End-user engagement in the design of communications services: lessons from the rural Congo

End-user engagement is considered essential when designing new sociotechnical systems, but in the context of designing large-scale infrastructural systems such as communications networks, this ideal is rarely put into practice. We examine the challenges of engaging end users in the design of communications services by exploring how communities from 15 villages in the rural Congo incorporate mobile phones into their daily lives. To analyze the changes in social and cultural capital that result from mobile phone use, we apply Bourdieu’s capital theory. This analysis exposes the difference in perceived value of the communication services between end users and the business owners of the infrastructure. The article concludes by suggesting new forms of partnership with end users to craft ways in which infrastructures and related organizations and practices can best cohere with local cultural views, specifics, beliefs, needs, or realities of concerned participants

Mobile phones for development: an information case study of mobile phone kiosk vendors in the Congo

Purpose: The paper relays an important line of Mark Hepworth’s work, which engages with information technologies and development. The paper aims to suggest a subfield of Library and Information Science (LIS) for development to reclaim the role of information services and systems for social change in rural areas. The paper looks at the extent of development gained with the advent of mobile phones. Design/methodology/approach: Rather than undertaking traditional large-scale, quantitative, context-independent and survey-type research, the paper employs a capability approach and semi-structured interviews to ascertain the experiences that mobile phone kiosk vendors in the rural Congo have of mobile phones. Findings: It was found that (1) mobile phones should be geared towards the liberation, and not utilization or commodification of humans and their needs, and (2) mobile phones are not a catalyst of human basic capabilities. Practical implications: The paper provides empirical evidence as to how an important group of mobile phone users could harness development with their mobiles. Research limitations/implications: Since the method employed is an in-depth qualitative analysis of mobile phone kiosk vendors, obtained results can be used to enrich or inform mobile phone experiences in other settings and groups. Originality/value: Most LIS literature has presented mobile phones along the lines of information freedom or access, mass subscription, adoption rates, technological and entrepreneurial innovation, micro-credits, etc. However, this paper places development at the heart of LIS debates

Experiencing sense of place in virtual and physical Avebury.

This paper discusses the findings from a project to construct a simulation of Avebury henge, a Late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age monument in SW Britain, in a 3D, virtual world environment. The aims of the study were to explore the archaeological research and interpretation necessary to plan and construct such a simulation in an interactive, online environment, to identify which aspects of visualisation and soundscape design appear to have the greatest impact upon users’ sense of place in the virtual simulation and to explore the experiences of a small group of users in the virtual simulation and the effects of those experiences upon their sense of place at the physical site. The findings from this project demonstrated that in undertaking a simulation of an ancient site, a core set of sources need to be selected to create the main parts of the simulation. There is often much debate in archaeological literature regarding the way in which archaeological findings are interpreted, and a different virtual Avebury would be constructed if different interpretations had been chosen. Any simulation of an ancient site should therefore clearly recognise and state the basis upon which it has been designed. The evaluation showed that responses to virtual environments, and the resulting effect upon responses to physical environments, are complex and personal, resulting in a range of experiences and perceptions, suggesting that the range of users’ experiences might be a more significant issue than attempting to find any general consensus on user reactions to simulated ancient sites

Autoethnography

Autoethnography is a branch of ethnography that enables a practitioner to also be a researcher and vice versa. While ethnography is concerned with the descriptive documentation of the sociocultural relationships within a given research environment, the researcher remains an observer of the situation under study. Autoethnography enables the researcher to maximize her (his) personal involvement with the action. The researcher’s lived experience is an integral part of the learning; her engagement with the context, stakeholders, and processes, along with her reflections on that engagement, is paramount to the autoethnographic methodology. Autoethnography is considered to have two clear branches: emotive and analytic. Emotive autoethnography seeks to bring the readers to an empathetic understanding of the writer’s experience. Analytic autoethnography allows for the researcher’s engagement in the situation to be included in the analysis, adding to the theoretical understanding of the social processes under study by making more interpretive use of available data. Analytic autoethnography is, therefore, particularly useful for the design phases of community-based action research in areas such as community development, health promotion, and social work. This chapter will provide an overview of methods involved in autoethnography, with focus on analytic autoethnography as an “action-oriented” method for social science researchers. Advantages and limitations will be discussed and illustrated with lived experience from the authors’ study of complex community interventions