My first peer-reviewed article is finally here! It explores the biases and gaps in digital legal databases and demonstrates how digitizing law is tied to preexisting social biases that are in part related to the legacy of colonialism. Reposts appreciated!
My M.A. was in South Asia Studies and those who are familiar know that the theories and histories that emerge in this field are India-centric, excluding other parts of the region. The silence from popular “South Asia” scholars on what’s happening in Bangladesh screams loud.
Friends and colleagues who study South Asia, Harvard University
@MittalInstitute
has some fellowship opportunities for recent Ph.D. students and early career scholars. Applicants who attend(ed) universities in South Asia are prioritized in some fellowships
I’m so excited to announce that I will be a Visiting Fellow at the the Information Society Project (
@yaleisp
) at Yale Law School (
@YaleLawSch
) in 2023! I can’t wait to share my research with this amazing community and learn from everyone here!
I had my doctoral dissertation defense today with an incredible group of scholars: Arvind Rajagopal, Alexander Galloway, Dina Siddiqi,
@ishtiaqueSIA
,
@whkchun
, and Brinkley Messick! I’m so grateful for the thoughtful insight they provided! I can write Dr. Salwa Hoque now 🥹
I’m co-organizing the conference - ‘Propaganda and Emerging Technologies’ - hosted by Yale-Information Society Project! It’ll be held at
@YaleLawSch
on April 5 & 6 2024! Please submit your abstracts for our CFP! Details and more info are at
@yaleisp
! Please circulate!!!
🚨 CFP 🚨
How does propaganda work in the age of AI? We invite papers that study historical, contemporary and emerging questions of propaganda.
Submit abstracts for our international + interdisciplinary conference: "Propaganda and Emerging Technologies":
I’m still in shock that I won this year’s
@SocHistTech
Robinson Prize! Thanks to all the judges and amazing women who paved the way for us to use critical feminist theory to study technology! Also, shout-out to my mom and grandmother for everything they taught me!
India is the power-house of South Asia. Scholars from here are some of the most influential in the world. And where there’s power there’s responsibility. Our popular “South Asia” scholars will provide their analyses only when/if this topic ever has any social currency in academia
I've started a new job as a postdoctoral research fellow at the AlAl Network, which is a joint initiative between Emory University and Georgia Tech. Such a great space to be in as I’m writing my book - Automating Law: Locating (In)Justice and the Industrialization of Legal Reason
I’m so happy to announce that I’m the incoming Fellow and Program Director of the Majority World Initiative at Yale Law School (
@YaleLawSch
)! I was a Visiting Fellow at the Information Society Project (
@yaleisp
) last year and super excited to be formally part of the fam now! 💙🤍
I’m honored that I won the prestigious SSRC Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship Competition (
@SSRC_IDRF
) for my research on digital legal databases & non-state courts in Bangladesh. Excited to contribute to understanding alternate frameworks of law & digital!
I think they made a typo. The Indian state and corporate industries don’t focus on Bangladesh’s role as a “trade partner,” they focus on Bangladesh role for their exploitation and imperial power.
I received the NYU Digital Humanities: Graduate Student Summer Fellowship, 2023! I'm so happy! Now I have the resources to help me develop my working paper – "Prototyping as Ethnographic Method" – which intends to bridge the methods of Digital Humanities and Anthropology.
I was awarded the 1) Outstanding Teaching Award and 2) Outstanding Service to the Department Award by
@mccNYU
! The faculty, admin, and staff at my program have been so supportive! Their love and support opened doors at NYU and beyond. Thank you! 💜
Just to clarify, I’m not calling out anyone for not posting on social media. Activism and solidarity expand beyond social media. This is about performativity, i.e., exploiting minority struggles to check the institutional “diversity, equity, inclusion” box for personal gain.
Just came back from the NYU Student Award Ceremony 2024! Grateful to have received the Certificate of Distinction: Doctoral Student Speaker award and a special honor cord for my graduation attire. Thank you so much
@nyusteinhardt
@mccNYU
💜
My good friend
@sampkellogg
& I are recipients of the NYU Digital Humanities GS Fellowship and representing
@mccNYU
Our projects:
Sam: Mapping Media Infrastructure in Glacier National Park
Salwa: Prototyping as Ethnographic Method
*Meet our fellows*
Resident fellow
@SalwaHoque
is the Director of our Majority World Initiative! In her PhD at
@mccNYU
she explored how power operates at the intersection of law & technology. She specializes in legal pluralism, digital databases, automation & women's rights.
Excited to present my paper “Digital Databases: Colonial Legacies Reinscribed in Technologies” in the Exploring Data: Disasters, Meaning, Memory Panel at
#SIGCIS2022
(The Special Interest Group in Computing, Information, and Society)!!
Pumped to be sharing the program for
#SIGCIS22
UNDER CONSTRUCTION in New Orleans later this year, ft keynote
@gleemie
! If you're heading to
#SHOT22
, don't forget to register for our Sunday
@SIGCIS
conference!
I organized an academic conference for the first time (
@postmanconf
at
@mccNYU
),and the event went great! I learned so much! Thanks to our keynote speaker
@whkchun
, the presenters, mcc faculty & admin, & my fellow co-organizers (Meg and
@PaulatheOctopus
)! We did it!!!
Super excited to be part of the 2022 Mellon-Social Science Research Council’s International Dissertation Research Fellowship cohort! Can’t wait to share ideas and learn from everyone here! Thank you
@ssrc_org
@SSRC_IDRF
!!
I’ll be speaking in the ‘Information Blockade’ panel at UC Berkeley’s Biplob in Bangladesh: How a Student Revolt Overthrew a Regime event. It’s this Wednesday (Sept 25) at noon EST. Join us online!
2 weeks until my Ph.D. dissertation is due to my committee and external readers!! One minute I feel good with what I’ve got and next minute I want to re-write the entire thing. Help!
I'm organizing the
@yaleisp
Propaganda and Emerging Technologies conference (April 5 and 6, 2024) at Yale Law School (
@YaleLawSch
) !! Here is the conference schedule; registration is required to attend:
See you soon! :)
I won the “best paper” in
@AsianJofLS
Graduate Student Paper competition!! I’m so excited to work with the journal and publish a piece that’s so important to me!
The
@AsianJofLS
is pleased to announce the winner of its inaugural Graduate Student Paper Competition in 2021: “Law and Digitality: Tracing Modern Epistemologies and Power” by Salwa Tabassum Hoque, a Ph.D. candidate in Media, Culture & Communication at New York University (NYU).
I presented my research at my own department (
@mccNYU
) today and it was the most exciting and scariest thing I’ve done in academia! Glad it went well! Thanks to all the faculty and friends who came to support me today, and all those who helped me develop this project! 💜
I will participate in the consultation meeting for the proposed draft law of the Data Protection Act in Bangladesh. I’m so honored to be included with these amazing figures and to have the opportunity to provide feedback on how this law can impact marginalized communities.
I had to change my
@law_soc
conference presentation from in-person at Lisbon to virtual. I love being a scholar from Bangladesh but the travel barriers & visa requirements/ restrictions remind me that I’m in an uneven playing field with asymmetrical social & power structures
I’m presenting at
@law_soc
- Law and Society Association (LSA) - in this amazing panel on July 14! My talk will discuss how non-state courts or alternate legal systems in the Global South can help rethink the concept of law outside state-centric and Euro-American perspectives.
I was featured in
@nyusteinhardt
student spotlight for being the doctoral speaker at the hooding ceremony! We discuss research, favorite moments, and future plans! I’m grateful for all the support from faculty, staff, and friends at
@mccNYU
and
@yaleisp
So surreal to say this outloud: I’ll be a commencement speaker at the
@nyusteinhardt
doctoral convocation ceremony in May!!! Such a dream! It’s more special to me since it’s the school’s hooding ceremony! Let’s hope I pass my dissertation defense/final oral exam in April 😅
I’ll be presenting and chairing the panel “New Political Examinations of Bangladesh” in-person at this year’s Annual Conference on South Asia hosted by
@UWMadison
! It’s Friday 21st, 10:30 am - 12:15 pm. We are holding a hybrid panel. DM me for a zoom link. In-person details here:
I’ll be presenting my paper “Digital Databases: Colonial Legacies Reinscribed in Technologies” at this year’s
@SocHistTech
conference in the Imperialism, Religion, and Colonial Legacies panel. It’s tomorrow (Friday 11th) at 8.30am in-person. Drop by if you’re there!
The spring conference at
@yaleisp
is a special tradition, and I’m honored to have had the opportunity to organize it this year! Thanks so much to our wonderful participants. Hope you enjoyed the conference as much as we did!
I was invited to give a talk at the Department of Anthropology in the University of Dhaka (DU). DU has historical and cultural significance in Bangladesh. More importantly, me speaking at DU means so much to my parents who are both alumni. For that, I’ll always cherish this event
It was an honor for me to serve as the Director of the Majority World Initiative (MWI) housed in
@yaleisp
at Yale Law School (
@YaleLawSch
). We are beyond excited to share more on our events and activities from this past year.
Bangladesh students are facing brutality and violence for protesting against a corrupt education system. How ironic when it was student movements that led to Bangla being our national language, Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, and so many significant moments in East Bengal.
I won the “Best Oral Presentation” award at
@nyusteinhardt
Research and Scholarship Showcase 2022!! 💜 I'm happy I could represent my department
@mccNYU
!The best part: learning how to present a dissertation in 5 mins.
Here's a link if anyone is interested:
I’m teaching Global Media and International Law at
@nyuniversity
& today’s theme was Forensic Architecture. We read
@weizman_eyal
’s work & examined investigation videos on the Forensic Architecture website to think about counter-forensics, rights & extralegal pursuits of justice!
I've learned so much from reading Prof. Benjamin's (
@ruha9
) books these last few years! For anyone working on technology and social justice, I highly recommend reading this book as well as Race After Technology. Her concept – “New Jim Code” – is thought-provoking and phenomenal!
Ahhhh pinch me!!! Viral Justice was just awarded the 2023 Stowe Prize! The prize recognizes a distinguished book of general adult fiction or non-fiction that illuminates a critical social justice issue in contemporary society.
#ViralJustice
Excited to discuss my paper in this year’s
@ACM_CSCW
workshop Many Worlds of Ethics: Ethical Pluralism in CSCW. The accepted papers are amazing and I can’t wait to learn from the other participants!!
I always wanted to work beyond academia. I’m happy I can use my research to contribute to thinking about upcoming laws and policies in Bangladesh! I’m grateful to Barrister Sara Hossain and Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) for giving me these kinds of opportunities
I will participate in the consultation meeting for the proposed draft law of the Data Protection Act in Bangladesh. I’m so honored to be included with these amazing figures and to have the opportunity to provide feedback on how this law can impact marginalized communities.
Join NYU Global Bangladesh for Professor Naveeda Khan’s new book, River Life and the Upspring of Nature (2023, Duke University Press). It’s on zoom at 10AM EST tomorrow (May 12th). Register here for the link:
I’ll present my paper - “Applying Legal Pluralism in the Digital Sphere” - and chair our panel Plural Governance and Contestations of Power
at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Toronto. Come say hi if you’re around! Details here:
I’ll present my research in the ‘Big Data and AI in the Global South’ CRAFT Session at ACM FAccT (
@TheOfficialACM
;
@FAccTConference
) on June 22, 4:00 - 8:00 KST (Online)!!! See some of you there!
I got featured in Columbia University alumni spotlight! My department asked me to write a note on why I chose to do South Asia Studies. So many people told me, “What’s the point of this degree? What career can you have?” I’m glad I finally said my piece ➡️
I thought the frequent commute from New York ↔️ New Haven would set me back, but I wrote an entire chapter of my dissertation on the train in these past few weeks!!
On my way to have coffee with Professor Talal Asad to brainstorm theoretical frameworks for my dissertation! Professor Asad’s work changed how I think about political theory and questions of secularism! To know that he’s been guiding me for the last 2 years is insane! 🥹
We’re excited about our virtual CFP launch event!
@mccNYU
affliates Prof Lily Chumley (
@lilychumley
), Prof Martin Scherzinger, Dr. Ayesha Omer, and Dr. Philipp Seuferling (
@PhilippSeu
) will discuss their research in connection to our theme! We will also have a Q/A session!
Starting the year as a Research Fellow at Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST)! I love working here as it gives me access to work with Supreme Court lawyers and help contribute to rethinking law and policy in Bangladesh. 2023 LET’S GO!
2021 has been hard on many fronts- the continuing pandemic and persistent grief and loss. It has also been the best year for me academically and professionally. I feel guilty when I’m happy, and ungrateful when I’m sad. There’s no winning but I’ll focus on the good for now 🧵
The Bangladesh PM was forced to resign today and left the country. “Expert” opinions from the rest of the world (eg. India, UK, US) are pouring in. So many statements without any in-depth knowledge or research of what’s been happening in Bangladesh these past few weeks (& years).
India is the power-house of South Asia. Scholars from here are some of the most influential in the world. And where there’s power there’s responsibility. Our popular “South Asia” scholars will provide their analyses only when/if this topic ever has any social currency in academia
I gave another talk at the University of Dhaka, but this time in the Department of Law and as their keynote speaker. I never imagined my thoughts on the upcoming Data Protection Act in Bangladesh would be valued. I’m so grateful to Barrister Sara Hossain for the opportunity!
Excited to present my work at the Cultures of Datafication In & Across South Asia workshop in the University of Pennsylvania soon! I look forward to learning from the participants of the workshop and meeting up with friends in Philly! Food recommendations, please!
My second peer-reviewed article about the complexity of what counts as “admissible” digital evidence got accepted for publication at Law and Social Inquiry
@LSI_Journal
🥹Such a dream come true! Excited for another Cambridge University Press: Law (
@CUP_Law
) publication!!
I’ll be in Viña del Mar, Chile for this year’s
@SocHistTech
conference! Looking forward to presenting in this wonderful panel on Wednesday 10 July 2024, 4:30PM-6:00PM. Join us if you’re around!
Wrapped up my Theory of the Digital course at NYU. I spent a lot of time designing the syllabus and thinking of relevant guest speakers. So happy everything went well! Teaching this course was super fun, mostly because the students were engaged in class and amazing to work with!
Excited to present at
@law_soc
conference this year at San Juan, Puerto Rico! I’ll present in the panel - Legal Pluralism: The Case of Religious and State Law - on June 1st at 2.45pm! Come say hi if you’re around!
The thing I learned about Oxford University in these past few weeks is that students and faculty (not all of course) are really into the specific colleges they are part of. The first question I always get asked here is, “Which college are you affiliated with?”
If you’re from Bangladesh and (thinking of) applying to U.S. Ph.D. programs, feel free to DM me. I’m happy to discuss my experience, timelines and expectations, the application process, funding as an international student, the job market, and any other questions you may have.
The
@nyusteinhardt
doctoral convocation ceremony will be live streamed! You can watch my commencement speech tomorrow (May 9th) through this link! The event starts at 1.00pm EST. I’m so excited and nervous!!!
I’m taking a small break from teaching to focus more on my fellowship at Yale Law School’s
@yaleisp
and
@SSRC_IDRF
! It’s bittersweet since I taught 6 different courses in the past 3 years. Grateful to
@mccNYU
for the opportunity to teach & design my own courses at
@nyusteinhardt
!
My article – Reforming AI Laws and Regulation in Bangladesh: Current Harms and Possible Future(s) – is out! It explores how AI can discriminate against Bengali women and minority communities, and the shortcomings of the Bangladesh AI Policy Act (draft law)
In my late 20s, I was extremely anxious and scared about turning 30. I turned 30 last year, and since then, I’ve had some of the best experiences and happiest memories! Here’s to 30s!
It’s sick to watch crimes against humanity happening like this (and on such a mass scale) and then expected to go about our “normal” lives. What a cruel world we live in.
I’m working on an article for a peer-reviewed journal and can’t get over how incredibly generous the reviewers were. I’m grateful for the time they spent carefully reading the paper and for their thoughtful insight on how to improve it. I don’t know who you are but thank you!!
OMG I’m participating in this year’s ACM SIGCHI’s CHI (Conference on Human Factor’s in Computing Systems)!!! I can’t believe I get to talk about non-state courts like Bangladesh’s shalish in this space. CRYING! Plus, I always wanted to go to New Orleans, LA! 😁
Five years now since this was published. It’s about the Bangladesh famine of 1974 & how that catastrophe drove its inclusive development project. Sadly, the book is too “sensitive” to be published in Bangladesh.
First talk/presentation of 2022!!Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) hosted an event to discuss my paper: “Rethinking Digital Evidence and Women’s Rights: Perspectives from Shalish.” 😁
Sally Merry introduced me to the article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color” by
@sandylocks
(Kimberlé Crenshaw).It changed my world! I taught the article to my undergrad students today & hope it helped some of them too!
My dissertation Digitizing Law: Legal Pluralism and Data-Driven Justice bridges digital media studies, legal anthropology, and Bangladesh postcolonial feminist theory to think about how algorithmic technologies reinforce discrimination on Bangali women.
Strongly recommend attending the series – Biplob in Bangladesh: How a Student Revolt Overthrew a Regime – hosted by
@SAAIatBerkeley
, featuring Bangladesh scholars, students, lawyers, and activists. Panel information, registration, and zoom links here:
This summer, I’m a remote research fellow at Bangladesh Legal Aid Services and Trust (BLAST). Fridays are part of the weekend in Bangladesh, but workdays in the US. Sundays are part of the weekend in the US, and workdays in Bangladesh. That means I only have Saturdays off 🫠
Read my student evaluation form(s), and it totally made my day!! There’s nothing better than students saying that YOUR course was their favorite undergrad course at NYU, and that you helped them think about questions of justice and social equity through new perspectives! 💜
Had a great time discussing the complexities of law when state and non-state courts interact. Our panel analyzed three different sites: Syria, Bangladesh and USA, and thought across different religious courts: Islamic courts, Rabbinical courts, and Presbyterian Church courts.
Excited to present at
@law_soc
conference this year at San Juan, Puerto Rico! I’ll present in the panel - Legal Pluralism: The Case of Religious and State Law - on June 1st at 2.45pm! Come say hi if you’re around!