Title: Social Enterprise to Mobiles – The Curious Case of a Propped up ICTD Theory
Author: Anita Gurumurthy
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 17/09/2009
Date (accessed): 05/10/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Appropriating the tremendous potential of new ICTs for meeting development challenges requires a sound theoretical basis – drawing from the social theories of ICTs and connecting them to the experience and values of development thought and practice. However, the dominant ICTD discourse has, in its steadfast loyalty to techno-determinism and neo-liberalism, largely adopted an atheoretical stance. It has unabashedly glossed over empirical evidence in not interrogating the failure of the social enterprise model both in ensuring sustainability and in meeting socio-economic goals in a manner that promotes equity. Instead, in an eternal search for new narratives aligned with market interests, ICTD has now chosen to deploy a watered down empiricism to over valorise the market-led mobile telephony model without critically examining its full implications for development practice and possibilities. By reposing firm faith in 'win-win' partnerships, ICTD practice has depoliticized development, recasting notions of the 'public' and of 'inclusion' in a corporatised rhetoric of the 'user community' and the 'poor at the bottom-of-the-pyramid', respectively.

Title: Capital, Power, and the Next Step in Decentralization
Author: Yochai Benkler
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 16/09/2009
Date (accessed): 28/09/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
As we think of ICTs for development, we must understand that the challenge is a focus on widespread distribution of high-capacity devices, in the hands of a highly skilled population, over open networks running simple and non-proprietary standards. Devices must be cheap enough to be widely distributed as basic background features, owned by individuals in a pattern uncorrelated with pre-existing power relations. Devices must be accompanied with skills training in the use of the device and the open network, so that the difficulty of use does not continue to drive people to the simpler devices that deliver the more predictable, controlled, and “safe” applications. In the near future, this may mean programs focused on women, much as micro-lending has been, or youths and children. In the longer term, it must mean an emphasis on cheap computers from the lineage of the personal computer, not souped-up mobile phones. Or, in the alternative, it means that we need a heavier focus on regulatory interventions that will require mobile phones and phone networks to be more open and flexible—although this is a harder row to hoe. And in all events it means devices coupled with training.

Title: Access Beyond Developmentalism: Technology and the Intellectual Life of the Poor
Author: Lawrence Liang
Source: Publius Project
Publisher: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Date (published): 21/09/2009
Date (accessed): 28/09/2009
Type of information: essay
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
n this brief note I would like to raise a few critical questions about the dominant ICT and Development discourse that dominates policy and NGO circles, and I will be using the writings of Ranciere, the CM practitioners, and the conversation between them as the grounds on which to raise these questions. Ranciere began his career as a labour historian, and had initially set out to do a straight forward history of class consciousness in the labour archives outside Paris. What he found surprised him, and informed his philosophy of education and I believe has immense significance for people working on ICT, poverty and development. Ranciere’s rethinking of labour history paves the way for us to start thinking seriously about the hidden domain of aspiration and desire of the subaltern subject, while at the same time thinking about the politics of our own aspirations and desires.