This course can be followed as part of a BA specialisation Development in Place.
(onderdeel van BA Culturele Antropologie en Ontwikkelingssociologie)
Course Description
This course explores the development in and of cyberspace, paying attention to specific cultural settings while studying information and communication technology such as the Internet, mobile phones, GPS as well as new developmental practices that make use of such technologies.
The 21st century has seen the emergence of a new information order that confronts us with both new challenges and old contradictions. The aims and consequences of technological ‘advancement’ are very different for those born in the rich North and the poor South. But they also affect people differently as a result of class, national context, political opinion, or residence in the urban metropolis or its rural hinterlands. These contradictions become physically manifest as call-centers are outsourced to cheap-labor markets such as India and The Philippines, and e-waste is dumped in African countries, while the politically powerful around the globe have claimed the bulk of ICT infrastructure. A new approach, known as Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) addresses the struggle against this growing digital divide: the division between those who have access to ICT, and those who do not. ICT4D discourse in international bodies such as the United Nations, e-ASEAN or the World Bank’s InfoDev-program, seems to aspire to a digital revolution that was hitherto the domain of the techno-nationalist dreams of state and industry. In this course, we will scrutinize the call for ICT4D, starting by discussing whether the idea of the information society is universally applicable or rather a somewhat Eurocentric construction. We will broaden formal government, business perspectives and NGO views by those informed by user-led innovations and alternative strategies. From Nigerian spammers and GPS use by local Sri Lankan fishers, to cannibalized phones and hactivism in Indonesia; our focus will be on the other side of the digital divide. We advocate the inclusion of such views in debates on the digitally deprived, along with users’ strategies for participation in the information era.
Domestication, subversion and often outright refusal to adapt new technologies are our starting points in asking what social scientists have to contribute to the current ICT4D debate. Technological advancements have been used as part of active resistance movements, struggles for human rights, and global democracy, from television to contemporary use of wikis, email lists and websites. Protests against the new information order, then, have resulted not only in resistance to technology but also to technologies of resistance. Shouldn’t we, as social scientists, be insisting on the use of open source software, freely distributable culture, and hence the principles of ‘copy left’? And what is our role in the emergence of other ICT initiatives, for example, the creation of virtual heritage centers and the repatriation of indigenous objects? This course offers an anthropological perspective on a more equitable information society in which, through equal access to information and technology, everyone has the opportunity to develop him or herself.
Coordination
Dr. Bart Barendregt: barendregt@fsw.leidenuniv.nl ; room nr. 3A38 (Pieter de la Court Building)
Methods of Instruction
Lectures (hoorcollege) 24 hrs = 36 sbu
Group discussions (werkgroepen) 12 hrs = 24 sbu
Study of literature (+/- 1000 pp) and weekly assignments about it = 170 sbu
Final paper 6 pp = 48 sbu
Total 280 sbu (10 ECTS)
Literature
Webster, Frank (ed.), 2004, the Information Society reader. London, Routledge (a selection of 200 pp)
Recent and relevant journal articles, made available electronically through the University Library (400 pp)
Kelty, Christopher M. (2008) Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Available as paperback from Duke University Press and available as free download at <http://twobits.net/pub/Kelty-TwoBits.pdf>
Examination
Weekly AQCI assignments (1 page per week)
Participation in discussions
Presence in class (at least 10 out of 12 sessions should be attended)
Final paper (6 pages)
Time-table
Time: Thursday 17 September – 3 December 2009, 10-13 h.
Location: room 1A11, Pieter de la Court building
Registration
Only the following categories of students can register for this course:
Students enrolled for the BA programme “Culturele antropologie en ontwikkelingssociologie”:
Inschrijving mogelijk van 1 juli t/m 25 augustus 2009 via het secretariaat CA-OS, kamer 3A19, tel. 5273469, e-mail: secrcaos@fsw.leidenuniv.nlInternational exchange students:
For application please follow regular procedure through International Office, or contact the departmental coordinator N. Osterhaus-Simic.