I’m so grateful to the amazing award-winning Indian cartoonist Alok Nirantar (see @cartoonistalok) for sharing this challenging cartoon as a visual interpretation of the themes underlying my new book Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Routledge 2026). This image captures many aspects of the book, raising questions about who really benefits from digital tech (represented by the mobile phone): a rich young boy surfs the Internet, as an older and poorer man tries to hold on at the back to grasp some benefits; the direction of travel from the economically poor village to the smart city (shown below the mobile phone) also hints at the wider spatial implications of the processes of digitalisation.
An important dimension of the book is the inclusion of a diversity of voices and representations – not only images, but also 31 vignettes written by a rich diversity of people of different ages, ethnicities and experiences. Some of these are also available in audio, with new ones being made available on our podcast on a weekly basis. This visualisation is thus a great addition to the book, written by one of India’s best political cartoonists. It is indeed an honour that he crafted this cartoon for me. See Alok’s work on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CartoonistAlok.
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