Art in Bazaar: DTP Gig Work, Precarity and

the Digital Everyday of Kolkata

A project in collaboration with Transit Asia Research Network

The Principal Investigator of this project is Professor Abhijit Roy, Chair, CRPCS. It is part of an an international, interdisciplinary book project titled 'Chip Era and Digital Governance: Geopolitics, National Strategies & Capital', led by Professor Joyce Liu at the International Centre for Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Ciao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. For details of this international collaborative project, click here: https://iccs.chss.nycu.edu.tw/en/re.php?USN=8

The Indian state’s aspiration for global leadership based on what it calls “self-reliant India” is heavily premised on developing a robust digital infrastructure against what it perceives as Chinese and broadly east Asian dominance in the field. ‘Digital India’ schemes started in 2015, digital governance Apps like Cowin for vaccine-distribution management and the present drive for semiconductor fabs on Indian soil, all seem to be aligned to a neoliberal idea of ‘development’ where geopolitics and market
interests primarily inform state policy. The proposed research delves underneath the celebration of this phenomenon to explore a world where digital work involves informal labour, struggling livelihood and precarity. We focus particularly on small shops in urban local markets offering DTP (Desk Top Publishing) services for common people and small organisations. Beyond the typical DTP jobs of designing notices, posters, banners, leaflets, publicity material, legal documents, school projects, family memorabilia, etc., the DTP artist also does a lot of other “computer” jobs for its clients: filling up online application forms, download and upload documents, obtain government identity cards, etc. Such work is Gig in its job-based payment, absence of contract, variety of engagement (independent, full-time, part-time, temporary, on-call), no guarantee for minimum wage, absence of compensation for loss, denial of social security, absence of unionism, high workplace risk, recycling, cheap hardware (non-branded, primarily Chinese and Taiwanese), “jugaad”, piracy, nonexistence of formal training and IP. Our ethnographic focus will be the bazaar of digital artwork in Kolkata. Through interviews and audiovisual documentation, the project will investigate how a south Asian city encounters the digital and communicative modernity of the 21 st century, how do notions of art, skill, authorship
and livelihood reorient themselves in the digital everyday and broadly to what extent such a study can open up new understanding of digital labour, technology, expertise, digital infrastructure and geopolitics.

Prof. Abhijit Roy

Principal Investigator

Chair, CRPCS and Professor, Film Studies, Jadavpur University

Dr. Abhijit Roy is Professor of Film Studies, Station Director of Community Radio JU and former Director of School of Media, Communication and Culture in Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is the founder Chair of the Centre for Research in Policy, Communication and Society, Kolkata and member of the editorial boards of Studies in South Asian Film and Media, Journal of the Moving Image and International Journal of Politics and Media. Roy writes on media, culture and politics in south Asia, and has received visiting fellowships from Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (France, 2006), Indian Institute of Advanced Study (India, 2009), University of Oregon (United States, 2017) and Fu Jen Catholic University (Taiwan, 2019, 2025). He has co-edited Channeling Cultures: Television Studies from India (OUP, 2014) and authored a book on Sergei Eisenstein (Papyrus, 2004). Roy’s research projects have been supported by the Indian government, UNICEF, British Council, USIEF, University of Singapore and the International Center for Cultural Studies, NYCU, Taiwan, which affiliates his current work on digital labour in India. Some of Roy’s recent articles are ‘Low-end DTP services in South Asia: Blindspot in Digital Labour Discourse?’ (Proceedings of the international conference on ‘Innovations in Social Sciences and Humanities’, TDTU, Vietnam, 2026), ‘The Home and the World of Hindi Television Serials’ in Popular Culture in South Asian Context (Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2026), ‘Rights of the Hindusthani Humans: Media and its Publics in Hindi Films’ in Indian Cinema and Human Rights: An Intersectional Tale (Springer Nature, Singapore, 2025), ‘Live Public: Television and Mobilization in Post-Liberalization India’ in Television Publics in South Asia: Mediated Politics and Culture (Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2024) and ‘Spectacle of democracy: the quasi-executive functions of television news in India’ in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (vol. 24, no. 3, 2023).