Digital leisure for development: Rethinking new media practices from the global south

__Abstract__\r\n\r\nPhotoshopping the newlyweds’ pictures, downloading the latest movies, teenagers chatting on social\r\nnetwork sites, and virtual gaming may seem like typical behavior in the West; yet in the context of a village\r\nin Mali or a slum in Mumbai, it is seen as unusual and perhaps an anomaly in their new media practices.\r\nIn recent years, some scholars including the guest editors (Arora, 2014; Arora \u0026 Rangaswamy,\r\n2013; Rangaswamy \u0026 Cutrell, 2012) have encountered these leisure-oriented behaviors and argued for\r\nthe need to emphasize and reposition user practices within larger and contemporary discourses of media\r\nconsumption. Yet for the most part, studies in information and communication technologies for development\r\n(ICTD) have duly relegated such enactments as anecdotal. This is partly due to the fact that much\r\nof this research is driven by development agendas with a strong historical bias toward the socioeconomic\r\nrealms.