The Politics of Open development
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This document discusses the concept of "open development" and raises several political and philosophical questions about what openness means and whom it serves. It summarizes the work of SIRCA, a research program that examined issues in ICT4D research, and SIRCA III's focus on defining and mapping open development. Key points discussed include whether open development merely privileges privileged groups, if it is being used as a "Trojan horse" to advance certain agendas under the guise of openness, and the role of trust and culture in open systems, pedagogies, and relationships.
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The Politics of Open development
- 1. The Politics of Open Development John Traxler
- 3. SIRCA • ICTD, ICT4D: ICT for ‘Development’ • SIRCA: instrumental and involved in the articulation and development of ICTD as part of a wider community – Funded at NTU by IDRC (cf DfID, USAID) • DfID: edtech vs tech for ed
- 4. ICTD • Three or four problems, – Contested definitions of ‘development’ • GDP per capita, universal linear trajectory – Narrow conceptions of education • Service delivery, global knowledge economy, – Power of agencies, ministries, donors, foundations • Dysfunctional relationships/transactions policy/research • Scale, transferability, acceptability, sustainability • Leading to Anglophone content transmission
- 6. SIRCA I & II • Attempted to build in some critical theorising into ICTD – hampered by resources and capacity building/early researcher mission • joining up too few dots
- 7. SIRCA III • Attempts to define and map ‘open development’ • Adopted thematic cross-cutting approach • Theoretical review by international experts followed by empirical work by local emerging researchers
- 8. “If ‘open’ is such a good idea, why don’t you use it?”
- 9. Open development is the possibility that the ideals, principles and techniques of the open movement, including open learning, can be adopted in the Global South, for what is called ‘development’.
- 13. Julian May asks “Where’s the politics? The model seems to exist in a benign world, and questions of ‘Open’ are often fraught with race/communal fault lines. Rich Ling adds that Open seems to attract both libertarians and communists, making the political angle intriguing. Dorothea Kleine points out that the Openness agenda lines up with certain cultural values and societies where ‘Open’ is considered a normative good. Development has the same problem, and this risks the trap of falling into technological determinism. Open is not always good Laurent Elder points out that ‘Open’ is a growing theme in the broader conversation about ICTs and ICTD. David Cameron, for instance, in a recent speech divided the world into ‘open societies and closed societies’.Arul Chib: SIRCA started as a program that attempted to deal with Heeks’ issues with ICTD research, that it wasn’t rigorous, it was anecdotal, there were methodological issues. And it did this, fairly successfully, by focusing on research-to-policy linkages and interdisciplinary theory. John Traxler: does open merely privilege the privileged?
- 14. Two fundamental questions • Does ‘open’ do no harm? • Whose interests does ‘open’ serve?
- 15. Open • Is there are a paradox, – outwardly open, inwardly closed – open learning, closed management • Is 'open' a proxy or a Trojan horse - for what - or a cargo cult? – ‘knowledge colonialism’ vs ‘decolonise the academy’ • Does international ‘development’ provoke questions about domestic development (or disadvantage or access or participation)?
- 16. (so-called) Open vs (so-called) Free Does • open privilege institutions / free privilege individuals? • open privilege formal learning / free informal learning • open privilege static / free privilege mobile? • open privilege the centre & mainstream / free the marginal, nomadic & indigenous • open privilege pedagogy / free privilege heutagogy?
- 17. Trust in ‘open development’ • Theoretical review: Rich Ling & John Traxler • Empirical work: Chennai NGO • Across: education & urban services
- 18. Trust • Fundamental to learning, – In content – In relationships – In systems – In technology – Amongst learners – In institutions – With employees
- 19. Trust • Trust and pedagogies are culturally specific • Trust exists amongst culture and its characteristics - authority, risk, community, difference and choice – So does learning – So does language. – so do the relationships that mediate trust and learning
- 20. thanks
Editor's Notes
- This is however not straightforward since it takes place within the confused and contested context of ‘international development’, a problematic term with connotations of ‘progress’, ‘catching up’ and ‘modernisation’, often measured purely in terms of economic or material growth, and resourced by a complex ecology of agencies, donors, ministries and corporations. The International Development Research Centre, a Crown Agency, based in Canada, is funding discussion and projects intended to support a more critical analysis of the sometimes overly optimistic or simplistic views of open development. These focus on a range of over-arching themes across a range of domains (and a range of countries) supervised by experienced senior researchers coordinated by SIRC at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. Our team, led by Rich Ling and John Traxler, has focussed on the over-arching theme of trust, across the domains of education and government. The process, common to all the themes, has been to draft a theoretical review followed in the second and third year by empirical work by emerging researchers. This is now underway with community group in Chennai. The following summarises the early positions on which the empirical work will be building. The presentation will report on the issues exposed by the first year of the empirical work. These will include the tensions between ‘open’ and free, between institutional and popular, between formal and informal, between remote, rural and dispersed and on the other hand, metropolitan, urban and concentrated, between so-called digital residents and digital natives, and the significance of culture. It is certainly not the case that ‘open’ is unconditionally benign and likely to serve the disadvantaged preferentially or even serve them on the same basis as anyone else; ‘open’ is not necessarily good or best or virtuous. Indeed, any simple test of ‘does no harm?’ should be augmented by, ‘serves whose interests?’. These are the questions and challenges of the wider programme and the current project seeks to illuminate them in relation to learning. We view trust as fundamental to learning albeit usually implicit rather than explicit. Furthermore, there is a growing awareness of the disconnect – or perhaps hypocrisy - of educational institutions espousing ‘open’ learning whilst implementing not-so-open management, and perhaps business models that exploit ‘open’ for commercial reasons rather idealistic ones. This is however all in the context of ‘development’, where ‘open’ in learning is not culturally neutral, politically neutral or even linguistically neutral and certainly not technologically neutral. Educational practices, educational institutions and educational technologies embody the culture, language and values of the global North, most likely of Anglophone American corporations, agencies and foundations. Our project must address concerns that ‘open’ is merely the Trojan horse for these, and that aspirations to modernise and catch-up articulated amongst educators and officials in the global South only serve to reinforce these concerns.
- And stereotypical responses