William F. Stafford, Jr.

About

My research broadly focuses on the intersection of public cultures of work; commercial forms and techniques of governance; technology and the design of tools, machines, and devices; and architectures and infrastructures of mobility in the city. My current research focuses on autorickshaws in Delhi, India, specifically the many social affects and relations anchored by the fare meter, including the impact of the introduction of on-demand transport apps, and their influence on commercial interactions and perceptions of those interactions, as well as on governmental and customary forms of regulation of the autorickshaw trade. I am currently exploring extended research on the push for electric vehicles by the government and transport firms, and how it may fundamentally reorganise the logistic and commercial formatting of point-to-point transit. I am also exploring how digital technologies of location and identification deployed and integrated across a range of institutional actors are changing practices of inclusion, equity, safety and politics of citizenship and equality. Though I have been a social scientist for some time, my prior training is in comparative philosophy, and I retain an active interest in that work and its methods.

Education

PhD, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley

MA, Sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University

BA, Philosophy (Comparative), University of Delaware