ICT and Development studies: Towards Development 2.0

One of my colleagues shared this paper from Mark Thompson in 2007 looking at the importance of better understanding the relationship between ICTs (although generally defined as Web 2.0 type processes) and development studies. It also looks at how the lack of integration between the two is inhibiting each other's success.
I thought the paper was interesting considering it comes at a period when Heeks has been pushing this idea as well, not to mention larger bodies such as the ICTD conference circuit (the fact that there is a debate between the notions of "ICT4d" - considered a technologically deterministic, almost normative notion and "ICTD" which takes a neutral approach to the relationship between technology and development is also telling). This tension is at the heart of our own programming (or at least in my own head), as we want, on the one hand, to foster critique of the field (with the goal of ensuring a body of knowledge exists that helps to inform us on the conditions necessary for interventions to succeed), but also want to foster positive change and test innovations (advocating or intervening for positive change should always be based on evidence, however in the case of issues related to new technologies evidence doesn't always exist). One of the ways of dealing with that tension is ensuring that research and interventions are grounded or aware of prevalent theoretical constructs and frameworks. This is essentially what both Heeks and Thompson argue.

The interesting argument from Thompson, is that, in his view there is a sense of urgency. One the one hand, ICT investments and activities are growing tremendously in developing countries (think mobiles) and yet development researchers haven't fully been able to appreciate their impact. This, in turn, means that ICT interventions are often devoid of thinking about broader issues related to the political economy or other power dynamics. Moreover, Thompson sees Web 2.0 processes as an enormous potential for traditional development thinking, as it can have an incidence on each of the key debates (participation, critical modernism, clinical economics, new institutional theory).

I question some of his enthusiasm for Web 2.0/KM/KS processes, especially considering some of failed experiences with OKN and other larger user-generated content/social production type activities, but mobiles certainly put a potential new spin to it. the most interesting point for me, is how neatly ICTs fit into many of the current theories of development:

• "participation": no brainer, Thompson could have added hundreds of other examples, from people power in the Philippines to strengthening social capital and agency
  
• critical modernism: the facilitation of participation evidently leads to the facilitation of participatory development experimentation, that one can continually learn from;
• clinical economics: the weakest of the arguments in my view, especially considering that so much of the evidence points towards minimal instrumental use of new technologies, like mobiles (notably from Donner, who he strangely cites as positive evidence for his thesis)
• new institutional theory: the ability of technology to be disruptive and change the way people work has an incredible effect on power relationships and institutions

My principal critique of Thompson's paper is the over-emphasis of the term Web 2.0, which means so little to be people outside the IT world and is also generally associated with savvy marketing. The key point is to understand how we can harness an evolution of technology that now includes the ability to produce and share information at a grander scale than could have ever been imagined by early ICT4D practitioners, particularly through the advent of mobiles. As far as I'm concerned, the relationship between mobile (a pervasive technology in developing countries) and the Web (or Web 2.0 in this case) is key: will web 2.0 work effectively on a mobile platform?

AU: Mark Thompson
TI: Ict and development studies: Towards development 2.0
SO: Journal of International Development
VL: 20
NO: 6
PG: 821-835
YR: 2008
CP: Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ON: 1099-1328
PN: 0954-1748
AD: University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
DOI: 10.1002/jid.1498
US: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jid.1498