Dr Nayana Prakash
Research

Research

My research sits at the intersection of technology, politics, culture, and society. I am especially interested in how digital systems shape voice, power, and imagination: from online storytelling platforms and digital archives to AI governance, cyber security, digital sovereignty, and social media movements.

My doctoral thesis, The Empire Types Back: Colonialism and Resistance in Forms of Storytelling Online, is an interdisciplinary study of digital storytelling platforms in India. It brings together sociological research, literary studies, development studies, and cultural studies to examine how marginalised voices find expression through technology-facilitated creativity, digital storytelling platforms, and digital heritage projects. Building on postcolonial theory and texts such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak?, my work considers the impact of digital media on Indian readers, writers, and cultural workers.

I recently worked as a Research Fellow in International Security at Chatham House, where my research focused on technology governance, cyber security, geopolitics, and the Global South. My policy work has covered digital sovereignty, cyber proxies, internet shutdowns, misinformation and disinformation, social media regulation, AI governance, and the politics of youth-led protest movements.

Beyond my thesis, I have worked on research projects with partners including UNICEF, the Minderoo Foundation, the University of Oxford, LSE, Stanford University, King’s College London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Northumbria, and the University of the Arts London. I have been awarded grants and awards from the Minderoo Foundation, the Oxford Internet Institute, the British Council, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), Stanford University, and Balliol College.

Selected research and policy work includes: