Artificial Intelligence has altered and in future going to influence the way our economies and societies are organised and function. The economic systems are increasingly being digitalised which has generated the growing chorus around digital economy. Digital data-fuelled devices be it in our homes or workplaces, are shaping human interactions. The machines of today are going to define the human life of tomorrow. While the bold proclamations about digital technologies and their development impacts have received extensive coverage, it is rarely acknowledged that behind most contemporary digital transformations and advanced digital technologies is human labour. Just like the profitable commodities of earlier decades (oil, diamond, gold), contemporary digital products (autonomous vehicles, machine learning systems, next-generation search engines) are sourced and developed by workers in the low and middle-income regions. It is this behind-the-scene human labour that faces uncertain future. The centrality of labour from the Global South in some of these technologies raises critical questions around the new division of labour, developmental impacts for workers, and what the future would look like for workers on the continent and also other low and middle-income regions. The project explores these issues about our rapidly changing world of work and the implications on humans and regions that motors the global digital economy. The four-year project uses mixed methods to conduct a comprehensive empirical and theoretical assessment of behind the scene human labour in the Global South and leverage cross-country project partnership to develop analytical insights into the data work value chains of AI. By bringing theoretical sophistication and grounded empirical insights, the project's overall contribution is to unravel the geographies of data work and its implications for LMIs. The Planetary AI project will: (1) develop conceptual frameworks for studying data work value chains and labour market transformation, (2) generate empirical data on the scope of data work across the four case study countries and its developmental impacts (e.g. access to decent work), (3) produce research outcomes useful for academia, policy and practice. By combining discourse analysis, surveys, in-depth interviews, it captures the socio-political and economic transformations associated with the rise of data work across the Global South. Hence, the project contributes not only to the academic and policy debates surrounding AI, employment, and poverty reduction but will also be crucial in shaping the future rounds of digital-related development projects in low- and middle-income (LMI) countries. It also addresses policy-level changes required to protect the vulnerable sections of the society who are affected by the changing dynamics of technology and work. To make sure the project reaches a wider audience, it has developed multi-stakeholder networks of project partners. The ILO, business owners, policy makers, and data workers will be closely involved. Their expertise and networks will ensure it reaches actors who can influence the world of work. This is urgently needed as the risks of AI use has exposed the need for adequate regulatory reforms so that workers in the Global South are protected in their everyday lives. This project provides tools and evidence to ensure that such reforms are designed to strengthen policies related to labour standards, employment law, and social protection in the Global South and beyond.

The aid and development funding landscape for communication and social change (CSC) is changing rapidly. CSC is a field of scholarship and practice within communication studies concerned with the role of media and communication in processes of social change and development. Historically, much of the practice of CSC has been funded as part of international development cooperation. However, funds from traditional bilateral donors are shrinking, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, philanthropic foundations, especially those linked with tech-sector corporations, are growing in funding scale and programmatic influence. This context is accelerating the uptake of social entrepreneurship inspired discourses and worldviews in CSC practice. This worldview mirrors contemporary capitalist cultures and draws on new business management mantras, emphasising optimism, creativity, boldness, leadership and autonomy as an approach to 'changemaking'. Under this worldview, dependency on donors is seen as the main problem to avoid, and traditional aid and development is framed as having failed. For CSC practitioners on the ground there is validity in this assessment. Practitioners have reported that they see significant benefits from social entrepreneurship approaches, in that it enables them to be more bottom-up, to operate in less precarious and dependent ways, to be more adaptive to local needs, and to determine their own priority actions and approaches. However, this trend is in stark contrast with the momentum of current debates in academia, where of primary interest is in the role of communication in the resistance of global capitalism and in decolonization agendas. Social entrepreneurship discourses and the broader neoliberalisation of CSC are therefore seen as threats to, not enablers of, social justice. Un/Making CSC engages directly with these tensions, investigating the implications of growing entrepreneurial discourses within communication for social change (CSC) from a practitioner perspective. Theoretically, Un/Making CSC will engage in interdisciplinary ways with social entrepreneurship and leadership studies. Empirically it will use participatory and visual methods with practitioners, communities and other key stakeholders to interrogate the implications in terms of shifting CSC concepts, funding strategies, stakeholder relationships, and alternative frameworks. The research will be undertaken in two distinct sites: youth and girls engagement in Malawi which has historically been reliant on international development funding; and feminist digital justice efforts India, where there are complex tensions being negotiated in terms of funding sources, especially philanthropic funding, and the political principles of the organisation. The research aims to advance theory and practice on a justice-driven approach to communication for social 'changemaking'. The Fellowship enables the PI to firmly establish intellectual leadership and the shaping of new interdisciplinary research agendas engaging across communication and media studies, international development studies, and social entrepreneurship and leadership studies. The Fellowship is designed to develop skills and leadership capabilities in project management, methodological innovation, HE leadership, and public engagement and policy impact. This project partners with several well-established CSC organisations with experience of navigating these tensions, to co-develop insights, actionable frameworks and policy briefs for a social justice-driven approach to Communication for Social Changemaking. The Fellowship will positively impact the partner organisations within the life of the project, and lays the foundation for future policy-impact.