8. The Promise of Poverty Reduction “By uncompromisingly reducing poverty to a technical problem, and by promising technical solutions to the sufferings of powerless and oppressed people, the hegemonic problematic of ‘development’ is the principle means through which the question of poverty is de- politicized in the world today” [13:256]
9. Reject.Rephrase.Reinterpret. Rhetoric redux: discontinue use of “development” “cultural differences” and “cultural conceptions of knowledge” These statements blind us from describing what is actually occurring. We are all “us” and we are all “them” in order to build discourse
10. The Article Prepares researchers for the complexity of global communication technologies with special attention given to learning from information creators in both indigenous and corporate settings to construct appropriate design principles Is quite dense but palatable in a good way..like a donut
Editor's Notes
Information Communication Technology is a movement that promotes, assists, or studies human communication that uses technology. Understanding that communication is a process based on many methods of exchange and interpretation makes it critical to examine as part of policy development especially in global contexts.
For instance as we see through myriad online examples (use facebook video here) our online interaction may differ drastically from our everyday non-online interactions which likely use subtle symbols and cultural cues or gestures to evoke our precise meaning.
This transition is not so far fetched from considering communication out of context. There is a failure of migrating western concepts of technologies to the context of different cultures and infrastructures due to preconceptions about what is needed. For the better part of history we have been obsessed with divvying up the world map however Author reminds us that weCannot taxonomize people based on single cultural backgrounds within the context of globalization and shifting boundaries. Being “here” or “there” marginalizes people especially when people self identify as both.
As more information exists online, especially in the form of government policies, it is important that individuals affected by such policies have access to them. If the policies are only available online and few communities have the resources to access them then how valuable is online access? It also demonstrates a significant gap between policy makers and citizens in terms of being able to use information. This is a very glossed over brief version of "the digital divide" where ICT is concerned that the division of the "haves" and "have nots" becomes more apparent when economy, health, water, warfare, social justice, literacy and other issues can be improved through information access. In simple terms: information access has the potential to solve many world problems.
Those working in ICT are aware that even with altruistic intent there is a burden to translate the benefit from a local relativist perspective. The conceptual buy in at the local level commits the community to ownership and stewardship of information. This sustainability of ICT is often required by development entities such as the World Bank and we have seen a trend in corporate interests backing communities and countries interested in receiving development money to build infrastructure. The new infrastructure is then of course compromised by corporate interests
. Historical transformations occurs when groups encounter/dominate each other (so we are all part of the postcolonial framework). This is just a pretty photo of SF.
In Lesotho, Ferguson’s example, World Bank reports recommended agricultural technology as a remedy for farmers who had lost their arable land to Dutch settlers. These approaches fail to discern the importance of political causes and political solutions to problems of poverty, leaving many failed development projects in their wake.
Rather than classifying people on various cultural dimensions, a generative view of culture suggests we ask how the technological objects and knowledge practices of everyday life become meaningful contingently and dynamically as social activity unfolds. development regimes have historically been aligned with the interests of politically powerful commercial and capital market actors
