Towards a Knowledge Society
New Identities in Emerging India

This book studies how the knowledge society has created new conditions of marginalities while empowering people through new age connectivity.

Debal K. SinghaRoy (Author)

9781107065451, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 October 2014

397 pages
23.6 x 16 x 3.4 cm, 0.77 kg

'Debal SinghaRoy shows the dark side of India's transformation to a knowledge society … India's transformation becomes a story of despair for the millions who are excluded and marginalized, but also hope for liberation from oppression and for the formation of new identities.' Stephen Castles, Research Chair in Sociology, University of Sydney

This book depicts the emergence of knowledge society across rural and urban spaces and among cross sections of social collectivities in India. It analyses the new economic momentum and socio-cultural milieu as set in motion with the emergence of this society. The ensuing impact on the pre-existing facets of social identity and marginality, and the processes of construction of new social identities therein are studied. This book delineates both the hope and despair, as produced with the arrival of the knowledge society, and identifies the scope and conditions of alternative choice and liberation for the people within the emerging socio-economic order of this society. Rich in empirical data, this monograph will interest students, researchers, teachers, policy planners and social activists.

List of tables and figures
Preface
1. Introduction: conceptualising knowledge society: critical dimensions and ideal image
2. Critiquing and contextualising knowledge society
3. Strategising for knowledge society in India: the shifting backdrops and emerging contexts
4. Education for a knowledge society in India
5. Information and communication technologies for a knowledge society
6. Indian growth story: the service and knowledge dynamics
7. Education, ICTs and work: the divergent empirical reality in India
8. The knowledge society: work, workers and relations
9. Knowledge society: culture, continuity and contradictions
10. Conclusion: marginality, identity, fluidity and beyond
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: International business [KJK], Entrepreneurship [KJH], Business innovation [KJD], Business studies: general [KJB], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], International economics [KCL], Economic growth [KCG], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD]