 8. Link.
  • Akridge, H., Fan, B., Tang, A. X., Mehta, C., Martelaro, N., & Fox, S. E. (2024). “The bus is nothing without us”: Making Visible the Labor of Bus Operators amid the Ongoing Push Towards Transit Automation. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–16. Link.
  • (Accepted for Special Issue) Mehta, C., Fox, S. E., & Vaghela, P. (2025). Solving for “Bad Workers”: How Socio-Technical Imaginaries of Caste, Labor, and Datafication Normalize Unjust Tracking of Sanitation Workers. Computational Culture.

BOOK CHAPTERS

  • Mehta, C., Raman, U., & Arora, P. (2024). A Feminist Human–Machine Communication Framework: Collectivizing by design for inclusive work futures. In A. Guzman, R. McEwen, & S. Jones (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Human–Machine Communication. SAGE Publications. Link.
  • Mehta, C. (2023). What Lies in the Shadows of a Stakeholder Analysis? A Methodological Analysis to Contextualize the Lives of Women Workers in the Global South. In P. Arora, U. Raman, & R. König, Feminist Futures of Work: Reimagining Labour in the Digital Economy. Amsterdam University Press. Link.

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

  • Solving for “Bad Workers”: How Imaginaries Normalize Surveillance of Workers in the panel “Constructing the Digital: Working from the Global South” at the Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference held between 29 October – 3 November 2024 in Sheffield, UK.
  • “Collectives” in the panel “Interfacing With Informality: A Decolonial Feminist Labour Lexicon” at International Communication Association Annual Conference: One World, One Network? held between 26 May - 30 May 2022 in Paris, France.
  • Web Standards and Protocols: Identifying Transnational Actors & Networks. 7 October 2021. Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting 2021.
  • Hardcore Habit: Lessons in Participatory Design from Women Watching Porn Online. 21-23 February 2019. Imagine a Feminist Internet: Research, Practice, and Policy in South Asia Conference, Negombo, Sri Lanka.
  • The Pundits of Technology: The Construction of Masculine Authority in Socio-technical Projects in India. 30 November - 1 December 2018. Does the Nation want to know?: The Politics of Post-truth. Frames of Reference, National Students’ Seminar, School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, Mumbai.

DHS304: User Research Using Qualitative Methods

This course will introduce the students to the major forms of qualitative research methods. The course will train students to analyze the ethical implications, the strengths and limitations of each of the methods, the conditions under which each of the methods is used, as well as the generalizability and purpose of each of the methods. In addition to learning about specific methods such as observations and interview techniques, the students will be trained in analyzing and presenting the different forms of data collected through these methods.

Research Consultant, Digital Futures for Children, London School of Economics & Political Science and 5Rights

The project studies the use and experiences of teenagers in 4 countries regarding Generative Artificial Intelligence.  

Research Lead (Sanitation Sector), Feminist Approaches to Labour Collectives

FemLab.co is a seed-funded initiative by the International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada, as part of their Future of Work series. This initiative does grassroots research on how women workers can strengthen their position in the global supply chain and labour markets using digital platforms. 

Website: https://chinarm.github.io/

  • Travel grant to present at the Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference in Sheffield, UK. 29 October – 3 November 2024. ~$1,500.
  • Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship, United States-India Educational Fund, US Department of State. January 2023 – September 2023. ~$16,000.
  • Travel grant to present at the International Communication Association Annual Conference: One world, One Network? in Paris, France. 26 May - 30 May 2022. ~$1,500.
  • Junior & Senior Research Fellowship, University Grants Commission of India. August 2019 – July 2024. ~$32,000 over 5 years.
  • Travel grant to present at Imagine a Feminist Internet: Research, Practice, and Policy in South Asia Conference, Negombo, Sri Lanka. 21-23 February 2019. ~$800.