[governance] FW: [New post] Community Informatics in Brazil
michael gurstein
gurstein at gmail.com
Wed Sep 21 16:24:31 EDT 2011
This might be of interest to some and could provide a bit of background to
the current discussion particularly as it concerns Brazil.
Mike
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/author/gurstein/>
Community
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/community-informatics-in-brazil/>
Informatics in Brazil
Michael <http://gurstein.wordpress.com/author/gurstein/> Gurstein |
September 21, 2011 at 13:00 | Tags: Community
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=community-development> Development,
Community <http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=community-informatics-policy>
Informatics Policy, Community
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=community-informatics-practice>
Informatics Practice, Community
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=community-informatics-programs>
Informatics Programs, Community
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=community-research> Research, Digital
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=digital-divide> Divide, Digital
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=digital-inclusion> Inclusion, effective
use <http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=effective-use> , ICT4D
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=ict4d> , Social
<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?tag=social-inclusion> Inclusion, Telecentres
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<http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?cat=771367> Informatics, Community
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Research <http://gurstein.wordpress.com/?cat=4765261> | URL:
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I am delighted and honoured as editor of the Journal of Community
Informatics <http://ci-journal.net> to publish a special double issue on
The Internet and <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/current>
Community Informatics in Brazil. The issue itself is a very strong one and
I think it both represents and solidifies the very strong Community
Informatics range of activities and traditions in Brazil while pointing to
certain characteristics of Community Informatics in Brazil that are
potentially of interest and importance for the rest of the world.
The special issue editors, Suely Fragoso and Gilda Olinto in their
introduction <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/835> to the
issue have provided a very useful introduction to the range of issues that
are of interest from a broad CI perspective but there are a few other items
which an outsider might identify which someone closer to the scene such as
they might overlook.
A first observation and this comes out very strongly in the Fragoso and
Olinto overview as well as a number of the papers is the strong recognition
in Brazil of the social determinants of Internet use, and the need by
government through policy and programmes to respond to this so as to not
have the Internet exacerbate already significant social and economic
divisions. As a Less Developed Country rapidly moving to becoming a middle
income country, a regional power, and a member of a global group of similar
regional middle income powers Brazil very well recognizes the drag that
significant digital inequality can present to its aspirations for
development and equally the opportunities that are available as these
inequalities are being addressed.
There is a clear recognition on the part of the national and even state
governments in Brazil that responding to digital inequality is a
responsibility of the State and the result has been the assignment of
considerable public resources to responding including through the range of
programs and initiatives that Suely and Gilda and others have noted in their
papers. From the papers in this issue it is clear that the governments of
Brazil are making extraordinary efforts to broaden the base of Internet
access and use. In addition, again from the information presented in this
issue the efforts towards digital inclusion are being done with a
considerable measure of creativity and imagination reflecting in
considerable degree Brazils unique multi-ethnic and multi-cultural heritage
and building on this through linking Internet access and use to cultural
production particularly in music but also in graphics and the visual arts.
Regrettably most of these initiatives are little known outside of Brazil or
beyond Latin America or others in the Portuguese speaking world and it is
one intention of this special issue to help in a small way to overcome these
gaps.
One additional observation comes from a closer reading of the articles in
this issue and that is the close connections between the digital inclusion
efforts and programmes and Brazils long and effective experience with
community based processes and particularly community based education.
Brazil has contributed a very great deal to the practice but especially and
notably the theory of community based initiatives and community development
overall and it is of special interest and with some excitement that I note
that this issue is making a very strong set of conceptual and theoretical
connections between this tradition most notably through the work of the
Brazilian educator Paulo Freire <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire>
.
For me this was an unexpected discovery and I have been particularly
delighted to see the ways in which this community-based approach to
education and especially literacy education is being applied to processes of
digital inclusion in various regions of Brazil and with various of the more
marginalized populations. As well, and of particular note is the way in
which the theorizing in this area of the observed processes and emergent
formations of community development fits so directly into my understanding
of an emerging community informatics theory while deepening and extending
these somewhat tentative and still partial developments.
Community Informatics for many is a linking of the processes of community
development with the content, affordances and historical and technological
dynamics of Information and Communications Technologies. In the English
speaking context, and particularly through work coming from Information
Sciences and Science and Technology Studies there has been considerable
advance in understanding and to a degree in conceptualizing the processes of
technology change and the ways in which technology and particularly the
Internet provides opportunities to communities and individuals for
advancement and change. We now know quite a lot about networking, about
management at a distance, about identity in a digital environment to point
to only a few. However, from a CI perspective there has been much less
theorizing and a much shallower pool of conceptualization to draw upon when
one is looking at the community development side of the CI equation. What
are the processes and dynamics which can be enabled at the community level
which in turn can result in the absorption and effective utilization of
ICTs.
The links to the work conceptualizing community development and community
processes in Brazil goes some way, I believe towards providing a deepening
of understanding of the dynamics of communities and through certain of the
articles in this special issue we begin to see examples in practice of how
these conceptualizations can inform CI practice as well. While only two of
the articles in this issue (Alvear et al
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/658> and Maia et al
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/673> ) point specifically
to Freire as influences, several of the other articles clearly are linked
into a similar set of concerns linking technology to processes of community
enablement, recognizing community enablement and technology training and
development as a process of coming into a position of self recognition and
understanding, linking education into processes of the creation of a
self-understanding of economic and social contexts, and overall a strong
sense that in community development including for technology skills and
understanding can be most effective when understood as an emergent process
of communities and individuals coming into self-awareness. In this external
formal community supports have to be seen and introduced simply as tools
and enablers of these processes but as not the fundamental structures by
means of which these processes occur.
This linking of community process, emergent self-awareness, self and
community empowerment, with ICTs particularly for marginalized populations
is at the very core of a community informatics and thus this issue and the
practice of community informatics in Brazil has much to teach all of those
with an interest in or activities to support Community Informatics anywhere
in the world.
---------------------------------------------------
The Journal of Community Informatics has just published its latest issue at
http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej. We invite you to review the Table of
Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of
interest.
Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,
Special issue Editors: Suely Fragoso and Gilda Olinto
Editor in Chief: Michael Gurstein
Journal of Community Informatics, Centre for Community Informatics Research,
Development and Training, Vancouver CANADA Phone 604-602-0624 Fax
604-602-0624 gurstein at gmail.com <mailto:gurstein at gmail.comThe>
The
Journal of Community Informatics
Special Double Issue: The Internet and Community Informatics in Brazil Table
of Contents http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/view/29
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/issue/view/29Editorial>
_____________________________
Editorial
Special <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/834> Double
Issue: The Internet and Community Informatics in Brazil HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/834/734> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/834/735>
Gilda Olinto, Suely Fragoso
Editorial: <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/849>
Community Informatics in Brazil PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/849/726> HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/849/727>
Michael Gurstein
Points of View
Internet use <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/835> in
Brazil: speeding up or lagging behind? HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/835/724> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/835/725>
Gilda Olinto, Suely Fragoso
Articles
Participation <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/654> and
Deliberation on the Internet: A Case Study of Digital Participatory
Budgeting in Belo Horizonte HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/654/704> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/654/705>
Rafael Cardoso Sampaio, Rousiley Celi Moreira Maia, Francisco Paulo Jamil
Almeida Marques
Participatory <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/658>
Development of Technologies as a Way to Increase Community Participation:
the Cidade de Deus Web Portal Case HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/658/710> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/658/711>
Celso Alexandre Souza de Alvear, Michel Thiollent
Mastering Of <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/667>
Hypermedia Resources By Virtual Learning Communities: Possibilities And
Constraints For Interaction, Communication And Construction Of Network
Knowledge. HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/667/716> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/667/717>
Carla Lopes Rodrigues, José Armando Valente
Situating <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/657> Learning
for Digital Inclusion in the Social Context of Communities HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/657/706> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/657/707>
Fabio Nauras Akhras
Garden of <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/673>
Literacies: ICDT Contributing to the Construction of New Realities for
Digitally-Excluded Senior Citizens HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/673/718> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/673/719>
Ivan Ferrer Maia, José Armando Valente
Evaluating <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/663> ICT
Adoption in Rural Brazil: A Quantitative Analysis of Telecenters as Agents
of Social Change HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/663/714> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/663/715>
Paola Prado, Mauro Araújo Câmara, Marco Aurélio de Figueiredo
Reports
The School of <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/646> the
Future / USP: Twenty Years of Vanguard in Social Networks HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/646/701> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/646/708>
Brasilina Passarelli
The Rede <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/655> Brasil De
Bibliotecas Comunitárias: A Space For Sharing Information And Building New
Knowledge HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/655/732> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/655/733>
Elisa Campos Machado, Geraldo Moreira Prado, Abraão Antunes da Silva,
Jailton Lira, Kleber Tadashi
The <http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/660> Development of
an Information System for the Solidarity Economy Movement HTML
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/660/712> PDF
<http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/660/713>
Alan Freihof Tygel, Celso Alexandre Souza de Alvear
___________________________________________
The Journal of Community Informatics http://www.ci-journal.net
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