Incommunicado.info
Title
incommunicado | research logs on civil society, ICT and futures of development
Description
The 'incommunicado' project critically engages the current state of 'info-development', also known as the catchy acronym 'ICT4D' (ICT for development). Before the recent “flattening of the world” (Thomas Friedman, 2005), most computer networks and ICT expertise were located in the North, and info-development mostly involved rather technical matters of knowledge and technology transfer from North to South. While still widely (and even wildly) talked about, the assumption of a 'digital divide' that follows this familiar geography of development has turned out to be too simple. Instead, a more complex map of actors, networked in a global info-politics, is emerging.
Different actors continue to promote different -and competing- visions of 'info-development'. New info-economies like Brazil, China, and India have suddenly emerged and are forming south-south alliances that challenge our sense of what 'development' is all about. Development-oriented systems (like simputers and MIT’'s $100 computer system) emerge and re-emerge. The corporate sector suddenly discovers the “bottom of the pyramid” and community computing, in their drive for markets beyond those now increasingly stagnant in the OECD countries, and among the prosperous and professional in the rest of the world.
However tempting, these new developments and particularly the emerging alliances should not be romanticized in terms of a new tri-continentalism. Brazil's info-geopolitical forays are anything but selfless. And while China's investments in Africa have already been compared to the 19th century scramble for Africa led by European colonial powers, many expect it to be soon exporting its 'Golden Shield' surveillance technologies to states such as Vietnam, North Korea, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, for all of whom it is acting as a regional internet access provider.
Contact
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- Saarbruecken --
- Germany 66111
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- +496.814163314
