This month, our guest is Purbita Sengupta, an analyst at  Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). She works with the international team at the artificial intelligence (AI) hub that supports Canada's global engagement, both bilateral and multilateral, on AI governance. She is also completing a PhD at the University of Toronto, studying the political economy of policymaking in liberalized India by examining three national urban renewal missions. Purbita and Megan met as research fellows at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

We chat with Purbita about fieldwork safety and gender dynamics while conducting fieldwork; field research during COVID; her research on urban renewal in India and the public sector push to develop ‘smart cities’; tech policy and responsible use of AI; inclusion, equity, and representation in tech across the Global North and the Global South; evolving definitions of decolonization in qualitative research; structural challenges to decolonizing knowledge production; positionality as a woman of color in academia; ethics in processes of consent; and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the public sector or lack thereof.

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RESOURCES:

Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples is available here.

Purbita is a member of the Racial Equality Network.

Is there a topic you'd like to see covered? Do you know someone we should talk to? Get in touch at hello@gowithbedo.com. We'd love to hear from you. Happy listening!

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