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IDEOLOGY, DISCOURSE AND DOMINANCE IN THE AIDS ERA
Get PDFThe concept of ideology relates to the clustering of ideas in a way that allows particular notions to be generalised throughout society. Dominant ideologies provide coherence to societies, and are structured in such a way that their dominance is not readily contested or overwhelmed
ICTS FOR THE POOREST OF THE RURAL POOR
Get PDFInformation and communication technologies (ICTs) are proving to be critical tools in rural development: social services, incomegenerating activities, and governance. However, rural people,especially the poorest of the poor, in India are still neglected. Efforts need to concentrate on reducing access costs, creation of enabling environment, developing key technologies, development of relevant local languages content, joint efforts by public and private agencies, developing supporting infrastructure such as roads and power, dedicated venture capital fund, encouraging mass e-literacy, and leading of ICT initiatives by women and other underprivileged groups
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN HERE AS WELL
Get PDFArts activities for social transformation amongst children and adolescents –a case study in Buenos AiresThis report is a revised version of my Master thesis within the course Communication for Development (Malmö University, Sweden, 2004). Its baseline is that culture is arts activities, which in certain contexts can be a means of communication. Participation is the word that is praised in development studies and in communication for development contexts. One sort of participation is the active engagement in an arts activity, where it is not only the participation itself which is important, but also the fact that it is arts that is theactivity. It should not, according to this belief that art itself has a value, be the same to participate in football training. Arts generate something more. My focus is the attitude to, and believed impact of, arts activity on young people. Arts activities are here seen as a participatory way to communicate development or social change
IN THIS ISSUE
Get PDFDepending on how old you are, which country you were born in, and whether you enjoy comic strips or not, you might or not know Mafalda, Argentine cartoonist Quino’s character born in 1964. Mafalda –translated to many languages and adopted by magazines and newspapers in many countries as from the seventies- loved the Beatles, hated soup, and worried about the world. These days I am re-reading her, and this afternoon I spent a while thinking over one particular strip: she is laying on a “puf” [1], side by side with her globe [2], pondering: “When I grow up I’ll be an interpreter at the UN”. With that thought, she sits up: “And when one delegate says to another: ‘Your country stinks!’, I will translate: ‘Your country is charming’, and, of course, nobody will be able to squabble”. Pleased with herself, and optimistic, she smiles: “And that will end all the troubles and wars and the world will be saved”. She then stares at her globe, and talks to it anxiously: “You just promise to last until I grow up!”. If only things were so easy. Instead of Mafalda’s proposition -translation as a tool to build consensus (which remains dear to my heart, since I believe, with her, that the world needs to be saved from its way too many troubles and wars), we might want to give some thought to James Clifford’s point of view. In his book “Routes/Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century”, Clifford wonders: “What attitudes of tact, receptivity, and self-irony are conducive to nonreductive understandings? What are the conditions for serious translation between different routes in an interconnected but not homogeneous modernity?”. And he states: “In the kind of translation that interests me most, you learn about peoples, cultures, and histories different from your own, enough to begin to know what you’re missing” [3]. October has come, and with it, the second issue of Globala Tider. Welcome. As we go online with this issue, the field of communication for development is undergoing redefinitions. Developments since June have included the seminar “Communication for Social Change and Development: The Role of Specialised Studies”, held in the Philippines between September 27 and 30 [4], which we will address to some extent in our coming issue, and a worldwide call for proposals for the World Congress on Communication for Development to be held in Rome, Italy, in March 2006 [5]. In this edition of the webmagazine, once again, our guest contributors are academics –Nikos Papastergiadis, Jan Nedervee Pieterse, Anders Høg Hansen, Maja Povrzanovic Frykman-, practitioners –Eric van der Broek and Katarina Rejger-, and Malmö University’s graduates from the 2001, 2002 and 2003 Master courses in Communication for Development: Helen Belcastro, Ulla Engberg and Susan Kennard respectively. Our main theme for this edition, communication in the Balkans, is analyzed on several different levels. Art is brought into the discussion in two articles, in an attempt to productively blur –transgress- the borders of the field of communication for development. Memory, and how it is both contested and communicated through memorials, is a matter also raised. The potential -and the potential pitfalls- of the Internet as a tool for communication and development are discussed as well. We hope that, as you read, you will learn about research, projects and approaches different from your own, engage in translating what you find relevant to your own area of expertise or specific interests, and let us know what kinds of information you are missing. You are welcome to contact us with your comments, questions and suggestions while we prepare the third issue of the webmagazine, which will be online in February 2006. Florencia Enghel Editor Buenos Aires, in the spring of 2005[1] A soft, round type of seat that was popular in Buenos Aires when I was a kid, and is now popular again in its “retro” version… [2] She has a model globe almost her size that she plays with, meditates upon, and takes care of. [3] Clifford, James (1999, 1997) Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. [4] Hosted by the Communication for Social Change Consortium, www.consortiumforsocialchange.org, with the School of Development Communication at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños, the seminar reunited for the first time faculty and graduate students from 12 universities in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean with Master degree programmes in communication for social change and development. [5] Organized by the World Bank’s Development Communication Division, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the Communication Initiative. Visit http://www.devcomm-congress.org/ for more information
Information-for-development: business as usual, or breakthrough?
Get PDFThe key question confronting us is whether information-for-development is another round of business as usual, now sheltered under the new umbrella of digital capitalism, or whether it holds a potential for a breakthrough in development. To this question, there are two main approaches. One is to take information-for-development in a light sense (ICT4D lite). Then, it is about recycling old computers by donating them to developing countries. It is about Microsoft offering software discounts to Indonesia on condition that the Indonesian government takes measures against software piracy. It is about UNDP teaming up with Cisco Systems to set up training courses in developing countries. This kind of approach often comes with ideas of IT as a techno-fix that makes it possible to leapfrog development, and at times with an extraterrestrial optimism about the potential of ICT and development. Media reports discuss, for instance, ‘Ethiopia’s Digital Dream’ and the enthusiasm about applying IT in e-government, education and telecommunications across the country, an aim that is pursued with great zeal despite poverty and in the hope that digital solutions can make up for the lack of infrastructure (Cross, 2005). Yet, if we look at the fine print, we find that to implement this, the Ethiopian government and Telecommunications Corporation teamed up with Cisco Systems and Business Connexion of South Africa, and the reporter visited the country as a guest of Cisco Systems, which prompts a question: is this Ethiopia’s digital dream, or that of IT corporations? This illustrates a key dilemma of ITC4D. Alternatively, we can take information-for-development in a strong sense and seek a serious assessment of its contributions. This begins with recognizing that development is an intervention in a field of power and resources, and that ICT represents the latest wave of capital accumulation. As the latest major wave of capital accumulation, ICT is part of a series -think railroads, electricity and chemical industries in the nineteenth century, and automobiles and telecommunications in the twentieth century. Each accumulation wave comes with its cycle of innovation, overinvestment and maturity. Boosterism is part of this cycle: it is not sufficient for new products to be made; they must also be invested in, sold and used. They must be the talk of the town. ICT is both a dream space of multinational capital, the spearhead of market-led development in a world-to-come of minimal regulation, and typically faces preferences for the national regulation of telecoms. ICT for development is a strategic part of ICT expansion: ICT4D is digital capitalism looking South -to growing middle classes, rising educational levels, vast cheap labor pools, regimented labor conditions, and yet difficult regulatory environments. It is about market expansion and converting unused capacity into business assets on the premise that new technology is the gateway to hope. And it is about the deepening of the market by bypassing regulations and pressing for liberalization and opening up spaces for competition and investment, and devising new regulations that will shape the future. In this context, ICT4D is a package deal in which the means of bridging the digital divide contradict the very idea of bridging the digital divide. If implemented without caution, ICT4D is a Trojan horse that locks developing countries in a software-hardware arms race that will yield never-ending compatibility problems, because ICT is essentially being designed for advanced markets. It may be true that in the information economy the cost of a copy is zero (Verzola 2004), but the cost of the delivery systems -infrastructure, hardware, software and human ware- is far from zero. ICT4D stands at the crossroads of today’s major forces in private, public and social spheres: telecoms, international institutions, states and civil society groups and cyber activists; it is a prism in which key problems of neoliberal globalization are refracted. What is at stake in contemporary globalization is both different national capitalisms, each of which is dynamic and in flux, and the interaction of capitalisms which is mediated through complex layers of technology, international finance, trade, international institutions, knowledge systems, legal standards and proprietary arrangements. From the package-character of ICT4D emerges the actual task of ICT4D, which is to unpack ICT4D so its development potential can be harnessed
TRUST IN TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS
Get PDFA curiously overlooked dimension of globalisation concerns the motivations explaining why millions of people engage in, and invest into, the increased connectedness which is taken as a premise and a startingpoint for much of the academic literature in the field. I would like to argue that trust and reciprocity, on the one hand, and humiliation andmarginalisation on the other, are in fact central aspects of transnational processes, which contribute to explaining some of their dynamics and resultant patterns. Keeping such webs of commitment alive can be hard work, but millions are prepared to pay the price
DOES AFRICA NEED MUSEUMS?
Get PDFAfrican museums are to a large extent built by the colonizers to show their compatriots what Africa is. The collections are made by foreigners to the country. The present day museums are to a large extent, if not totally, dependent on foreign money for their existence. Yet in their strategies development agencies stress culture as an important ingredient of development. What culture? Whose culture? Can African culture, mostly intangible heritage, be placed within four walls, mostly to be visited by tourists? Can foreigners choose the way a cultural identity is presented? How free are museum directors to present cultural heritage when funding comes from abroad? How can cultural heritage be preserved and presented to raise self-respect and pride and build identities? This thesis, based on a recent field study in Senegal and Mali, raises questions about development aid, cultural heritage and neocolonialism
Art in the age of siege
Get PDFIn this article, the author discusses how artists have responded to the globalization of fea
DIVIDED CITY
Get PDFThis report looks at how slum dwellers in Nairobi obtain information and what mechanisms exist in slums to ensure access to media and information in the absence of information and communication technologies (ICTs). It argues that the new “informational paradigm” presents new and exciting development challenges that, if not confronted head-on, can lead to increasing poverty and socialexclusion in countries that have been unable to make full use of the opportunities offered by ICTs. In the context of the growing urbanization of poverty and Africa’s digital exclusion, the report describes the various political, financial and infrastructure barriers that countries such as Kenya have to overcome to democratise access to media and ICTs. The report then presents the findings of research conducted by the author to determine Nairobi slum dwellers’ access to media and ICTs. One of the most significant findings is that social networks are among the most important sources of information among the urban poor in Nairobi. This suggests that “social capital” is an asset that the poor rely on to survive in the hostile and degrading environment of slums, and often a determinant of how well slum dwellers fare economically in the city. The report also found that while the impact of the Internet is minimal in slums, the use of mobile phones has grown, particularly among people working in the informal sector. This has had a positive impact on the livelihoods of the urban poor. However, the author makes a case for making other ICTs, particularly the Internet, more accessible to the urban poor: not doing so will further marginalize them and lead to Castells’s “dark urban age”
What does art matter?
Get PDFContemporary art & development in Sarajevo: 1996–2005 This article suggests that the comparative study of practicing contemporary artists offers a forward option for development theory and policy. In March 2005, the author interviewed 14 Sarajevo based artists, curators and administrators. Those interviews served to identify points of connection between artistic practice, civil society and development initiatives, as well as essential conditions of difference