Research and Publications
Research
My research examines the political economy of digital transformation in India, positioning the country as a critical site for understanding broader global shifts in technology, governance, and development. My work explores how digital infrastructures, legal regimes, and AI-enabled systems reshape sovereignty, state–citizen relations, and the distribution of political and economic power. My doctoral research analysed India's Smart Cities Mission as a project of postcolonial rescaling and state–corporate realignment, demonstrating how digital urban governance reconfigures territorial authority and embeds corporate actors within state functions. Building on this, my ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship examined data protection, privacy, and digital rights through qualitative research with policymakers, legal practitioners, and civil society actors, alongside legal and policy analysis. More broadly, I investigate how digital governance transforms institutional practices, political participation, and inequality in the Global South, with particular attention to the governance implications of emerging digital and AI technologies.
Selected Publications
Taraporevala, P. (2024). Smart Ignorance – rescaling Indian municipal government. Environment & Planning F, 0(0) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/26349825241283831
Birkinshaw, M. and Taraporevala, P. (2023) Social media as e-governance: digital lives of Indian municipal bodies and smart cities. The South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ)
Khan, S., Taraporevala, P. and Zerah, M. (2018) Les villes intelligentes indiennes: défis communs et diversification des trajectoires, Flux Numéro Spécial Perspectives Asiatiques sur les Smart Cities No 114 (4), pp 86-99.
Khan, S., Taraporevala, P. and Zerah, M. (2018) Mission Impossible Defining Indian Smart Cities, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 53 (49), pp. 80-88.
Wani, M. and Taraporevala, P. (2012), CoP-11 on Biodiversity: An Opportunity to Go Beyond Business as Usual, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVII (38), pp. 10-13
Conferences and Workshops
2025
Critic for the PolGRG Book Award, RGS-IBG Session – Author Meets Critics panel with author Rupal Oza on her book Semiotics of Rape. (Birmingham, UK, August 29, 2025).
‘Between Privacy and Power: India’s ‘More-Than-Regulator’ State in the Age of Digital
Constitutionalism’ RGS-IBG (Birmingham, UK, August 26, 2025)
‘The ‘new urban aesthetics’ of governance in India: Social media cities’ co-authored paper with Devika Prakash and Khaliq Parkar. American Association of Geographers (Detroit, USA). March 28, 2025
Speaker at LSE Human Geography Seminar Series 'Smart ignorance: Instrumentalising useful unknowns to bureaucratise and rescale power in the city’ (London, UK) March 6, 2025
2024
Speaker at ‘Breakfast with Birkbeck’ seminar entitled ‘How do we build inclusive and equitable climate resilience in cities?’ (London, UK) October 31, 2024
‘Citizenship and democracy in the digital age: interventions on injustice and resistance in urban India’ Co-authored with Nabeela Ahmed. British Association of South Asian Scholars (London, UK) September 10, 2024
Co-organiser and presenter at Workshop entitled ‘Legal Geographies of the Digital Commons’ with paper presentation entitled ‘Who needs privacy? The (un)making of digital personal data protection in India’ organised by Birkbeck, UoL and University of Oxford (London, UK) June 25, 2024
Chair for Birkbeck School of Law Writer in Residence Prof Karin Van Marle session ‘Reading Cornell, Ferrante and Arendt’ (London, UK) June 21, 2024
‘Historicising Indian Smart Cities’ South-to-South Dialogue University of Sydney (Sydney, Australia) June 14, 2024
‘Historicising Indian Smart Cities’ at Seminar organised by Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi (New Delhi, India), April 19, 2024
Creative Practice
