For this event at The Last Bookstore, Ramesh Srinivasan will discuss his book WHOSE GLOBAL VILLAGE? with Mark “Frosty” McNeill, co-founder of dublab, LA’s finest DJ/musical collective. They will discuss how we can re-imagine technologies in the image of diverse communities and cultures across our world, through examples from WHOSE GLOBAL VILLAGE? as well as projects that Dublab has been actively involved with. WHOSE GLOBAL VILLAGE? explores the relationships between internet technologies and forms of political and social power both within the United States (both during and post election) and more directly with communities outside the Western world.

Considering Trump and his attacks on our media, the book explores how In the digital age, technology has shrunk the physical world into a “global village,” where we all seem to be connected as an online community as information travels to the farthest reaches of the planet with the click of a mouse. Yet while we think of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as open and accessible to all, in reality, these are commercial entities developed primarily by and for the Western world. Considering how new technologies increasingly shape labor, economics, and politics, these tools often reinforce the inequalities of globalization, rarely reflecting the perspectives of those at the bottom of the digital divide. This book asks us to re-consider ‘whose global village’ we are shaping with the digital technology revolution today. Sharing stories of collaboration with Native Americans in California and New Mexico, revolutionaries in Egypt, communities in rural India, and others across the world, Ramesh Srinivasan urges us to re-imagine what the Internet, mobile phones, or social media platforms may look like when considered from the perspective of diverse cultures. Such collaborations can pave the way for a people-first approach toward designing and working with new technology worldwide. WHOSE GLOBAL VILLAGE? seeks to inspire professionals, activists, and scholars alike to think about technology in a way that embraces the realities of communities too often relegated to the margins. We can then start to visualize a world where technologies serve diverse communities rather than just the Western consumer.

Ramesh Srinivasan studies the relationship between technology, politics and societies across the world. He has been a faculty member at UCLA since 2005 in the Information Studies and Design|Media Arts departments. He is the founder of the UC-wide Digital Cultures Lab, exploring the meaning of technology worldwide as it spreads to the far reaches of our world. He is also the author of the book WHOSE GLOBAL VILLAGE? RETHINKING HOW TECHNOLOGY IMPACTS OUR WORLD with NYU Press. Srinivasan earned his Ph.D. in design studies at Harvard; his master’s degree in media arts and science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering at Stanford. He has served fellowships in MIT’s Media Laboratory in Cambridge and the MIT Media Lab Asia. He has also been a teaching fellow at the Graduate School of Design and Department of Visual and Environmental Design at Harvard. Srinivasan is a regular speaker for TEDx Talks, and makes regular media appearances on NPR, Al Jazeera, “The Young Turks,” and Public Radio International. His writings have been widely published by QUARTZ, CNN, AL JAZEERA ENGLISH, THE WASHINGTON POST, and THE HUFFINGTON POST.

Please note that our store has limited capacity (a mere 300!), so get here early.

Those wishing to get books signed will be asked to purchase a copy of the author’s title from The Last Bookstore. Any outside books must be checked with security upon entering the store. This policy applies to all Last Bookstore events unless otherwise noted. Save your receipt; it will be checked when you enter the signing line.

More information here.