Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her work focuses inclusion, exclusion, and marginalisation, as well as questions around democracy, social justice, and technological governance. She currently co-leads two projects: Our Data Bodies, which examines the impact of data collection and data-driven technologies on members of marginalized communities in the United States, and Justice, Equity, and Technology, which explores the impacts of data-driven technologies and infrastructures on European civil society.
Seeta, what's the most favorite thing about your job?
In some ways, this is a job that isn't really a job. It feels like a passion. On a daily basis, I am motivated, inspired, and challenged by students and people I collaborate with on research and organising.
When and why did you decide to join academia?
My path into academia has been a circuitous one, and I have always had one foot in and one foot out. Before coming to LSE, I worked for four years at New America's Open Technology, a Washington, DC think tank. It was an incredible experience being inside the belly of the beast, so to speak, and I had incredible colleagues that I continue to collaborate with to this day. But I never intended to stay. In fact, I only intended to stay for two years, and before I knew it, four years had passed! But I wanted to teach and do more intense research, and that goal motivated me to publish in academic journals while doing policy advocacy and research.
Even during my PhD, which lasted a painful eight and a half years, I had a habit of moving in between academic and practitioner worlds. I was closely engaged with an activist and organising community deeply involved in galvanising public participation in media policy issues. I engaged with local media activist groups, like Media Alliance, a group which emerged in the mid-1970s. In fact, in my original PhD application, I recall indicating that I did not intend to stay in academia, and that I wished to engage in social change work.
I blame undergraduate years at Stanford for shaping that mindset. You wouldn't know it given university's reputation for producing megalomaniac tech titans, but I credit a few of my professors for pushing me to inhabit that world of praxis. I had one professor during my junior year who got me thinking about doing a PhD. She taught a course on modern thought and literature, and I read Gayatri Spivak and others in her class for the first time. I felt both inspired and comfortable with the material and with her course more generally. I found myself thinking, "Why aren't there more professors like this woman at Stanford? Maybe I could be a professor one day." The idea stuck in my head, and I knew I'd would have to make it happen one day.
What is the most challenging thing about being an academic?
I find it difficult to witness transformations in the marketplace for higher education. I am a little worried that with everything moving online during the global pandemic, many universities won't survive. It is going to be hard to compete with Khan Academy or Coursera.
What advice would you give anyone thinking about becoming an academic?
The first question I ask when any student approaches me about the prospects of doing a PhD, I ask them, "Why on earth would you want to do that?" A PhD can be a lonely road, and some people can find it really difficult to work under conditions of such intensity. The PhD can twist your sense of self-confidence. So, I really try to push students to imagine a type of isolation that they may not yet know. The second question I ask is, "What's your contribution?" The answer or answers to this question will define you as a scholar. So, you've got to start finding the words early on. The third question I usually pose is, "What do you have to give up in order to become an academic?" There are many passions a person can have in one lifetime, but only a few that you can effectively pursue. Choose the passion that is going to bring you the most joy.