Research papers

IT for Change has been a key resource centre supporting developing country engagements in global Internet governance forums, in the post-WSIS phase. Through periodic policy briefs, we have examined the rapidly evolving social, economic and cultural implications of Internet related debates most relevant to developing countries.

This article looks back at the Mahiti Manthana project, a joint project of IT for Change and Mahila Samakhya Karnataka which explores how women's mobilisation and organising processes can be strengthened through new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) systems. It draws conclusion about the learnings brought by the Mahiti Manthana experience, considering its meanings for development, especially in terms of negotiation of traditional gender orders in an increasingly globalised world.

A two day photo exhibition was organised in the villages Hosavaranchi (on Jun 7-8) and Attiguppe (May 31-Jun 1), in Mysore district, to showcase to the community the learning of adolescent girls who participate in the 'Kishori Chitrapata' (Images by Adolescent Girls) Project, a collaborative intervention of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), 'Mahila Samakhya' (Women of Equal Value) Karnataka (a women's empowerment intervention of the Government of India), UNICEF and IT for Change. The project aims to contribute to girls' empowerment through Information and Communication Technologies like videos, audio recorders, digital camera and computers.

Parminder Jeet Singh wrote an article for the Economic & Political Weekly, commenting on the future of the Internet after agreements between telecom companies and specific websites (e.g. Google and Verizon in the US or Facebook and Airtel in India), which challenge the principle of net neutrality.

Written and produced in collaboration with partners, the Bridge Cutting Edge Packs provide accessible overviews of the latest thinking on a gender theme and summaries of the most useful resources. Each pack includes an Overview Report, a Supporting Resources Collection and a copy of Gender and Development In Brief. In the the 'Gender and ICTs' overview section Anita Gurumurthy provides a feminist critique of ICT4D debates. 

This research paper is part of the collection of essays In search of economic alternatives for gender and social justice: Voices from India which highlights some common guiding principles for alternative economic practice and building blocks for an alternative economic paradigm.
Against the backdrop of the social landscape of South Asia, which reveals glaring faultlines of religious, linguistic and ethnic assertions and conflicts, the new communication channels of the technology age pose a huge threat to social capital and the legitimacy of nation-states.

Anita Gurumurthy presented a paper titled, 'The local-global connection in the information society: Some tentative formulations around gender, development and social change' at a London School of Economics seminar in May 2007 which focused on 'Gender and work in the global context: Theory and practice'. The paper explores the current information society context with regard to the potential of the networked local-global for greater citizenship ownership.

In this article published in International Technology and International Development (Special edition on the Harvard Forum II), Anita Gurumurthy offers a macro-structural critique that derives from an analysis of some policy texts, as well as from the first-hand experience of IT for Change. Read the article here.

Beyond the widespread economic and access-centred approach to ICTs, this think piece addresses the need to think about ICTs as a social phenomenon which impacts each of us, whether we actively use ICTs or not. ICTs have an important emancipatory potential for marginalised populations, and especially for women, as they allow the breaking of traditional gender boundaries. The article argues for politicisation of the network society in order to build a new feminist framework of resistance to work towards greater gender justice.