My research examines how digital technologies become embedded in everyday life, governance, and public culture. Drawing on ethnographic research, I study welfare systems, platform economies, digital health, internet infrastructures, and visual culture. My work is animated by questions about how technologies are adopted, negotiated, gendered, repaired, and reimagined in practice. It draws on Science and Technology Studies (STS), Infrastructure Studies, and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI).
I am currently a Maitri Fellow at the Australia India Institute, University of Melbourne, where I am writing about authentication in India’s Aadhaar-enabled Public Distribution System. I examine how the verification of identities and entitlements shapes everyday experiences of citizenship. I was also the inaugural Women in Tech Fellow (2024), awarded by the Australian Consulate-General in Bengaluru and the Australia India Institute.
Alongside this work, I am building a digital archive of film fandom expressed on the backs of autorickshaws in India. The project examines autorickshaws as sites of vernacular visual culture and explores how these mobile expressions of fandom differ from textual and video-based fan practices.
I hold a bachelor’s degree in Commerce and a master’s degree in Communication Studies from the University of Pune, and a PhD in Communication Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. In what now seems like a previous life, I was a journalist with The Indian Express.
I can be reached at preeti [dot] mudliar [at] unimelb [dot] edu [dot] au.
Preeti Mudliar 