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