Workshop description

IFIP 9.4: http://ifiptc9.org/wg94/
IFIP 9.5: http://www.ifip95wg.org/

https://forms.office.com/r/v8F60KNKa9

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Digital technologies are increasingly engaged in the pursuit of socio-economic development. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) informing the global development agenda, national, supranational, and private organisations engage emerging technologies in the pursuit of global development targets, from poverty reduction to food security and access to health, education and social protection. It has been envisaged that data-for-development (D4D) will mark a new phase in the history of ICT for Development (ICT4D), devising ways for the digitisation of anti-poverty and humanitarian programmes to enable the achievement of stated development goals.

At the same time, the data-for-development orthodoxy has been largely problematised. The notion of Adverse Digital Incorporation (Heeks, 2022) has been put forward to illuminate the detrimental, rather than positive, consequences of people’s incorporation in digital systems, with multiple implications for a vision centred on digital development. Issues of algorithmic bias, data-induced injustice and outright harm perpetrated through digital systems problematise the role of the digital in society, posing pressing questions of design and data justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020; Dencik et al., 2022). In this landscape exploring people’s “digital lives” becomes increasingly important to devise ways in which injustice can be countered.

Topics of Interest

This workshop brings together the foci of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Groups 9.4, on the Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development, and 9.5, on Our Digital Lives. In tackling the data-for-development orthodoxy and the ways digital technologies shape our everyday interactions, we invite abstracts on topics including, but not limited to:

• Theorisations of data-for-development (D4D) and critical approaches to such a vision;
• Empirical studies of digital technologies in contexts of socio-economic development;
• Alternative approaches to data-for-development D4D and digital development at large;
• Studies of how technology shapes our everyday interactions;
• Studies of sustainability in development and the implications for digital technologies.

In this one-day workshop, participants are invited to present original results of their completed or ongoing research projects, discuss new research aims, challenge assumptions and forge new partnerships. The workshop will take place in-person, with the option of remote participation.

Submissions

Please send an abstract of max. 500 words to silvima@ifi.uio.no, by 15 April 2023, indicating “pre-ECIS Workshop” in the subject line. Abstracts should include: a) the title and author(s) details, b) the purpose of the research, c) the methodological areas and questions the research deals with, d) its analytical framing, and e) an outline of what the research contributes, argues and concludes in relation to the joint-workshop overall description. Notification of acceptance will be sent to authors by 30 April.

Organisers

Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo
Brad McKenna, University of East Anglia
Hameed Chughtai, Lancaster University
Kathrin Bednar, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Online participation participants should contact the organizers while on-site participants should register through the conference registration system.