New media practices in India: bridging past and future, markets and development

This article provides a review of the academic and popular literature on new media practices in India, focusing on the country’s youth's use of mobile phones and the Internet, as well as new media prosumption. One particular feature of the Indian case is the confluence of commercial exploitation of new media technologies and their application for development purposes in initiatives that aim to bring these technologies to marginalized segments of the Indian population. Technology usage in turn is shaped by the socioeconomic location of the user, especially in regards to gender and caste. The potential of new media technologies to subvert such social stratifications and associated norms has inspired much public debate, which is often carried out on the Internet, giving rise to an online public sphere. In all of the writings reviewed here, the tension surrounding new media technologies as a meeting place of the old and the new in India is paramount

The New Middle-Class, Technology and Modernity in Seelampur

From introduction: My paper studies a globally acclaimed experiment in computer literacy and cultural capital in Seelampur, located on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh state border. In late 2003, Datamation, a prominent private, Delhi based Information Technology firm, with partial funding from UNESCO and the Delhi state government, established computer literacy and e-commerce development projects in Zaffarabad in Seelampur. Seelampur is a diverse community but like the rest of the area, Zaffarabad is largely a settlement of informal working class Muslims. State violence and dominant middle-class interests have historically colluded to create Seelampur. During the National Emergency years in 1975-1977, residents of Seelampur were given small plots of land in exchange for demolitions of their homes and forced sterilization at the same time that middle-class groups received tax breaks (Tarlo, 2003). Over the decades, the Delhi government has raided and razed homes and businesses in Seelampur, enforcing its policies on slum clearance and recently, its controversial environment laws on closure of several manufacturing industries that are an integral part of the local and national economy

Why do aid information management systems fail? Understanding global diffusion of data-driven development initiatives and sustainability failure in the case of Indonesia

Aid information management systems (AIMS) have been implemented in aidreceiving countries with the hope that they will enable donors and recipient governments to share aid information, enhance data governance and aid coordination among stakeholders. Despite the global popularity of data-driven development initiatives and heavy investment in AIMS, many systems have not fulfilled the expected outcomes. This research seeks to explain this failure from an information systems perspective. Building on a historical overview of AIMS implementation, I first develop an understanding of how such systems evolved and how the visions of aid effectiveness norms that AIMS inscribed have changed over time alongside the shifting global aid governance. This overview clearly shows that, in many cases, AIMS did not attain the result anticipated, and often failed to reach sustainability. I then investigate this sustainability failure, through an interpretive case study of Indonesian AIMS. I trace the change of international and domestic aid governance that shaped the unique context of AIMS in the emerging economy. Investigating the role of state actor, I argue that understanding the failure of AIMS requires a shift of attention from the process of aid management within a country to the global level. It needs to be seen as a result of macro-level events occurring in the global field of aid. In the dynamics of global power relations, the role of technology is multifaceted—a mixture of managerial and rationalizing, as well as symbolic and political roles

Machina ex deos. Successes and challenges of implementing mobile computing technologies for development. The experience of nine Indian village health projects using a project-issued mobile application

As mobile computing technologies become increasingly functional and affordable, global donor and local development organizations find ways to justify and fund their use in grassroots development work. This dissertation asks two questions: (1) In resource-constrained social sector settings, what project features govern and structure use of work-issued mobile devices? And: (2) How do decision-makers adjust to maximize the benefit of newly-introduced devices while minimizing new burdens to the project and project staff? More simply, what variables under social sector projects’ control might promote successful use of information and communication technologies in development (ICTD) projects? This research represents systematic, qualitative comparison of nine extended deployments of a popular mobile health application, CommCare. Each studied project deployed devices loaded with CommCare to health workers in India as a supportive job aid and/or a data collection tool to help monitor beneficiary populations’ health status and frontline workers’ work. This dissertation examines the conditions under which these health workers were able and willing to use CommCare devices in their jobs, and whether and how they deviated from the use of those devices prescribed by their supervisors. Primary data for this study come from 62 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, extensive review of project documents, and personal observations from field study in India over six months in 2013. Employing a sociotechnical lens and a principal agent model, my data support expectations that use of CommCare devices would help align community health workers’ behavior with their supervisors’ organization and mission-related priorities. Use of the devices improved health workers’ professional competence and improved communications, data quality, and data access. These improvements facilitated project supervisors’ monitoring of health workers and beneficiaries, and funders’ monitoring of projects. Contradicting expectations, use of CommCare devices also weakened organizational oversight and control through new data challenges and increased health worker autonomy in their personal and professional lives. These dual benefits and challenges ultimately served the overall projects’ missions.Public Affair

Beyond greed: why armed groups tax

Based on a review of the diverse practices of how armed groups tax, we highlight that a full account of why armed groups tax needs to go beyond revenue motivations, to also engage with explanations related to ideology, legitimacy, institution building, legibility and control of populations, and the performance of public authority. This article builds on two distinct literatures, on armed groups and on taxation, to provide the first systematic exploration of the motivations of armed group taxation. We problematize common approaches toward armed group taxation and state-building, and outline key questions of a new research agenda

Community multimedia centers in Mozambique: exploring and experimenting co-design

The overall aim of this doctoral thesis was to elucidate the premises and conditions in which a co-design approach can be used with rural communities in Mozambique and the usage of Information and communication technologies for development as a tool for supporting rural communities on daily activities. The doctoral thesis includes five papers, a systematic literature review, and four case studies. The literature review (I) provides an overview of 34 studies that describe the implementation of co-design with rural communities. In the review, papers published between 2002 and 2013 were clustered in three groups – information system, social design, and ICT4D. The analysis provided insightful information about the knowledge and taxonomies required to understand how actually co-design can be used to support communities. While the conventional development paradigm asserted that developing countries could be propelled to growth path by knowledge emanating from developed nations, new approaches give priority to design partnerships and participation by the local civil society as the best method to achieve sustainable development. Paper (II) describes a case study implemented in the Morrumbene district (Mozambique), which emphasizes the need to explore design spaces and meaningful dialogs to share past experiences and contextual knowledge. Data were collected via focus group sessions, which had as participant’s people from the local community, the CMC staff, and two researchers. Findings from the Morrumbene case show that an equalitarian approach where all participants’ ideas and perceptions are taken into consideration provides an artefact that unifies ideas and perceptions. It also creates conditions for individuals with social and political differences to work together, share ideas and competencies. Paper (III) brings a case study implemented in the Quelimane municipality. The case outlines a design perspective that brings up proactivity and trust as additional condiments to be taken into consideration while co- designing. Papers (IV) e (V) provides understanding on how co-design can be used to produce sustainable services for the community. The cases analyse aspects that hinder – or even stop – intended positive ICT4D benefits to becoming a reality. The case studies here presented were performed in the three regions of Mozambique (south, central and north), with social groups with different education level, language, and social status working towards the same objective. The findings of this thesis could be used to develop a plan to support CMC and to further improve rural community’s usage and adoption of ICT. CMC services are an important endeavour with significant payoff in communities’ daily lives and activities. This thesis also contributes to a more complete, balanced, and grounded image of how CMCs and local communities can work together to create socially and financially sustainable services

The complex position of the intermediary in telecenters and community multimedia centers

The critical role of the information intermediary in supporting community participation in telecenters and community multimedia centers [CMCs] has been recognized for some time. However, the literature has largely taken a neutral/ positive perspective (that the center manager/staff are necessary social connectors and should ensure equitable access) or a negative one (that they may replicate hierarchies, be unwilling to help, or direct users toward “undesirable” information). Drawing on how identities are embedded within and formed by networks, this article takes a third perspective: Telecenter and CMC information intermediaries are in the complex positions of brokers and translators, and their roles are constantly negotiated and performed within multiple, dynamic, and constructed networks. This interpretive, narrative analysis of interviews with the center manager and staff at Voices CMC in India illustrates that intermediaries can be in an ontologically insecure position, bridging these multiple networks, but can also navigate their roles and create their “spaces of development” within these same networks. Therefore, the article argues that it should not be taken for granted that these intermediaries are simply executing policy; instead, further research into how they interpret and perform it in vernacular terms is necessary because this, in turn, can shape user perception of CMCs and telecenters

When do developing countries negotiate away their corporate tax base?

Developing countries have concluded thousands of bilateral tax treaties, which restrict their ‘taxing rights’ over international investment. Qualitative case studies of these negotiation outcomes emphasize power politics, knowledge asymmetries and negotiating capability in the eventual distribution of taxing rights between signatories, yet such insights are absent from cross‐country quantitative work. This paper bridges the gap by replicating two quantitative studies, introducing new data on countries' ability to mobilize tax revenue and the outcomes of tax treaty negotiations. It provides statistical support for the insights from qualitative research. The size of a government's revenue base, and its reliance on corporate tax, might affect the salience of the revenue sacrifice in policy makers' minds. These variables influence the likelihood of signing a tax treaty and the particular concessions made. Power asymmetries between signatories lead to more unequal distributions of taxing rights away from developing countries, in contrast to the findings of earlier studies. Developing countries also become better negotiators as they gain experience

Taxing Africa

Taxation has been seen as the domain of charisma-free accountants, lawyers and number crunchers – an unlikely place to encounter big societal questions about democracy, equity or good governance. Yet it is exactly these issues that pervade conversations about taxation among policymakers, tax collectors, civil society activists, journalists and foreign aid donors in Africa today. Tax has become viewed as central to African development. Written by leading international experts, Taxing Africa offers a cutting-edge analysis on all aspects of the continent’s tax regime, displaying the crucial role such arrangements have on attempts to create social justice and push economic advancement. From tax evasion by multinational corporations and African elites to how ordinary people navigate complex webs of ‘informal’ local taxation, the book examines the potential for reform, and how space might be created for enabling locally-led strategies. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com