Anushree Gupta

About

Hello! I’m a PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology in the Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IITH).My doctoral research employs multidisciplinary lenses to understand platformization and the tectonic digital shifts that have reshaped collective urban life in the Global South since the pandemic. Drawing on perspectives from Science and Technology Studies, Anthropology, Platform Studies, and Southern Urban theory, my research traces the intertwined trajectories of platformization and urbanization amidst multiple ongoing and interlinked crises.Through my research, I pull focus towards emergent forms of networked collectivity and possibilities for collective action, premised on an ethic of care, in and around the platform economy.Apart from this, I volunteer my time to assist field-based organisations, support advocacy, and facilitate academic research to support progressive policy outcomes within the platform economy.I hold a Masters in Development Studies from TISS Mumbai and an undergraduate degree in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

Research Projects

Annapurnas and Warriors:
Entrepreneurialism, Platformisation
and COVID-19 in Hyderabad

My doctoral project ethnographically examines volunteer-led relief efforts in Hyderabad during the COVID-19 pandemic, tracing the deep entrenchment of digital platforms in urban contexts.Through fieldwork during the peak pandemic years (2021-2023), I analysed the interplay between technological mediation, urban infrastructures, and collective life in conditions of acute stress.Based on this research, I conceptualise “platform collectives” as socio-technical assemblages produced by the pandemic and related technological shifts in southern urban contexts. With a focus on Hyderabad, I map the forms of collectivity—apparent in variegated crisis responses—afforded by various digital tools and platforms. The notion of compound urban crises then outlines the interconnectedness of pandemics, urban crises, and infrastructures

Peer-reviewed Publications

1. Gupta, A. and Khandekar, A., 2025. Platformisation in the Southern City: Entrepreneurial Volunteering and the Suturing of Collective Life in Hyderabad. Environment and Planning D: Society and space. Link2. (Under preparation) Gupta, A. and Khandekar, A. Feels like Infrastructure: Platform collectives and crisis response in the southern city. For submission to Science, Technology and Human Values.3. (Forthcoming) Kunduri, E., Gupta, A., and Salauddin, S. Working alongside struggles for labor justice: Reflections on collaborative praxes. For the Reimagining work, workers and workplaces: Decolonial and intersectional contestations, Palgrave MacMillan.4. Gupta, A. and Mehta, C., 2024. The Pundits of Technology: The Construction of Masculine Authority in Socio-technical Projects. Subversions. (Vol. 8). Link

Academic Writing

1. Gupta, A. From Heatwaves to Hashtags: Gig workers and climate change in Urban India. Weathering Extremes. South Asian Urban Climates website. Link2. Gupta, A., Khandekar, A. 2025. Air Conditioning: Has air conditioning become a technology of citizenship?. In Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy (pp. 33-36). West Virginia University Press. Link3. Khandekar, A., Maringanti, A., Gupta, A., and Bhowal, T., 2023. “Heat Relief as a Matter of Entitlement? The Socio-Materialities of Thermal Governance in an Informal Urban Settlement - Spotlight on Extreme Heat in Urban South Asia.” IJURR website, August 15, 2023. Link4. Gupta, A., Zia, S., and Lalvani, S., 2022. “Audioscapes of the Platform Economy.” Anthropology News website, July 6, 2022. Link5. Anilkumar, R., Bhowal, T., Gani, U., Gupta, A., Khandekar, A., Konda, G.R., Latkar, A., Maringanti, A., Mishra, R., Chandra, N., and Raparthi, K., 2022. City Profile: Hyderabad. Cool Infrastructures: Life with Heat in the Off-Grid City. Link6. Gupta, A. and Raqib, M., 2022. Instrumental Lives: An Intimate Biography of an Indian Laboratory, by Pankaj Sekhsaria, Abingdon, Routledge, 2019, 148 pp., US $64.95 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-138-58767-0. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 45(2), 392–394. Link7. Gupta, A., Jadhav, R., Zia, S., Lalvani, S., and Raval, N., 2022. Studying Platform Work in Mumbai & New Delhi. [online] The Centre for Internet and Society. Link8. Prabhakar, T., Gupta, A., Nadig, K., and George, D., 2021, May. Check mate: Prioritizing user-generated multi media content for fact-checking. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 15, pp. 1025-1033). Link

Academic Blogs

1. Gupta, A., Bhallamudi, I. 2025. Series Introduction: The Politics of Writing About Platform Workers’ Organizing. Platypus. Link2. Gupta, A., 2025. Patch-“working” the Field: Methodological Reorientations During a Global Pandemic. Platypus. Link3. Lalvani, S. and Gupta, A., 2022. What happens in a platform office? Futures of Work. Link4. Gupta, A. 2019. Ladies ‘Log’: Women’s Safety and Risk Transfer in Ridehailing. Platypus. Link5. Gupta, A., 2018. Perspectives in Gender and Gaming (Course Syllabus). Gender Media Culture Blog. School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, Mumbai. Link6. Gupta, A., 2018. Casual Gatekeeping. Gender Media Culture Blog. School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, Mumbai. Link7. Gupta, A., 2018. Confusing Boundaries. Gender Media Culture Blog. School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS, Mumbai. Link

Presentations

1. Unions as Collective Urban Infrastructures, STS India Network’s Conference, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Delhi — Dec 20252. (Ac)counting for precarity: Gig workers’ embodied experiences as alternate counts, STS India Network’s Conference, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Delhi — Dec 20253. 'Platform Collectives as crisis infrastructures’, Science Society Network (SSN) Seminar Series, Deakin University, Melbourne — Nov 2025 Watch4. Digital Platforms as Crisis Infrastructures? Online volunteer networks and COVID-19 response in the southern city, International Roundtable Workshop, NWO, and Utrecht University, (Limburg), Netherlands — 20-23 May 20245. Digital Care Heroics: Platformized carework, voluntary labor, and urban entrepreneurialism during COVID-19 in Hyderabad - AoIR Flashpoint Symposium 2024, IIIT Hyderabad — Apr 2024 Watch6. Annapurnas and Warriors: Voluntary care work, entrepreneurialism and disaster relief in Hyderabad - AusSTS UNSW — Jul 20237. Solidarities in Heat: A case study of platform workers’ ‘No AC’ Strike in Kolkata and Hyderabad (co-authored) - XX ISA World Congress of Sociology, Melbourne — Jun 20238. Bearing the Heat: Gendering Off-Grid Infrastructural Assemblages in the Southern City - 4S 2022 (co-authored) — Dec 20229. Platformisation of Ride hailing, food delivery, and domestic work services in Urban India - AoIR 2021 (co-authored) — Sep 2021 Link10. A Contextual Inquiry of The International Fact-Checking Network and Factuality on Social Media - 4S 2021 (co-authored) — Oct 2021 PDF

Workshops

1. Workshop contributor, Reimagining Social Media and Social Movements in Crisis (Hybrid workshop), Aarhus Critical Computing Conference 2025: Computing (x) Crisis — Aug 20252. Workshop contributor, (Re)working for Sustainable Futures: Climate Change and Platform Economies (Hybrid workshop), ACM COMPASS 2025 — Jul 20253. Workshop contributor, International Roundtable Workshop, organised by NWO, and Utrecht University, (Limburg, Netherlands) — May 20254. Cohort member, ST&HV STS School, NUS, and SMU (Singapore) — Jun 20245. Workshop contributor, Digital Infrastructures and Contemporary Urbanities (USIEF), National Institute of Technology Silchar — Oct 20236. Workshop contributor, ISA RC02 Pre-Congress Early Career Sociologist Workshop — Jun 20237. Participant, Pandemic and the Southern City II, Spring School, Hyderabad Urban Lab — Mar 2021

Conferences

1. Panel convener, The Working City: Tech, Infrastructure, and Inequality in Urban India, at the STS India Network’s Conference, OP Jindal Global University — Dec 20252. Panel co-convener, (Ac)counting With and Beyond Data, at the STS India Network’s Conference, OP Jindal Global University — Dec 20253. Workshop co-organiser, Collaborative Explorations in Feminist STS: Provocations and Possibilities at the STS India Network’s Conference, Winter School, IIT Delhi (Sonipat) — Dec 20254. Co-panelist and co-organiser, Thematic panel on Digital Platforms, Labor and Collective Life - IASSI Conference 2024, BITS Mesra, Ranchi — Oct 20245. Conference attendee and workshop participant, Data Power conference, IIIT Bangalore — Sep 2024