Publications

This paper presents preliminary findings from a multi-sited qualitative study of poverty and information and communication technologies (ICTs) in India, Indonesia Sri Lanka and Nepal. It draws upon data gathered by 12 ethnographic action researchers working across 15 community ICT initiatives.

These local, 'embedded researchers' are part of a larger international project called Finding a Voice: Making Technological Change Socially Effective and Culturally Empowering, which includes UNESCO (South Asia) and UNDP (Indonesia), in partnership with Queensland University of Technology, the University of Adelaide and Australian Research Council, along with numerous local and regional organisations.

The idea behind this approach is that in working with a range of stakeholders such as partner organisations, local communities, ICT initiatives and community organisations these 'embedded researchers' collect data that help illuminate the breadth and depth of local poverty. In turn, such data help their particular media or ICT initiative address some of the locally relevant aspects of poverty.

The initial research of the 12 researchers explored what it means in each place to be 'poor', who are understood locally to be 'poor', their specific characteristics, their lived realities and how ICTs can contribute to poverty alleviation. This paper details some of the key findings of the research to date and contextualises them into wider discourses around ICT for development.