International Federation for Information Processing, 05/00

Technical committee 9: Computers and Society (www.uta.fi/jarjestot/ifip/) Working Group 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (is.lse.ac.uk/ifipwg94/)

Conference 2000
Cape Town, South Africa
May 24-26 2000

CALL FOR PAPERS (Full call via the above websites)

Information Flows, Local Improvisations and Work Practices

The conference will focus on the role of information and communication, both IT and non-IT mediated, in supporting processes of socio-economic development. This will be addressed through three major themes: the nature of information flows; local improvisations; and work practices.

The information flow between practitioners, researchers and policy-makers, NGOs and aid agencies in developing countries is of paramount importance to achieve results when implementing projects involving ICT. Too often, this flow is uni-directional or totally hindered, resulting in one-sided, often top-down attempts at deploying ICT for development. The literature abounds with stories of such "failures." This conference instead, intends to focus on success stories, or at least guidelines for success, and would welcome contributions of this nature.

Several authors make it abundantly clear that solutions from the developed world cannot merely be implemented in the developing world with the expectation that results similar to those achieved elsewhere would also accrue in the new context. Local adaptations or improvisations are necessary. Such improvisations are already taking place in many contexts, and we should try to understand their nature , and what can we learn from them for other situations. Efforts should be focused on seeing how technology can be adapted to the local cultural context, for instance, and not the other way around. Technology should be flexibly implemented and applied, not brought in as a prescriptive solution for local problems.

In the end, the information flows and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have to be meaningfully integrated into the work practices for them to be really useful. We have slowly realized that transformation of work practices is no trivial matter, and very often constitutes the final reason why ICT projects do not achieve their intended developmental results. Often, little respect is shown for existing work practices, and instrumental attitudes that guide implementation arrogantly expect workers to adapt to more "productive" and "efficient" practices. This view is limited because often in the process we tend to forget that development is all about people, and their well-being.Nature of submissions

We are interested in receiving Research Papers, Research in Progress Reports, Case Studies and proposal for panel discussions.

Deadline for Submissions

An abstract of 500 words to be submitted by 31 August 1999 (with extensions possible). Notification of Acceptance of Abstracts by 30 Sept, 1999. Complete Papers to be submitted by November 30, 1999. Requests for revisions to be given to the authors by Jan 15 2000. Final papers to be received by 28 Feb 2000.

Organising Committee

Jonathan Miller Conference Co-Chair
jonmil@icon.co.za

Dewald Roode Conference Co-Chair
jdroode@postino.up.ac.za

Sundeep Sahay Programme Chair
sundeep.sahay@ualberta.ca

Peter Aspinall Chair, Local Organising Committee Peter@sbs.co.za

Programme Committee

Geoff Walsham
Cambridge, UK

Chrisanthi Avgerou
London, UK

Shirin Madon
London, UK

Eric Monteiro
Draguol, Norway

Jorn Braa
Oslo, Norway

Richard Heeks
Manchester, UK

Mikko Korpela
Kuopio, Finland

Subhash Bhatnagar
Ahemdabad, India

S. Krishna
Bangalore, India

Victor Prochnik
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Krisana Kitigadisay
Bangkok, Thailand

Cesar Macias-Chapula
Mexico D.F, Mexico

Abiodun O. Bada
Department of Information & Communications Manchester, UK

Roger Harris
Sarawak, Malaysia

Renata Lebre La Rovere

G. Harindranath
London, UK

LJ Phahlamohlaka
Pretoria, South Africa

Paul S Licker
Cape Town, South Africa

Leiser Silva
Edmonton, Alberta

Natalia Volkow
Mexico

Effat El Shooky
Cairo, Egypt