About
Padmini Ray Murray (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is the founder of Design Beku.: a collective that emerged from a desire to explore how technology and design can be decolonial, local, and ethical.
Padmini established the first degree level digital humanities programme in India at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology where she was course director from 2016-2018. She was the recipient of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Unbox Fellowship (2012-13) and the co-investigator with Claire Squires on The Book Unbound, also funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is currently co-investigator on Gendering the Smart City with Professor Ayona Dutta, and the digital lead on Two Centuries of Indian Print, a project in collaboration with the British Library and Jadavpur University. She served as a trustee for Wikimedia UK from 2013-2014, and led a research project on platform governance and design for the Ekstep Foundation in 2018.
As a creative practitioner, Padmini creates new media work which reflects her research and interests, such as
Darshan Diversion (with KV Ketan and Joel Johnson), a feminist videogame about the Sabarimala temple controversy (2016);
Halt The Hate (with Pratyush Raman) an interactive database of crimes against minorities for Amnesty India (2017) and is currently working on
Visualising Cybersecurity – a Hewlett funded project that aims to alter how cybersecurity is depicted and discussed in the media (with the Centre for Internet and Society and Paulanthony George), and
A is for AI: A Dictionary of AI (with Pratyush Raman, 2020). Padmini’s most recent published work focuses on how corporate online space, commit and perpetuate epistemological violence against the marginalised, through collusions of infrastructure and the interface.
Education
2008 PhD in English Literature, University of Edinburgh,
2001 MA (Hons) in English Literature, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India.
1999 BA (Hons) English Literature, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, India.
Other:
2015 Certificate in Physical Computing, Digital Humanities Summer Institute, Victoria, BC.
2013 Certificate in Geographical Information Systems, Digital Humanities Summer Institute, Victoria, BC.
2011 Postgraduate Certificate for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Edinburgh Napier University. Publications
2020
“Wiki-urbanism: Curating a Delhi resettlement colony with open knowledge platforms,” (with Ayona Datta) Platform Urbanism. Eds. John Stehlin et al. Oxfordshire: Taylor and Francis. (forthcoming)
“Decolonising Digital Humanities: Critically Making in India,” Exploring the Digital Humanities in India. Eds. Maya Dodd and Nidhi Kalra. Delhi: Routledge India (forthcoming)
2019
“The Digital Book”, The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 7. Eds. Claire Squires and Andrew Nash. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2015 “OUP India”, The History of Oxford University Press, Volume 4. Ed. Keith Robbins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“Bringing up the Bodies: the visceral, the virtual, and the visible,” Feminist Debates in the Digital Humanities. Eds. Jacqueline Wernimont and Elizabeth Losh. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
2018
“Writing New Sastras: notes towards building an Indian feminist archive,” New Feminisms in South Asian Social Media, Film, and Literature: Disrupting the Discourse. Eds. Sonora Jha and Alka Kurian. Oxford: Routledge.
2015
Annotations on: “Digital Natives and the Return of the Local Cause” by Anat Ben-David “Rising Voices: Indigenous Language Digital Activism” by Subhashish Panigrahi “Towards 2 Way Participation” by Prabhas Pokharel in The Digital Activism in Asia Reader. Eds. Nishant Shah, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
(With Chris Hand) “Making Culture: Locating the Digital Humanities in India” in Visible Language: Special Issue on Design and the Digital Humanities 49.3
2014
“OUP India”, (with Rimi B Chatterjee) The History of Oxford University Press, Volume 3. Ed. William Roger Louis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2013
“Behind the Panel: Examining Invisible Labour in the Comics Publishing Industry.” Publishing Research Quarterly 29 (4), 336-343. 2013
(With Claire Squires) “The Book Unbound: Disruption and Disintermediation in the Digital Age.” Book 2.0, 3.1, 3-24. 2013
#“From the outside looking in: Creating a serious ‘art’ game in India – a case study.” Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES), 5th International Conference Proceedings.
2012
“Scott Pilgrim vs. the Future of Comics Publishing.” Studies in Comics, 3.1., 129-142.
2008
“London’s Gendered Spaces.” in Byron in London. Ed. Peter Cochran. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press.
2007
“Antiquarianism”, The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3 (18001880). Ed. Bill Bell. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
“Religion”, The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3 (1800-1880). Ed. Bill Bell. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
“Reference”, The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3 (1800-1880). Ed. Bill Bell. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
“Education”, The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3 (1800-1880). Ed. Bill Bell. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
“The Newspaper”, The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 3 (18001880). Ed. Bill Bell. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
Projects
2018 (ongoing)
Gendering the smart city: A subaltern curation network on Gender Based Violence (GBV) awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, as Co-Investigator (PI: Dr Ayona Dutta, Kings College London.)
2016
Revelations XX, Gender Bender, The Sandbox Collective with the Goethe Institute [http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/Lost-and-found/article14640037.ece]
DIG_IN: Digital Humanities Education Initiative Finland-India. Curriculum Development and Designing an e-Learning Module with Professor Xenia Zeiler, University of Helsinki.
2015 (ongoing)
Two Centuries of Indian Print, Newton Fund, (with the British Library and Jadavpur University) Co-Investigator & Digital Consultant. [http://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2015/ november/unlocking-indias-printed-heritage] Upcoming Talks and Conferences
Invited workshop, DesignUp, Bangalore, 15th-16th November, 2019.
Invited speaker, Corpora, Archives & Performance, University of Colombo, 13th November 2019
Invited speaker, United Nations of Innovation – #HackingDemocracy”, Berlin, 6th November 2019.
