MobileActive.org is one of my favorite resources for news about mobile phone as a catalyst for innovation in developing countries.
During a recent perusal of the site, I found a blog post on a new study by two Microsoft researchers Nimmi Rangaswamy and Edward Cutrell entitled Anthropology, Development and ICTs: Slums, Youth and Mobile Internet in Urban India. The study tracks mobile internet usage among 20 young adults living in the Hafeezpet slum near Hyderabad, India. The goal, according to the researchers, is to “begin research from the observations of everyday life, namely what is happening around then and not what problems need to be solved” and seeks to address two questions: 1. Can everyday ICT usages engender self-empowerment, without the need to explicitly characterize them as development? and 2) Can entertainment-driven scenarios comprise an important domain of usages from an ICTD point of view. Generally speaking this represents a variation of typical ICTD research that tends to narrowly focus on how ICTs provide intervention opportunities relative to poverty, poor access to healthcare, human rights violations and disaster relief. The MobileActive post does a good job of summarizing the findings, with the following conclusion (page can be found here):
…The ICT for development community tends to privilege what are and what are not desired/legitimate developmental impacts of technology. […] From an anthropological perspective, this distinction is arbitrary, even harmful, because it unnecessarily blinkers the ICTD community into looking only at a narrow slice of the full range of human experience of the people who are using the technologies.
The study reinforces a topic that has been top of mind for me the last few years – ever since I took a course on digital media in emerging markets @ the University of Washington. Here in the “Global North” we take for granted technology is a constant for both work and play – even for those who may be stretched financially. But when it comes to the Global South, the conversation around technology invariably focuses on productivity. Within some circles, there is a view that it’s OK for people living on “less than $2 a day” to spend money on a mobile phone as long as it helps create income opportunity, but it’s somehow less OK if the mobile phone “only” offers a social benefit – for example the ability to stay in touch with a family member who has moved to the city for work. Case in point can be found on Richard Heeks’ blog and in Kathleen Diga’s research paper. I blogged on the topic several years ago for Flip the Media, which garnered responses by both Richard Heeks and Kathleen Diga. Heeks’ response was prickly, Diga’s insightful. I am seeing more academic reports focus on the impact of ICT on livelihoods – which would seem to encompass both economic and social benefits. But unfortunately, economics continues to drive the conversation. It’s nice to see a research study focused more squarely on the social benefits of ICTs.