The "cyber summit" and women: Incorporating gender into information and communication technology UN policies

Frontiers

Volumn 26, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 71-89

  Cooks, Leda ^a   Isgro, Kirsten ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 21144458470     PISSN: 01609009     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (66)

1. In this paper we are careful to differentiate between information and communication technology and information technology. According to the UNICT development indices. ICTs may be viewed in a variety of ways: as the means through which information may be processed, transmitted, and displayed; as communication through computers or computer networks; and as a variety of goods, applications, and services used for communicating information - such as telecoms, computers, TVs, and radios. Information and Communication Technology Development Indices, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, New York and Geneva, 2003, http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/iteipc20031_en.pdf. Information technology, on the other hand, includes any type of knowledge that may be seen as the process or product of technology (e.g., genetics research).
2. Our study views the communication of gender, technology, and development from a social constructionist perspective that places communication at the center of our social world and thus of meaning. In this manner, ideas about gender, for instance, are created and negotiated among social actors who are situated culturally, politically, and ideologically as First or Third World, as developers and those to be developed, and so forth.
3. WSIS, "Catalysing Development Communication through IGT: Innovations and Challenges," ICT for Development Platform, World Summit on the Information Society, December 9-13, 2003, http://www.ict-4d.org/documents/ session_4.3.pdf.
4. As with most current UN preparatory meetings and conferences, much of the official UN and NGO documents from these conferences can now be found on the Internet at http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory/prepcom/index.html. World Summit on the Information Society (Geneva, December 10-12, 2003)
5. documents analyzed for our paper include the following: "Extract of the Report of the First Session of the Inter-agency on Women and Gender Equality," PrepCom-i for WSIS, Geneva, July 1-5, 2002, http://www.itu.int/ dms_pub/itu-s/md/02/wsispci/c/S02-WSISPC1-C-0013!!-MSW-E.doc;
6. "Draft Declaration of Principles (WSIS/PC-2/DT/2 Refined through the Intersessional Mechanism)," Intersessional meeting for WSIS, Paris, July 15-18, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispcip/td/030721/S03- WSISPCIP-030721-TD-GEN-0001!R1!MSW-E.doc;
7. "World Summit on the Information Society Second Meeting of the Preparatory Committee," PrepCom-2 for WSIS, Geneva, February 17-28, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispc2/c/S03-WSISPC2-C-0112!!MSW-E.doc;
8. "Building the Information Society: A Global Challenge in the New Millennium," Declaration of Principles, PrepCom-3 for WSIS, Geneva, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispc3/td/030915/S03-WSISPC3-030915-TD- GEN-0006!R1!PDF-E.pdf;
9. "Draft Rules of Procedure of the World Summit on the Information Society," PrepCom-3 for WSIS, Geneva, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu- s/md/03/wsispc3/doc/S03-WSISPC3-DOC-0006! R1!PDF-E.pdf;
10. United Nations-Economic and Social Council, Division for the Advancement of Women, "Participation and Access of Women to the Media, and Information and Communication Technologies...," forty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women (March 3-14, 2003), PrepCom-3 for WSIS, Geneva, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispc3/c/S03-WSISPC3-C-022!PDF-E.pdf;
11. United Nations ICT Task Force, "Contribution to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)," PrepCom-2 for WSIS, Geneva, February 17-28, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispc2/c/S03-WSISPC2-C-0080!!MSW- E.doc;
12. European Union, "EU Contribution to Draft Action Plan," PrepCom-3 for WSIS, Geneva, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/ wsispc3/c/S03-WSISPC3-C-0139!!PDF-E.pdf.
13. Documents produced from the WSIS Gender Caucus were instrumental in our analysis as well. See WSIS Gender Caucus, "Towards Gender Inclusion in the Global Information Society," http://www.genderwsis.org/;
14. Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, "Crisis and Need: Information and Communication Technology in Development Initiatives Runs through a Paradox, October 21, 2002, http://geneva2003.unige.ch/SP/imprimersans.php?id_article=75.
15. It is not our purpose in this paper, however, to make explicit these connections. As Irene Tinker notes, advocates, practitioners, and scholars who work within the fields of women and gender and development may have differing goals and priorities based on structural and ideological factors. Yet within these three groups, "there is a growing similarity of ideas being proposed.... Women's roles are multifaceted, women's identities are multilinked" (41). Although we offer an analysis from a more theoretical perspective, we are sympathetic to the efforts to include more women in ICT projects and policies. See "The Making of a Field: Advocates, Practitioners and Scholars," in The Women, Gender and Development Reader, ed. Nalini Visvanathan, Lynn Duggan, Laurie Nisonoff, and Nan Wiegersma (London: Zed Books, 1997), 33-42.
16. Naila Kabeer, Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2001).
17. Jan Servaes, "Toward a New Perspective for Communication and Development," in Communication in Development, ed. Fred L. Casmir (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1992), 51-85. For instance, the International Telecommunications Union helps set up technical support on a local and national level but also writes and advocates for particular international policies regarding telecommunications. Additionally, in 1977 UNESCO's MacBride Commission focused on international policies about communication and information flows. This commission was particularly concerned with Third World countries having media access and freedom. UNESCO argued that the "right to communicate is a human right"(on an international, national, local, and interpersonal level).
18. See Pilar Riaño, "Women's Participation in Communication: Elements for a Framework," in Women in Grassroots Communication: Furthering Social Change, ed. Pilar Riaño (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), 3 -29.
19. See also Kabeer, Reversed Realities
20. H. Leslie Steeves, "Creating Imagined Communities: Development Communication and the Challenge of Feminism," Journal of Communication 43, no. 3 (1993): 218-29
21. and "Liberation, Feminism, and Development Communication," Communication Theory n, no. 4 (2001): 397-414;
22. Karin Wilkins, "Development Discourse on Gender and Communication in Strategies for Social Change," Journal of Communication 49, no. 1 (1999): 46-68.
23. We wish to emphasize here that the documents analyzed for this paper were produced in preparation for the summit and do not reflect the outcomes of or policies that may result from the summit.
24. Servaes, "Toward a New Perspective";
25. Majid Tehranian, "Communication and Development," in Communication Theory Today, ed. David Crowley and David Mitchell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 274-306.
26. See Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995);
27. Meera Nanda, "The Pitfalls of 'Postdevelopment': The Case of the Ecofeminist Critique of the Green Revolution," Research and Society 8 (1995): 85-106;
28. Jane Parpart, "Postmodernism, Gender and Development," in Power of Development, ed. Jonathan Crush (London, Routledge, 1995K 253-65
29. and "Lessons from the Field: Rethinking Empowerment, (Gender and Development from a Post-(Post-?) Development Perspective," in Feminist Post-development Thought: Rethinking Modernity, Post-Colonialism and Representation, ed. Kriemild Saunders (New York, Zed Books, 2002), 41-56;
30. Kriemild Saunders, "Introduction: Towards a Deconstructive Post-Development Criticism," in Saunders, Feminist Post-development Thought, 1-38.
31. Servaes, "Toward a New Perspective," 66-67.
32. See Wendy Harcourt, "Rethinking Difference and Equality. Women and the Politics of Place," in Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization, ed. Roxann Prazniak and Arif Dirlik (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 299-322;
33. Steeves, "Creating Imagined Communities"
34. and "Liberation, Feminism, and Development Communication";
35. Wilkins, "Development Discourse."
36. Nancy Morris, "A Comparative Analysis of the Diffusion and Participatory Models in Development Communication," Communication Theory 13, no. 2 (2003): 225-48.
37. Servaes, "Toward a New Perspective," 80.
38. Renée Houston and Michele H. Jackson, "Technology and Context within Research on International Development Programs: Positioning an Integrationist Perspective," Communication Theory 13, no. 1 (2003): 57-77.
39. Quadrant i: Determinism places emphasis on technology over the contexts in which the technology is introduced. This approach characterizes traditional ICT development programs that place assessment on measurable criteria related to technology use. Quadrant 2: Technology as change agent again emphasizes technology over the contexts in which it is used by viewing technology as causing changes in the environment without measuring changes in other criteria. This approach may measure technology use as change agent across a variety of settings without evaluating the qualitative (i.e., cultural) differences in setting. Quadrant 3: For context as filter, the spaces in which the technology is introduced alter the perceptions of technology and its given uses. Houston and Jackson note that "theories operating from this perspective would see cultural elements as enduring and technologies as implements or tools of these deeper currents" ("Technology and Context," 62). Quadrant 4: Integration is characterized by the evaluation of the relationships that define technology use, placing emphasis on the ways technologies and contexts are shaped and changed through the introduction of ICTs in particular places and spaces, in particular cultural contexts.
40. Breny Mendoza, "Transnational Feminisms in Question," Feminist Theory 3, no. 3 (2002): 295-314.
41. Breny Mendoza, "Transnational Feminisms in Question," Feminist Theory Ibid., 302.
42. See Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Cartographies of Struggle: Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 1-47
43. and "'Under Western Eyes' Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles," Signs 28, no.2 (2003): 499 -535.
44. See also Inderpal Grewal, "On the New Global Feminism and the Family of Nations: Dilemmas of Transnational Feminist Practice," in Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age, ed. Ella Shohat (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 501-30;
45. Uma Naraya, "Contesting Cultures: 'Westernization,' Respect for Cultures, and Third-World Feminists," in The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, ed. Linda Nicholson (New York: Routledge, 1997), 396-414.
46. Shawn Meghan Burn, Women across Cultures: A Global Perspective (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 2000), 255.
47. See also WSIS NGO Gender Strategies Working Group (WN-GSWG), "WSIS NGO Women," http://www.genderit.org/wsis/index.shtml.
48. Esther Ngan-ling Chow, "Making Waves, Moving Mountains: Reflections on Beijing '95 and Beyond," Signs 22 (Autumn 1996): 187.
49. United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), "Platform for Action," Fourth World Conference on Women, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/ plati.htm
50. and "Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action," Fourth World Conference on Women, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/index.html.
51. WSIS, "Building the Information Society."
52. United Nations-Economic and Social Council, Division for the Advancement of Women, "Participation and Access of Women to the Media," 2, par. 4h.
53. Participation and Access of Women to the Media Ibid., 3, par. 4p.
54. Participation and Access of Women to the Media Ibid., 4, par. 4w.
55. WSIS, "Draft Declaration of Principles," PrepCom-3 (September 15-26, 2003) for WSIS, Geneva, December 10-12, 2003, http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/ itu-s/md/03/wsispc3/td/030915/S03-WSISPC3-030915-TD-GEN-0001!R1!PDF-E.pdf, 7-8, sec. 8.
56. United Nations ICT Task Force, "Contribution to the World Summit."
57. See Harcourt, "Rethinking Difference and Equality";
58. Kabeer, Reversed Realities;
59. Sleeves, "Creating Imagined Communities"
60. and "Liberation, Feminism and Development Communication."
61. Mike Holderness, "Who are the World's Information-Poor?" in Cyberspace Divide, ed. Brian Loader (London: Sage, 1998), 35-56;
62. Kabeer, Reversed Realities.
63. Arturo Escobar, "Discourse and Power in Development: Michel Foucault and t he Relevance of His Work to the Third World," Alternatives 10 (Winter 1984-85): 384.
64. Flis Henwood et al., "Critical Perspectives on Technologies, In/Equalities and the Information Society," in Technology and In/Equality: Questioning the Information Society, ed. Sally Wyatt, Flis Henwood, Nod Miller, and Peter Senker (London: Routledge, 2000), 8.
65. Flis Henwood et al., "Critical Perspectives on Technologies, In/Equalities and the Information Society," in Technology and In/Equality: Questioning the Information Society Ibid., 11.
66. Flis Henwood et al., "Critical Perspectives on Technologies, In/Equalities and the Information Society," in Technology and In/Equality: Questioning the Information Society Ibid., 2.