Information society in Palestine : the human capital dimension

Includes CD-ROM in back pocke

Information and communication technologies and sustainable livelihoods : a case of selected rural areas of Tanzania

Thesis (Doctor of Phil. (Information Studies)) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have, in the recent past, attracted enormous attention as important tools for socio-economic development. However, the role of ICTs in fostering development and addressing the needs of the poor, especially in developing countries, has become the subject of a heated debate. This contestation is due to the high failure rate of the ICTs for development projects and a widening gap between the expectations of what ICTs can possibly do and the experiential reality of how these technologies are actually being used. More often than not ICTs have been regarded as a panacea or a „magic bullet‟ that will solve all development problems, with ill-conceived expectations of how they would be used. This study examined the relationship between ICTs and sustainable livelihoods in selected rural areas of Tanzania. The aim was to investigate how and for what purposes ICTs are used by people in the selected rural areas of Tanzania and to study the effect that ICTs have had on the various aspects of their livelihoods. A combination of the sustainable livelihoods framework and other ICTs for development models formed the theoretical foundation of the study. The investigation was carried out using ICT services provided by the telecentres and mobile phone services. The study was conducted in four rural districts in Tanzania which have telecentres. It used a multi-case study research design. A mixed paradigm methodology was adopted and the qualitative research was used as a dominant paradigm. Data was collected through structured interview protocols administered to 203 users and non-users of ICTs in communities surrounding the telecentres. Semi-structured interview protocols were administered to four managers of the telecentres. In addition, eight focus group discussions were conducted in communities surrounding the telecentres. An observation checklist was used to verify data obtained from managers, users and non-users of the telecentres. The study administered semi-structured interview protocols to officers from the ministry responsible for ICTs in Tanzania, that is the Ministry of Infrastructure Development (MoID), The Tanzania Communication and Regulatory Authority (TCRA) and a national research institution (The Commission for Science and Technology- COSTECH). The findings of the study indicated that, contrary to the use of mobile phones, which was characterised by greater uniformity across socio-economic groups and gender, telecentre users in the researched areas were generally young. The majority were males with higher levels of education. It was found that telecentres management have failed to take into consideration the appalling conditions of the extremely poor and disadvantaged individuals in their provision of ICT services to the community. The study established that the urban rural digital divide still exists and is still a reality in the areas reviewed, despite some efforts that are under way to bring ICTs to those communities. Old ICTs such as radio and television are not universally available. It was observed that inadequate road infrastructure makes it difficult for farmers to transport their produce to markets outside the districts, even in cases where farmers are provided with information on the availability of those markets. Inadequate electricity supply hinders large-scale uptake of ICTs in rural areas. The findings show that telecentres managers were not aware of the information needs of the communities they serve and therefore they were not in a position to meet such information needs. Due to personnel‟s inadequate skills and capacity the Ministry of Infrastructure Development did not play its policy-making function effectively. This problem, coupled with delayed implementation of important policy objectives such as the universal access policy and even the national ICT policy itself, affects the development of the ICT sector in rural areas of Tanzania. The findings further show that while the necessary conditions for access exist in all the telecentres involved in the study, sufficient conditions for access are still lacking, especially with regard to skills, awareness and affordability. On the relationship between ICT and rural livelihoods the findings of the study show that while ICTs may not fully support and sustain socio-economic development in poor communities, the impact of these technologies extends to various aspects of the livelihoods of the rural people. Economically, these technologies lead to better earnings and savings. Socially, they help in community interaction and knowledge-sharing, better follow-up for remittances and creation of savings and credit co-operative societies. In relation to human capital, the technologies‟ implications extend to ICT literacy, improved farming techniques and better access to information on new cash crops. The use of ICTs in rural areas is still faced with many barriers. These range from affordability to language problems and the lack of basic infrastructure such as electricity. Language was particularly found to be a substantial barrier to effective use and application of ICTs. The study recommends that telecentre managers should re-design programmes with the aim of bringing the under-represented groups such as farmers back to the centre of their projects, rather than treating them as passive receivers of ICT services. On the issue of mobile phones, there is a need to develop services that are nuanced towards the real needs of the rural people and incorporate them into the mobile technology. The study recommends that universal access policies should involve old ICTs such as radio and television, or people in the rural areas, who have fewer resources, will eventually pay too much for basic communication services, as in the case of satellite television and radio. Capacity-building is important, not only in the regulatory authorities, but also in the ministries responsible for ICTs and other institutions involved with ICTs, so as to provide effective national ICT leadership. The study recommends that managers of telecentres learn about the different aspects of access, in order for them to go beyond the provision of physical access to ICTs. Continuous improvement and renewal of telecentre services is necessary to ensure survival of the telecentres. Collaboration of the telecentres and other organisations, such as academic institutions, is needed to create content both for the telecentres and the community radios. Telecentres and other information systems developed or adopted to serve the people must meet the needs of the people intended to be served. This can be done by regularly conducting information needs assessment

Towards more socially inclusive smart sustainable cities: A study of smart city districts in Greater Copenhagen region

Today world’s cities are in a state of flux exhibiting complex dynamics and at the core of sustainability challenges including climate change and urbanization. At the same time cities have been acknowledged as agents of change when it comes to addressing these challenges. The urgency to address these problems has triggered cities to find smarter and innovative ways to deal with these challenges. Cities are committing themselves to smart city objectives and national governments are encouraging cities to become centers for innovation as well as drivers for sustainable growth. Smart city districts are emerging as a new form of urban living with smart solutions, technologies, products and services to address these sustainability challenges and enhance quality of life in cities. This thesis follows case study approach to explore how these emerging smart city districts are designed and governed by municipalities as smart endowments and activities of self-decisive, independent and aware citizens within Greater Copenhagen region. Focus is made on how the smart city districts are governed to catalyze co-creation and enhance social inclusion in their planning and development. Analytical models, the democracy cube and participation stairway are used to determine the potential and limits for citizen participation. The participation and engagement of citizens in form of collaborative or communicative planning forms the central focus of planning and development in the case studies investigated in this thesis. Information, consultation and dialogue form the main channels for citizen engagement in the planning process. The activities that enhance inclusive, innovative and reflective societies are seen to be a prerequisite for achieving sustainable social integration. Involvement of citizens in both planning and decision making hastens their relationships with city authorities and the opportunities for which they can further influence decisions. However, aspects of social inclusion are multi-dimensional and still remain a challenge since the cases under study are emerging from green fields. The realization of multi-channeled inclusionary approaches can act a medium for reaching a broader range of demographics and opinions

The impact of ICT expansion on promoting democracy and economic freedom in the Middle East (1995-2005)

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.The PhD study has found that ICT expansion has positively influenced democratic freedom, information sharing and dissemination and provides a public sphere for discourse among citizens of the eleven Middle Eastern countries. This thesis also found that ICT expansion positively influences economic freedom in the eleven Middle Eastern countries. However, differences between countries such as the educational attainment of their citizens and institutional resistance to ICT utilization both enhanced and restricted the relationship between ICT and economic freedom in the regio

Researching QoL change from ICT training, access and use at South African telecentres : empowerment through participatory research.

A participatory action research project, Community-based Learning, ICTs and QoL (CLIQ) conducted in four areas within KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) between 2008 and 2011, investigated whether information and communication technology (ICT) training, access and use could improve the QoL (QoL) of poorer people. Two thirds of the 113 CLIQ participants did improve their QoL, and furthermore, over three quarters of participants noted an empowering impact from their participation in CLIQ, in addition to other social and educational impacts. Initial analyses of findings found a greater likelihood of improved QoL and CLIQ impact in research areas with better project implementation and participation (Attwood et al., 2011). Initial analysis also identified factors contributing to different levels of participation and implementation (Attwood et al., 2010). With reference to literature on QoL, agency and empowerment; Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D); and participatory methodologies, a detailed analysis of the implementation of CLIQ identifies elements of the research process, methods and ethos that contributed towards participants’ empowerment. The post-field application of Kleine’s (2010b) Choice Framework (CF) to CLIQ findings, confirms the usefulness of this empowerment framework for analysing ICT4D interventions. Analysis of the variety of individual CLIQ stories reveals examples of how all of the CF’s agency resources and structural factors impacted on, or were impacted by participants’ engagement with the intervention. Specifically, this thesis illustrates how interactions between aspects of agency, structure and individual characteristics result in different degrees of empowerment and development outcomes, thereby integrating and augmenting the initial analysis of CLIQ findings. As a complex logic model, the CF accommodates the diversity and complexity of participants’ engagement with CLIQ and efforts to improve their QoL, through providing a framework which allows for multiple, recursive and emergent causality. This thesis concludes by suggesting minor adjustments that could improve the CF, including an elevation of the importance of psychological resources. Based on the empowering outcomes attributed to CLIQ’s participatory action research process, and recognising that problems facing telecentres in South Africa are the same as they were ten years ago, the thesis concludes with recommendations for public access computing in South Africa

Resilient Resistances : the self-organization of sex workers against the German Prostitute Protection Act

In 2013, sex workers in Germany began to organize collectively. Through the foundation of the Professional Association for Erotic and Sexual Service Providers, these activists sought to refute victimizing discourses and prevent the introduction of controlling and repressive legislation. Sex worker activists built on the institutionalized structures of the former German whore movement and aimed at preserving the political gains it had achieved through prostitution law reform in 2001. At the same time, sex worker activists established a form of self-organization and self-representation hitherto unknown in Germany. Despite their mobilizations, the Prostitute Protection Act was adopted in 2016 and largely ignored the political demands of sex worker activists. Scholarship examining the collective mobilizations of sex workers is still scarce, and existing works are predominantly pessimistic about their probability, durability, and impact. Scholars furthermore contend that effective policy-making on prostitution is impeded by heavy political contestations and moralization. Moreover, Europe has been the site of a profound shift towards the repression and criminalization of sex work since the turn of the century, and Germany plays a unique role within these processes due to its comparably liberal legal framework on prostitution. In spite of these challenging conditions, the self-organization of sex workers against the German Prostitute Protection Act illustrates that sex workers do operate as collective political actors. However, they remain underexplored as such in the fields of sex work research and social movement studies. Filling this gap in research, this thesis analyse the emergence, development, and outcomes of sex workers’ collective self-organization against the German Prostitute Protection Act. In doing so, I adopt a relational approach which traces the interactions between sex worker activists, their institutional context, and other political actors mobilizing in the field of prostitution politics, and show their relevance to sex workers’ political self-organization. My conceptual framework brings feminist theory into conversation with social movement scholarship. Building on a Foucauldian understanding of power, resistance, and their intimate interrelation, I flesh out the political subjectivities and agency expressed by sex worker activists, while feminist theories of democracy permit me to uncover dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within social movement processes. In order to challenge hierarchical research settings and centre sex worker activists as producers of situated knowledges, my methodological approach departs from feminist epistemologies, complicates the standardization of Participatory Action Research in sex work studies, and instead merges feminist constructivist Grounded Theory with participatory elements. I draw on ethnographic field work mainly conducted between September 2018 and August 2020, and my rich data set triangulates in-depth interviews with participant observation and document analysis. Transporting the reflexive praxis of sex work research into social movement research, I discuss ethical dilemmas I encountered throughout the project. By reconstructing the political process at the micro- and meso-level from the perspective of sex worker activists, my analysis yields crucial results. I first demonstrate how power relations inherent in German prostitution politics produced sex workers as political subjects and agents who resisted victimization and strategically reacted to the political threat presented by the Prostitute Protection Act. While sex worker activists failed in their declared goal of preventing the law, I contend that they succeeded in establishing themselves as political actors, and in building a sustained and diversifying social movement in the face of continued adversities. I then draw attention to the antagonistic dynamic between sex worker activists and anti-prostitution campaigners, and argue that contestation between a marginalized and a hegemonic political actor first spurred the former’s access to the public sphere, and eventually aggravated its political exclusion. Sex worker movements are heterogenous political actors in themselves, and activists’ social locations are shaped by intersecting power relations. I thus direct two intersectional lenses onto the German sex worker movement. First, I examine cooperative and conflictual relations within the sex worker movement, and show how sex worker activists seek to dismantle internal hierarchies by grappling with intersectional political analyses. As part of this, I expand scholarship on protest repertoires by identifying care work as an essentially political practice which ensures both the survival of marginalized communities and the social movements emerging from them. Then, I delineate the manifold and unpredictable coalition building activities which sex worker activist engage in. Here, I indicate that sex worker activists still lack durable political alliances, but show the recent progress made with respect to union organizing. Finally, sex worker activists’ efforts to forge both community and coalitions attest to a growth in intersectional consciousness and practices among them. Contrary to previous academic assessments of sex worker movements, my findings reveal sex worker activists as complex political actors whose collective mobilizations are resilient rather than fragile. In scrutinizing the transforming resistances exerted by sex worker activists, my analysis uncovers historically contingent power formations between state, feminist, and conservative actors in the field of prostitution politics, and stresses the need for relations of solidarity which bridge across the differences within the sex worker movement, as well as those between sex worker activists and other political actors. As such, my findings have further implications for the study of marginalized social movements and contemporary political contestations at the intersection of gender, sexuality, migration, and labour

Law, Culture, and the City: Urban Legal Anthropology, the Counterhegemonic Use of Hegemonic Legal Tools, and the Management of Intangible Cultural Heritage Spaces Within Toronto's Municipal Legal Frameworks

The deep process of revision needed in managing Toronto and Canadas urban intangible cultural heritage not only affects redevelopment decisions and cultural policies at the municipal level, and cultural heritage legislation and regulations at the provincial level, but it also calls for the need to address issues at the federal level, such as correctly acknowledging what terms like heritage value mean when drawn from international cultural heritage legislation and the currently unratified status of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage within Canada. Through the application of urban legal anthropology, as well as through a lens drawing on urban legal geography, this dissertation canvases cases of unequal valuation of cultural spaces linked to musical subcultures and Torontos redevelopment strategies and Music City initiatives. It then turns to what has led to this unequal valuation and examines various existing legal tools in Ontario that lend themselves to counterhegemonic application allowing for better and more equitable intangible cultural heritage protection in the city. These tools will include, for example, the Ontario Heritage Act and Regulations and Heritage Conservation Districts among others. This dissertation also turns to international legal tools, and legal tools used in other jurisdictions, for the protection of intangible cultural heritage spaces, and which could realistically be implemented within existing Canadian and Ontarian heritage legislation. Finally, the importance of community consultation practices and paths towards more equitable and engaged community consultation will be explored. These are important considerations where encouraging and engaging the cultural and artistic expression of urban citizens is essential for creating societies and sustaining cities that value and respect cultural diversity and human rights

Law, Culture, and the City: Urban Legal Anthropology, the Counterhegemonic Use of Hegemonic Legal Tools, and the Management of Intangible Cultural Heritage Spaces Within Toronto\u27s Municipal Legal Frameworks

The deep process of revision needed in managing Toronto and Canadas urban intangible cultural heritage not only affects redevelopment decisions and cultural policies at the municipal level, and cultural heritage legislation and regulations at the provincial level, but it also calls for the need to address issues at the federal level, such as correctly acknowledging what terms like heritage value mean when drawn from international cultural heritage legislation and the currently unratified status of the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage within Canada. Through the application of urban legal anthropology, as well as through a lens drawing on urban legal geography, this dissertation canvases cases of unequal valuation of cultural spaces linked to musical subcultures and Torontos redevelopment strategies and Music City initiatives. It then turns to what has led to this unequal valuation and examines various existing legal tools in Ontario that lend themselves to counterhegemonic application allowing for better and more equitable intangible cultural heritage protection in the city. These tools will include, for example, the Ontario Heritage Act and Regulations and Heritage Conservation Districts among others. This dissertation also turns to international legal tools, and legal tools used in other jurisdictions, for the protection of intangible cultural heritage spaces, and which could realistically be implemented within existing Canadian and Ontarian heritage legislation. Finally, the importance of community consultation practices and paths towards more equitable and engaged community consultation will be explored. These are important considerations where encouraging and engaging the cultural and artistic expression of urban citizens is essential for creating societies and sustaining cities that value and respect cultural diversity and human rights

The State of Open Data

It’s been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? The State of Open Data brings together over 60 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come