Swasti Mitter (22 May 1939 – 1 May 2016) was a researcher into gender and development. She held posts as Professor of Gender and Technology at the

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based in Brighton on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieved university status in 1992. T ...

, and as a deputy director of the UNU Institute of New Technologies at the

University of Maastricht A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

(Now

UNU-MERIT The United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT) is a joint research and training institute of the United Nations University and Maastricht University, with both parent in ...

). Her main area of research involved exploring the ways Information Technologies have influenced employment patterns for women in less developed countries.

Life

Mitter was born in

Baharampur Berhampore (), also known as Baharampur (), is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. Berhampore is the administrative headquarters of the Murshidabad district. As of 2011 census, Berhampore is the seventh largest cit ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

on 22 May 1939. Her father, Sasankasekhar Sanyal was a politician and her mother Usha Rani. She was educated at Presidency College and

Krishnath College Murshidabad University is a public state university in Berhampore, Murshidabad, West Bengal. The university was established in 2021 by the West Bengal government under ''The Murshidabad University Act, 2018''.It is named after a great thinker, a ...

. Against her parents' wishes she married in 1960 Partha Mitter and they had two children together. They moved to the United Kingdom, where she studied at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

and the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. In the early 1970s, she traveled to

Sonarpur Rajpur Sonarpur () is a city and a municipality in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area of South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). History M ...

to research peasant uprisings, publishing a paper on the subject ''Peasant Movements in West Bengal'' in 1977. An academic post in 1974 at

Brighton Polytechnic The University of Brighton is a public university based in Brighton on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieved university status in 1992. Th ...

led to a professorial position at what had become the University of Brighton in 1993, in gender and technology. Whilst at Brighton, she published two books, ''Common Fate: Common Bond'' in 1986, about the poor working conditions of women in export processing zones, and ''Computer-aided Manufacturing and Women's Employment'' in 1992. From 1994 to 2000, Mitter was deputy director of INTECH. On 1 May 2016, Mitter died at Churchill Hospital, Oxford due to cancer and pneumonia.

Selected publications

* Mitter, S. (1986). ''Common fate, common bond: Women in the global economy''. London: Pluto.Bučar, M. (1987). Swasti Mitter: Common fate, common bond. Women in global economy: Pluto Press, London, 1986. 177 p. International Monetary System and Developing Countries, 177-178. * Mitter, S., & Rowbotham, S. (1995). ''Women encounter technology: Changing patterns of employment in the Third World''. London: Routledge. * Mitter, S., Pearson, R., Ng, C., &

International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the firs ...

. (1992). ''Global information processing: The emergence of software services and data entry jobs in selected developing countries.'' Geneva: ILO.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitter, Swasti 1939 births 2016 deaths Academics of the University of Brighton Alumni of the London School of Economics Alumni of the University of Cambridge Development specialists Academic staff of Maastricht University Indian expatriates in England Krishnath College alumni People from Baharampur Presidency University, Kolkata alumni