{"id":774,"date":"2020-11-12T15:14:06","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T15:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict202group5\/?p=774"},"modified":"2024-04-19T09:08:03","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T09:08:03","slug":"blogging-reflections-of-a-beginner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict202group5\/2020\/11\/12\/blogging-reflections-of-a-beginner\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging \u2013 A Beginner\u2019s Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aina, Nina, Rozarina, Sorina and I put together this blog in six weeks. As reflected in the theme that brough us together \u2013 i.e. \u201cNew Media, Social Movements and Development\u201d \u2013 Five4ThePeople is a blog of mostly amateurs exploring the link between new media, development and any types of activism we were drawn to write about. Our understanding of these three concepts was anything but uniform. Perhaps because it perfectly reflects the wide assortment of our themes, the definition of new media\u00a0Rozarina uses<\/a>, i.e. \u201ceverything that is delivered digitally to you\u201d remains my preferred.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, topics ranged from digital violence to censorship as a threat to Uganda\u2019s digital economy, to initiatives tackling digital divides such as Proto and its battle against \u201c(local) language barriers\u201d, to the role of digital gaming in bringing about a more equitable future to how digital spaces such as stock image databases reinforce stereotypes about the regions of Africa and South Asia. I blogged about #HairActivism, the #WhatsApper in the Global South and one single activist\u2019s unusual journey from the streets of Bujumbura to heading Amnesty International Canada. In addition, I, together with Nina, co-authored in conversational format a blog post on Leo Fidjeland and Linnea V\u00e5glund\u2019s Nonhuman Nonsense Project.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Predictably, social movements were a main Five4ThePeople theme. Perhaps equally unsurprising is how a feminism lens arose as overarching throughout not just our blogposts as it has been noted by my fellow bloggers, but also in most of our peers\u2019 blogs. Looking back at my own blogposts, I see a common thread emerging and, as I will argue in this closing post, this mainly results from my understanding of both development and social movements. What follows is an attempt at summarizing my experience over the last six weeks. I will subsequently highlight challenges encountered and lessons learned during my short but energising journey in the world of bloggers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Development <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, my understanding of development mostly draws from Amartya Sen\u2019s 1999 work Development as Freedom<\/em> and his argument that development is about advancing freedom and removing the conditions of unfreedom.  Here, one specificity that comes with applying ICTs to development or ICT4D as noted by Heeks (2017:13 \u2013 chapter 1) is that when certain potentials or \u201caffordances<\/em>\u201d are realised, they are \u201cvery similar to Amartya Sen\u2019s notion of potential capabilities and realised functionings.\u201d It is important to note that this remains true whether achieved by an individual or an organisation. And as I noted in my second blog on the WhatsApper<\/a>, information as an affordance made possible by ICT4D applications only has value when it feeds in the \u201cDAR\u201d or decision-action-result<\/em> steps of Heeks\u2019 CIPSODAR value chain (adapted from Lucey 2005 and Laudon & Laudon 2016). In short, the model is a summary of details involved when data is processed into information and information into knowledge. An information system\u2019s core part consists of the CIPSO steps whereas the second part is made of DAR steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capture (data is first gathered from its source), Input (data is entered into the information system), Process (data is manipulated by categorising it, or filtering it, or totalling it, or performing some other calculation on it), Store (data is held in the information system), and Output (processed data is communicated to a recipient). [\u2026] \u201cDAR\u201d steps: Decision (the recipient makes a decision on the basis of the information received), Action (some action is taken on the basis of that decision), and Result (this action has some impact on development). <\/p>CIPSODAR value chain by Heeks (2017, adapted from Lucey 2005 and Laudon & Laudon 2016)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Heeks\u2019 (2017:7, 8) emphasis here is that, although the process of turning information first into decisions<\/em> and secondly into actions<\/em> before results<\/em> are borne may take time, this is the stage that impacts development and, importantly, that builds one\u2019s \u201cframeworks of knowledge\u201d. Knowledge is therefore \u201cnever consumed in a vacuum\u201d and I would like to add to Heeks statement that knowledge never exists in a vacuum.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take for instance Fidjeland and V\u00e5glund\u2019s planetary personhood project <\/a>which, by seeking citizenship for \u201cAllan Hills 84001\u201d or rock 84001 who or that arrived on Earth some 13,000 years ago, challenges our human systems of categorization and the institutions that classify between \u201cbeings with rights\u201d on the one hand and \u201cobjects as property\u201d on the other. During our virtual conversation<\/a>, Nina and I have pondered the question of whether the initiative can be read as constitutive of one or more larger social movements. Nina who introduced me to the project and with whom I cowrite on the topic makes the observation <\/strong>that the choice to grant Allan Hills 84001 an EU (Swedish) passport may not be happenstance. I cannot help but wonder if \u2013 whether consciously or not \u2013 this done as a way to link the project to social and\/or ecological movements such as #RefugeesWelcome, #LeaveNoOneBehind and #NoWallsNoBorders and therefore further highlight how nonsensical it is to separate the nonhuman from the human. Fidjeland and V\u00e5glund ask more questions than they offer answers. Theirs seems a humble project aiming at provoking self-reflection; at least that is how I understand it. Concurrently, I am reminded of the designation of \u201cmovement society\u201d and of Della Porta and Diani\u2019s (2006) suggestion that we might be living in one. In any case, whether for the benefit of humans or #NonHumansNonSense, it could be argued that freedom is central to these movements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Social Movements <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, I often went back to the following definition of social movements during this period: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social movements can be viewed as collective enterprises seeking to establish a new order of life. They have their inception in a condition of unrest, and derive their move power on one hand from dissatisfaction with the current form of life, and on the other hand, from wishes and hopes for a new system of living. The career of social movement depicts the emergence of a new order of life.<\/p>Bulmer\u2019s (1969, qtd. in Crossley 2002:3)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What sparks my interest here is the linking of the \u201ccollective enterprise\u201d to the \u201ccondition of unrest\u201d. While I do not dismiss the possibility of a shared discomfort, uneasiness or discontent, I would posit that such sentiments begin and end at the level of the individual. Going back to Amartya Sen (2000: xii, qtd. in Corbridge 2006:232), the depiction of \u201cvarious types of unfreedoms that leave people with little opportunity of exercising their reasoned agency\u201d drives this point home. It is true that social movements are collective enterprises and unrest at society level is caused by various types of unfreedoms. Ultimately, however, freedom is a very individual concept in that exercising the reasoned agency these unfreedoms impede can hardly be limited to the setting of a group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This could be said about the freedom an activist such as Ketty Nivyabandi and her peers<\/a> experienced in taking to the streets of Bujumbura in order to defend Burundi\u2019s constitution against violation in 2015. The collective is illustrated by Ketty\u2019s and her peers\u2019 decision not to let one President and his political party risk the peace Burundians had \u201cso much worked towards\u201d as well as in their shared status as women in a society where female voices are not often heard publicly. The individual would be the various, practical ways in which their dissatisfaction and that of the mostly young protestors that also took to the street was manifest every day prior to the 2015 #BurundiCrisis. My fourth blog post may have zoomed in on one woman\u2019s \u201cactive citizenship\u201d<\/a>, but women\u2019s agency or lack thereof remains undeniably relevant if a new order of life is to emerge in Burundi. It would not be far-fetched to state that the cries of Burundian women before, during and after the 2015 uprising find echo in Sen\u2019s important account of gender discrimination or \u201ccapability deprivation of women\u201d (Corbridge 2006:233). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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