B.A. in English Literature, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, 1997
M.A. in Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2004
Ph.D. in Communication, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2013
Sreela Sarkar joined Santa Clara University in 2013. Her ethnographic research studies the institutional and cultural politics of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) initiatives in global India, specifically those directed at IT and soft skills training for marginalized youth in the urban peripheries of New Delhi. Sarkar’s research critically examines public-private partnerships aimed at modernization and the influence of market-based discourses on corporate professionals who emerge as important development actors. Further, her work unpacks popular notions of the “digital divide” and “access” in the context of complex histories of religion, gender, class and caste. Her second project examines the racialized complexities of the debate on immigrant techies and their politics of societal transformation in the Silicon Valley. Her work appears in Feminist Media Studies, Communication, Culture & Critique, Popular Communication, Journal of Community Informatics among others. Sarkar’s interdisciplinary work has been recognized at research forums organized by the Institute of Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Center for Digital Government. At SCU, Sarkar is a 2016-2018 Bannan Institute scholar as part of the Economic Justice and Common Good initiative and affiliated faculty with the Critical Gender Research Initiative.
Media and Social Movements (COMM 127A)
Introduction to Global Media Studies (COMM 2GL)
Qualitative Research Methods (COMM 111)
Communication, Development and Social Change (COMM 183A)