Beyond Transactional Democracy: A Study of Civic Tech in Canada

Technologies are increasingly enrolled in projects to involve civilians in the work of policy-making, often under the label of 'civic technology'. But conventional forms of participation through transactions such as voting provide limited opportunities for engagement. In response, some civic tech groups organize around issues of shared concern to explore new forms of democratic technologies. How does their work affect the relationship between publics and public servants? This paper explores how a Civic Tech Toronto creates a platform for civic engagement through the maintenance of an autonomous community for civic engagement and participation that is casual, social, nonpartisan, experimental, and flexible. Based on two years of action research, including community organizing, interviews, and observations, this paper shows how this grassroots civic tech group creates a civic platform that places a diverse range of participants in contact with the work of public servants, helping to build capacities and relationships that prepare both publics and public servants for the work of participatory democracy. The case shows that understanding civic tech requires a lens beyond the mere analysis or production of technical artifacts. As a practice for making technologies that is social and participatory, civic tech creates alternative modes of technology development and opportunities for experimentation and learning, and it can reconfigure the roles of democratic participants.Comment: Will appear in CSCW1 202

Education Technology Design and Deployment in HCI4D:A Nigerian Perspective

The decolonisation of knowledge has shown significant impact in reframing the understanding of technology as a means to the development of African communities. However, post-development narratives in HCI4D have failed to explicate how situated and grassroot alternatives can inform the innovative design of diverse perspectives and experience. As such, this thesis approaches this fundamental gap in our understanding of the practice of technology design and deployment by problematising conventional approaches for understanding, designing, and deploying educational technologies in the context of Nigeria. Through the adoption of a range of indigenous sensitivities, the thesis seeks to develop candidate approaches for analysing diverse cultural perspectives and for designing technologies that embody and extend them. Through the thematic analysis of empirical data, the thesis shows how stereotypical approaches to educational research and technology design presents postcolonial narratives of innovation in Nigeria as neo-colonial design agenda’s that needed to be appropriated in line with emerging conditions and relations in Africa. The interpretive analysis of the perspective of stakeholders in three Universities shows the relevance of developing context-specific pedagogical approach relevant to the politics of decolonialise blended education. The analysis also attempts to revive the arguments about the processes of technology diffusion and acceptance, showing the relevance and limit of traditional models for understanding the acceptance or rejection of technologies in an educational context. Using the Wittgensteinian approach of Winch and a range of Feminist positionalities, I attempted showing how a situated epistemological orientation can bring about envisioning alternative’s ways of articulating and translating transnational encounters and exchange of technological innovation. The sensitization and evaluation of the mundane practice of three software development firm shows the mythology of design innovation in/from Africa. This led to the consideration of how reframing the basic assumption about creativity from Africa could present African culture of innovation not merely as a passive space for the transfer and appropriation of technology but as a transitional space where innovate practices get regenerated and redistributed across already polarised boundaries of innovation. Finally, the thesis argues for an ‘ontological’ framing of designing localised and indigenous technologies. Through critical reflection on a range of issues associated with post-colonialism and post-development, I examine the possibilities that various historical tropes might offer to the reinvention of the African perspective on innovation. This leads to the consideration of how engaging in critical discussions about the future dimensions of African HCI can allow for grappling with the effect of the coloniality of being, power and knowledge. Developing on the ideas of futuring as a way of dealing with the complexities of the present – in this case the coloniality of the imagination - the thesis ends by discussing three tactical propositions for ‘remembering’ future identities of African innovation where the values of autonomy are known and acted upon