R. (Ritumbra) Manuvie, Dr

I come from India and have been living in the beautiful city of Groningen since 2018.

At the University of Groningen, I am part of the Liberal Arts faculty - UGC - where I teach subjects like Fundamentals of Law, Social Movements, and Research Methods. All my courses look at societal issues from a multi-disciplinary lens, and allow co-creation of knowledge and learning together with international colleagues and our wonderful students at RuG. 

My research, on the other hand, is gradually developing in the field of digital information space and freedom to think. I use digital ethnographic methods to understand how social media is used towards promoting disinformation (for example, medical disinformation in the Netherlands) and hate speech (Islamophobic hate speech in India). For my research, I have been given support by independent foundations such as Luminate, Stichting London Story, and IAMC to develop a nuanced understanding of online spaces and the role of Big Tech in amplifying disinformation and hateful narratives. 

In 2021 I led one of the most detailed studies on the usage of Facebook for promoting COVID disinformation during the Dutch Elections. Since 2020, I am also monitoring hate speech and propaganda on Facebook in India facing communities and pages. These studies have resulted in several reports and suggestions made to diverse stakeholders. 

My current research is directly inspired by and builds on top of (the incidental learnings from) my doctoral work at the University of Edinburgh. I successfully defended my thesis on Governance of Climate Change-related Migrations in Assam at the Department of Politics and International Relations. My work in Edinburgh looks at how norms of adaptation are interpreted and applied at the sub-national level. My work provided evidence of extreme political exclusion of communities that live on the margins of geographic vulnerabilities. I was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Doctoral Scholarship to support my work at Edinburgh with a generous grant.

Before my research in the UK, I worked with the IPCC lead author on Forestry and Adaptation - Prof. NH Ravindranathan at the Indian Institute of Science. My research on biofuel and land-use change directly contributed to the high-level dialogue on energy policies in India and the International context and led to highly cited publications. I have been the recipient of the United Nations Fellowship twice for my work in climate adaptation space. 

More recently. I am part of the ELSA - North Netherlands lab which aims to study Ethical, Legal, and Socio-political factors that influence the usage of AI in the health sector.