Hi everyone,

I hope you are well. This is a reminder about the online book launch of the new collection Critical

Political Economy and Southern Approaches to AI: A Dialogue (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026). Details below:

Online book launch of ‘Critical Political Economy and Southern Approaches to AI: A Dialogue’, edited by Preeti Raghunath

Date: May 12, 2026/Tuesday

Meeting time and time zones: 

Yogyakarta: 8 - 9.30 pm

New Delhi: 6.30 - 8 pm

São Paulo: 10 - 11.30 am 

Toronto/Ontario: 9 - 10:30 am

Texas: 8 - 9:30 am 

Sheffield: 2:00 – 3:30pm

Google Meet joining info: https://meet.google.com/xhy-vyha-jcd

About the book: This book presents a dialogue between two seemingly incompatible bodies of social theories - Critical Political Economy and Southern approaches - to the study of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. In doing so, the book presents scholarly engagement with the ways in which AI is being experienced in sites in the Global South, with authors exploring questions of sociality, further entrenching of inequities along labour and caste lines, socio-legal ramifications of digital IDs, and undesired outcomes such as deepfakes and their integration in the political ecosystem, among others. These perspectives interrogate and provide scholarly vocabulary to understand the various applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in our professional, legal and media spaces.

Table of contents 

1. Conversing Across Incommensurables?: Critical Political Economy and

Southern Approaches to Artificial Intelligence

Preeti Raghunath

2. Data, Anthropology and the Surplus Value of Sociality

Deepak Prince

3. The Plight of Female Gig Workers in Indonesia

Suci Lestari Yuana

4. A Critical Political Economy of Campaign Deepfakes in Indian Elections

Sananda Sahoo

5. The Brazilian State and Human Rights: Citizen Identification and

Informational Separation of Powers

Gabrielle Bezerra Sales Sarlet, Lucas Reckziegel Weschenfelder

6. Caste Bias in Indian Prison Datasets: A Data Feminism Study on Kaggle.com

Nishanshi Shukla

7. Epilogue: From Frontier Technologies to Frontier Lives

Preeti Raghunath

This book is published as part of the Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business Series, which has published over 22 books since its launch in 2012. Concentrating on the social, cultural, political, political-economic, institutional, and technological changes arising from the globalization and digitization of media and communications industries, the series considers the impact of these changes on business practice, regulation and policy, and social outcomes. If you’re interested in pitching to the book series, you can reach the editors and editorial board here.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Best,

Preeti