Title: ICTD – Is it a New Species of Development?
Authors: Anita Gurumurthy and Parminder Jeet Singh
Pages: 5 pp.
Publisher: CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Date (published): 14/08/2009
Date (accessed): 02/12/2009
Type of information: research paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
This "Think-piece" based on an IT for Change Perspective Paper discusses issues of power in the field of information and communication technology for development (ICTD) and suggests reconstructing it from being based on a market economy model to being based on an 'open ICT ecology' model in which the global South has equal footing with the global North. From the Introduction: "The structural nature of what is a society-wide transformation, triggered by a new techno-social paradigm, makes it more and more evident that the core ICTD issue relates to the all important question of power; where the socially marginalised and disadvantaged groups are located in the new social configurations. A participant in a grassroots community video project for marginalised, [economically] poor women, describes the power shift associated with ICTs succinctly - 'But you cannot bribe videos; they tell honestly what our stories are'."

The emerging information society, according to the authors, is being shaped by a power struggle between a neo-liberalist faction that sees ICTD as an opportunity to deploy ICTs "in order to universalise market fundamentalism in all facets of life." Aided, as stated here, by its alignment with the worldview of those who see ICTs as neutral and equally beneficial to all, "...the hegemony of neoliberalism in ICTD has today been naturalised as the 'common sense' way of casting ICTD."

This article examines ICTD as a new species of development "between the two opposing poles of a socio-political understanding of 'development' on the one hand, and ICTD's dominant form as a neutral, apolitical and essentially moulded in market fundamentalist ideologies on the other. The arguments in this document are organised along three sections: the first unpacks the contested meanings of development that have informed ICTD through a political economy analysis; the second lays out defining attributes of the field and its study; and the third raises some issues for reconstructing this field."

via The Communication Initiative Network

Title: Computers and the Promise of Development: Aspiration, Neoliberalism and ‘Technolity’ in India’s ICTD enterprise
Author: Joyojeet Pal
Pages: 21 pp.
Source: Presentation at: Confronting the Challenge of Technology for Development: Experiences from the BRICS, 29-30 May 2008, University of Oxford
Date (published): 29/05/2008
Date (accessed): 12/11/2009
Type of information: research paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
ICTD as a term has gone beyond the acronym to developing a life of its own. Whether it stands for Information & Communications Technology for Development or Information Communications Technology in Development or within or and or any range of conjunctions and prepositions may be a sartorial detail, because save for agreement on what ‘technologies’ as a term should include, scholars are moving towards a broad agreement on the scope of the term. ICTD refers to the information technologies and their relationship with social and economic development. The use of this term in specific relation to deployments, referred to as ‘ICTD projects’ is the more important definition for my purposes. I define an ‘ICTD project’ broadly as a technology project designed with intended welfare outcomes for the users. The domain of such use either refers to the individual user, or the service itself, that currently uses less technology than is typically used in a more advanced setting due to market factors. Thus, this definition both includes the individual citizen excluded from access due to being unable to afford technology, telecenters being an example, and likewise includes services that are excluded from access to similar marginalized populations because of a barriers that can be surpassed through technology use, telemedicine being an example.

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.