On the emancipatory role of rural information systems

TLDR

Information technology in rural and underserved settings is increasingly viewed as a means to improve quality of life and reduce the digital divide, yet high costs, infrastructure gaps, and contextual inhibitors often dilute its benefits, a situation framed by Habermas’ theory of communicative action. The study proposes that social processes can sustain ICT initiatives in rural regions and evaluates their value by assessing contributions to social capital, illustrated through a case study of pioneering ICT use in southern Indian villages. The authors conduct a case study of ICT use in a set of villages in southern India, employing social process analysis to assess sustainability. The analysis shows that leveraging social processes and the resulting social changes—such as empowerment and participatory frameworks—can sustain ICT setups in rural settings, providing both social and economic value and offering implications for researchers and practitioners.

Abstract

The use of information technology in rural and underserved settings is receiving increasing attention because of the immense potential it brings for improving the quality of life and reducing the digital divide. However, high costs coupled with infrastructure and context‐related inhibitors tend to dilute the advantages that are often taken as a set of givens. In this paper we present a case study of a pioneering experience of information system use in a set of villages in southern India. The research proposition for this study is that social processes can form a viable basis for providing sustainability to information communications technology (ICT) initiatives in rural regions. Theoretical support for this study comes from Habermas’ theory of communicative action. Given that such information systems are emancipatory in nature, and given that such information systems face many obstacles, the value added by these systems needs to be assessed in terms of their contribution to social capital in addition to economic value added. Our analysis reveals that social processes can be leveraged to accord viability to ICT setups in rural settings. Many social changes, that may have faced resistance or were unexpected, themselves became the reason for keeping the ICT setup. This is so because these changes form the basis of empowerment and a participatory framework that would have been absent earlier. We provide implications for researchers as well as practitioners.