Aarushi Bhandari

I teach courses on statistics and advanced quantitative methods, digital media, globalization, social movements, and mindfulness. Pedagogically, I aim to provide students with social scientific lenses by which they can evaluate and make sense of the various social institutions they encounter in their daily lives.

In developing my courses, I aim to provide students with the tools to synthesize the flurry of information they receive into theoretically coherent narratives that best explain the social world using the scientific method. Furthermore, it is my goal to support students’ holistic wellbeing in the difficult process of learning about the complexities of social realities.

My current research trajectory focuses on the attention economy; the economies constructed for information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the internet and social media. My book Attention and Alienation: The International Political Economy of Attention is in press with Columbia University Press, scheduled to release in early 2025. This book presents quantitative data on internet and mobile penetration across the world from 1990-2020 to unpack the historical impacts these technologies have had on different elements of global change, including international development and social movements. Throughout the book, I weave narratives about my own experiences growing up during Nepali Civil War and the early iterations of the world wide web. These narratives provide the contexts, positions and perspectives that inspire my analysis of the data.

Expanding on my interests in the phenomena of technology and attention, my newer projects focus on unpacking the strengths and challenges associated with the Digital Mindfulness Industry.  As a teacher, I am especially keen to uncover this line of inquiry to support my students for whom digital and social media are integral aspects of living. My next book project will be at the nexus of the study of attention, mindfulness and the future of technology.

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications

Bhandari, A., & Burroway, R. (2023). Hold the phone! A cross-national analysis of Women's education, mobile phones, and HIV infections in low-and middle-income countries, 1990–2018. Social Science & Medicine, 334, 116217.

Bhandari, A. (2023). Anti-Systemic Movements in the Attention Economy: Engaging the Cultural Political Economy Approach. Journal of World-Systems Research, 29(1), 90-124.

Bhandari, A., & Shirazi, S. (2022). Economic Dependency and Rural Exclusion: Explaining the Global Digital Divide, 1995 to 2014. Sociology of Development, 8(3), 239-271.

Bhandari, A. (2019). Gender inequality in mobile technology access: The role of economic and social development. Information, Communication & Society, 22(5), 678-694.