Posts
Digital Natives with a Cause?
— by Nishant Shah — last modified May 15, 2015 11:31 AMDigital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.
Call for Applications: 'Maps for Making Change' - Using Geographical Mapping Techniques to Support Struggles for Social Justice in India
— by Anja Kovacs — last modified Oct 05, 2015 03:04 PMDeadline: 20 November 2009. Maps for Making Change is a two-month project specifically designed for activists and supporters of social movements and campaigns in India. It provides participants with an exciting opportunity to explore how a range of digital mapping techniques can be used to support struggles for social justice. It also allows you to immediately develop and implement in practice a concrete mapping project relevant to your campaign or movement, with full technical support. Interested in joining us? Send in your application by 20 November 2009.
Rethinking the last mile Problem: A cultural argument
— by Nishant Shah — last modified Apr 03, 2015 10:54 AMThis research project, by Ashish Rajadhyaksha from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, is mainly a conceptual-archival investigation into India’s history for what has in recent years come to be known as the ‘last mile’ problem. The term itself comes from communication theory, with in turn an ancestry in social anthropology, and concerns itself with (1) identifying the eventual recipient/beneficiary of any communication message, (2) discovering new ways by which messages can be delivered intact, i.e. without either distortion of decay. Exploring the intersection of government policy, technology intervention and the users' expectations, with a specific focus on Internet Technologies and their space in the good governance protocols in India, the project aims at revisiting the last mile problem as one of cultural practices and political contexts in India.
Archives and Access: Introduction
— by Aparna Balachandran — last modified Apr 24, 2015 12:05 PMThe members of this research project team are Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore and Abhijit Bhattacharya from the Centre for the Study of Social Sciences, Calcutta. This intial post tries to outline the concerns underlining this project which will attempt to critically examine archiving practices and policies in India in order to conceptualize ideas about ownership and use towards the goal of the greatest public good; reflect on issues of digitization and access; and facilitate public conversations and the articulation of a collective voice by historians and other users on possible interventions in these institutions.
Launch of Public Juris (An Online Archive of Legal Resources)
— by Aparna Balachandran — last modified Apr 24, 2015 12:07 PMAparna Balachandran, Rochelle Pinto, and Abhijit Bhattacharya announce the launch of Public Juris, an online archive of legal resources.
Pathways to Higher Education
— by Nishant Shah — last modified Mar 30, 2015 02:52 PMThe Pathways Project to Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications (HEIRA) at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between Technologies, Higher Education and the new forms of social justice in India.
Book 1: To Be, Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?
— by Nishant Shah — last modified May 15, 2015 12:08 PMIn this first book of the Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Collection, we concentrate on what it means to be a Digital Native. Within popular scholarship and discourse, it is presumed that digital natives are born digital. Ranging from Mark Prensky’s original conception of the identity which marked all people born after 1980 as Digital Natives to John Palfrey and Urs Gasser’s more nuanced understanding of specific young people in certain parts of the world as ‘Born Digital’, there remains a presumption that the young peoples’ relationship with technology is automatic and natural. In particular, the idea of being ‘born digital’ signifies that there are people who, at a visceral, unlearned level, respond to digital technologies. This idea of being born digital hides the complex mechanics of infrastructure, access, affordability, learning, education, language, gender, etc. that play a significant role in determining who gets to become a digital native and how s/he achieves it. In this book, we explore what it means to be a digital native in emerging information societies. The different contributions in this book posit what it means to be a digital native in different parts of the world. However, none of the contribution accepts the name ‘Digital Native’ as a given. Instead, the different authors demonstrate how there can be no one singular definition of a Digital Native. In fact, they show how, contextualised, historical, socially embedded, politically nuanced understanding of people’s interaction with technology provide a better insight into how one becomes a digital native.
Digital Natives with a Cause? Report
— by Prasad Krishna — last modified Apr 17, 2015 11:04 AMYouth are often seen as potential agents of change for reshaping their own societies. By 2010, the global youth population is expected reach almost 1.2 billion of which 85% reside in developing countries. Unleashing the potential of even a part of this group in developing countries promises a substantially impact on societies. Especially now when youths thriving on digital technologies flood universities, work forces, and governments and could facilitate radical restructuring of the world we live in. So, it’s time we start listening to them.
Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Paper
— by Prasad Krishna — last modified May 08, 2015 12:22 PMThe Digital Natives with a Cause? research inquiry seeks to look at the potentials of social change and political participation through technology practices of people in emerging ICT contexts. In particular it aims to address knowledge gaps that exist in the scholarship, practice and popular discourse around an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital and Internet technologies in social transformation processes. A conference called Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon was jointly organised by CIS and Hivos in the Hague in December 2010. The Thinkathon aimed to reflect on these innovations in social transformation processes and its effects on development, and in particular to understand how new processes of social transformation can be supported and sustained, how they can inform our existing practices, and provide avenues of collaboration between Digital Natives and "Analogue Activists".
