[P2P-F] Fwd: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

Sun Sep 18 21:31:19 CEST 2011

Dear Chris,

Could you post this on Ning? I'll make a summary later for the regular blog
...

greetings from amazing Istanbul ..

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Prasad Krishna <prasad at cis-india.org>
Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 1:01 AM
Subject: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>

Dear Michel Bauwens,

 Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

Hivos (The Hague) and The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore)
consolidate their 3 year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth,
technology and change in the 4 book collective "Digital AlterNatives with a
cause?". This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah
and Fieke Jansen,asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and
practice around 'digital revolutions' in a post MENA (Middle East - North
Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and
produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and
research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate
structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging
contexts from the Global South. The books are available for a free download
in a .pdf format.

*Introduction*

In the 21st Century, we have witnessed the simultaneous growth of internet
and digital technologies on the one hand, and political protests and
mobilisation on the other. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social
communication, economic expansion, political protocols and governmental
mediation are undergoing a significant transition, across in the world, in
developed and emerging Information and Knowledge societies.

The young are often seen as forerunners of these changes because of the
pervasive and persistent presence of digital and online technologies in
their lives. The “ Digital Natives with a Cause?” is a research inquiry that
uncovers the ways in which young people in emerging ICT contexts make
strategic use of technologies to bring about change in their immediate
environments. Ranging from personal stories of transformation to efforts at
collective change, it aims to identify knowledge gaps that existing
scholarship, practice and popular discourse around an increasing usage,
adoption and integration of digital technologies in processes of social and
political change.

*Methodology*

In 2010-11, three workshops in Taiwan, South Africa and Chile, brought
together around 80 people who identified themselves as Digital Natives from
Asia, Africa and Latin America, to explore certain key questions that could
provide new insight into Digital Natives research, policy and practice. The
workshops were accompanied by a ‘Thinkathon’ – a multi-stakeholder summit
that initiated conversations between Digital Natives, academic researchers,
scholars, practitioners, educators, policy makers and corporate
representatives to share learnings on new questions: Is one born digital or
does one become a Digital Native? How do we understand our relationship with
the idea of a Digital Native? How do Digital Natives redefine ‘change’ and
how do they see themselves implementing it? What is the role that
technologies play in defining civic action and social movements?  What are
the relationships that these technology based identities and practices have
with existing social movements and political legacies? How do we build new
frameworks of sustainable citizen action outside of institutionalisation?

*Rationale*

One of the knowledge gaps that this book tries to address is the lack of
digital natives’ voices in the discourse around them. In the occasions that
they are a part of the discourse, they are generally represented by other
actors who define the frameworks and decide the issues which are important.
Hence, more often than not, most books around digital natives concentrate on
similar sounding areas and topics, which might not always resonate with the
concerns that digital natives and other stake-holders might be engaged with
in their material and discursive practice. The methodology of the workshops
was designed keeping this in mind. Instead of asking the digital natives to
give their opinion or recount a story about what we felt was important, we
began by listening to their articulations about what was at stake for them
as e-agents of change. As a result, the usual topics like piracy, privacy,
cyber-bullying, sexting etc. which automatically map digital natives
discourse, are conspicuously absent from this book. Their absence is not
deliberate, but more symptomatic of how these themes that we presumed as
important were not of immediate concerns to most of the participants in the
workshop who are contributing to the book*.*

*Structure*

The conversations, research inquiries, reflections, discussions, interviews,
and art practices are consolidated in this four part book which deviates
from the mainstream imagination of the young people involved in processes of
change. The alternative positions, defined by geo-politics, gender,
sexuality, class, education, language, etc. find articulations from people
who have been engaged in the practice and discourse of technology mediated
change. Each part concentrates on one particular theme that helps bring
coherence to a wide spectrum of style and content.

*Book 1: To Be: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download
here<http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=648&qid=91900>
*

The first part, *To Be*, looks at the questions of digital native
identities. Are digital natives the same everywhere? What does it mean to
call a certain population ‘Digital Natives”? Can we also look at people who
are on the fringes – Digital Outcasts, for example? Is it possible to
imagine technology-change relationships not only through questions of access
and usage but also through personal investments and transformations? The
contributions help chart the history, explain the contemporary and give
ideas about what the future of technology mediated identities is going to
be.

*Book 2: To Think: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download
here<http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=649&qid=91900>
*

In the second section, *To Think,* the contributors engage with new
frameworks of understanding the processes, logistics, politics and mechanics
of digital natives and causes. Giving fresh perspectives which draw from
digital aesthetics, digital natives’ everyday practices, and their own
research into the design and mechanics of technology mediated change, the
contributors help us re-think the concepts, processes and structures that we
have taken for granted. They also nuance the ways in which new frameworks to
think about youth, technology and change can be evolved and how they provide
new ways of sustaining digital natives and their causes.

*Book 3: To Act: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download
here<http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=650&qid=91900>
*

*To Act* is the third part that concentrates on stories from the ground.
While it is important to conceptually engage with digital natives, it is
also, necessary to connect it with the real life practices that are
reshaping the world. Case-studies, reflections and experiences of people
engaged in processes of change, provide a rich empirical data set which is
further analysed to look at what it means to be a digital native in emerging
information and technology contexts.

*Book 4: To Connect : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download
here<http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=651&qid=91900>
*

The last section, *To Connect*, recognises the fact that digital natives do
not operate in vacuum. It might be valuable to maintain the distinction
between digital natives and immigrants, but this distinction does not mean
that there are no relationships between them as actors of change. The
section focuses on the digital native ecosystem to look at the complex
assemblage of relationships that support and are amplified by these new
processes of technologised change.

We see this book as entering into a dialogue with the growing discourse and
practice in the field of youth, technology and change. The ambition is to
look at the digital (alter)natives as located in the Global South and the
potentials for social change and political participation that is embedded in
their interactions through and with digital and internet technologies. We
hope that the book furthers the idea of a context-based digital native
identity and practice, which challenges the otherwise
universalistunderstanding that seems to be the popular operative right
now. We see this
as the beginning of a knowledge inquiry, rather than an end, and hope that
the contributions in the book will incite new discussions, invoke
cross-sectorial and disciplinary debates, and consolidate knowledges about
digital (alter)natives and how they work in the present to change our
futures*.*

*Contact us: nishant at cis-india.org and fjansen at hivos.nl if you want more
information, resources, or dialogues*

Nishant Shah

Fieke Jansen

Thank you

Prasad Krishna
Publication Manager
Centre for Internet and Society
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