‘I Don’t Play Games’: Migrant Workers and Digital Media in Bengaluru

Abstract

The great impact of media technologies in reordering almost every facet of modern life has been noted by theorists for over a century now, particularly since the idea of the ‘global village’ imagined by media theorists, and enabled by globalisation and digital technology has become an inescapable reality. The new experience of time and space bears upon various dimensions of life, including the nature of work, the organisation of time and the place of leisure within these rhythms. This article attempts to engage with this very weighty body of scholarship in a modest way, through ethnographic research, to understand how mobile phones and internet technologies structure the experience of ‘everyday life’ for low-income migrant workers in Bengaluru. The sites include a construction site and a hookah bar, and the study focuses on mobile gaming and the structuring of migrant social networks.