Srijan Butola joins HPS as PhD student
Srijan Butolas research will be associated with the DataSpace Project
Srijan Butola is joining the department on the 1st of May 2024, as a PhD fellow at the Section for History and Philosophy of Science with Sara Green as the main supervisor.
His research will be associated with the DataSpace Project, led by Klaus Høyer at the Department of Public Health. A chief concern of this project is to understand how cross-border health data infrastructures reshape medical knowledge and illness experiences for primary users of health data such as practitioners and patients, and secondary users such as policymakers and researchers.
"My own research focuses on the processes of standardisation (of terminologies, formats, and data-cleaning practices) involved in the establishment of interoperable data formats and health databases across national contexts," said Srijan Butola.
Big Data ad the notion of identity
Srijan Butola has a background in Sociology and Economics, with a Master of Philosophy in the former from the Department of Sociology, University of Delhi.
"As part of my MPhil, I wrote a dissertation on the ontology of data within Big Data, encompassing a survey of and critical engagement with literature from Critical Data Studies, Medical Sociology, and Object-Oriented Ontology, among other domains," he said.
"My previous work also includes a focus on Aadhaar – India's biometrically linked unique ID system that forms the basis of the nation's underlying digital infrastructure for a plethora of services, public and private. In particular, I explored how Aadhaar helps transform notions of property and identity so as to render data across platforms as valuable and legible. I aim to build upon these themes and contribute towards understanding the role of data and associated analytical techniques in knowledge formation in the contemporary world."