Swasti Mitter (22 May 1939 – 1 May 2016)[1] was a researcher into gender and development. She held posts as Professor of Gender and Technology at the University of Brighton, and as a deputy director of the UNU Institute of New Technologies at the University of Maastricht (Now UNU-MERIT). Her main area of research involved exploring the ways Information Technologies have influenced employment patterns for women in less developed countries.[2]
In the early 1970s, she traveled to Sonarpur 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 led to a professorial position at what had become the University of Brighton in 1993, in gender and technology.[1] 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-aded Manufacturing and Women's Employment in 1992.[3] From 1994 to 2000, Mitter was deputy director of INTECH.[1]
On 1 May 2016, Mitter died at Churchill Hospital, Oxford due to cancer and pneumonia.[3]
Selected publications
Mitter, S. (1986). Common fate, common bond: Women in the global economy. London: Pluto.[4][5]
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. (1992). Global information processing: The emergence of software services and data entry jobs in selected developing countries. Geneva: ILO.
^Banarjee, R. (January 01, 1988). Common fate, common bond: women in the global economy. Feminist Review, 30, 118-120
^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.