Sakar – Thesis Proposal Draft 1

My thesis will study (and enhance) the capacity of development sector workers in Nepal, especially those who are in roles of influence, to understand the socio-political consequences of digitizing the services they provide the stakeholders they serve.

Why?

The intrusion of the digital into the everyday appears to be inexorable and inevitable. Civic, personal and professional lives are increasingly taking place in the digital. The convergence of various multiple forms of analog media into a digital format has created a foundation on which new tools have been built. Widespread affordable connectivity – in rich and even middle-income countries – has created modes of communication, systems of governance, and cultures that originate in the digital but are increasingly merging with our “real” lives. This has led some to argue that a coherent digital lifeworld that collapses the real and the virtual has appeared.  

Such a claim cannot be sustained in large parts of the world, none-the-less connectivity is rapidly increasing throughout the developing world as well. Just over half of the world’s population has now used the internet, and an even larger amount is within zones where the infrastructure to access it exists, making the digital a matter of interest to governments, businesses and civil society. The emerging paradigm, Digital For Development, builds on earlier paradigms – ICT4D 2.0 etc – of using technology for developmental and humanitarian activities.

Conceptualizing digitization as the process of bringing formerly analogs services and activities into the digital realm and digital transformation as the socio-political consequences of digitization, this thesis rests on the premise that uncritical and ill-considered digitization has the potential to cause meaningful and persistent harm to the very people it seeks to empower. 

Human Rights-Based Approach

Treating digitization, as more than a neutral techno-solution that provides services – but as a political act with long-reaching consequences on social order, wealth accumulation and ability to control the narrative – one needs to anchor its critical examination to an ethical system. I propose using the international human rights frameworks as the ethical system which development sector workers can use. 

A number of factors recommend using a human rights lens to influence the process. First, both governments and other powerful institutions in the developing world are usually familiar with the discourse around rights because of their participation in global forums. Second, there are a plethora of civil society organisations that have long advocated for their causes through this framework can be engaged to add the digital as one part of their overall thinking. Third, governments and other bodies have committed to various international human rights treaties and agreements, which can be used as both legal and moral leverage in discussions with them. Finally, it makes sense with the conceptual framework that a previously separate digital realm is collapsing into the existing real world to create a digital lifeworld. In such an event, the efforts of specialists in securing the education, health or civic rights of citizens extend or alter, as needed, their prevailing practices in light of the integration of the digital into the extant lifeworld. 

Building on what exists

Human Rights, while not always realized in practice – is a set of treaties, conventions, laws etc that carry both moral and legal weight in the world – and thus provide a possible foundation for thinking about what our newly naturalized digital citizens can expect, do and be safe from in their new realm. Using a human rights lens to examine the rapid digitization of the Global South could be a practical but adequate way to ensure that techno-optimism is not permitted to overrun good sense. 

For example, let us consider the need to adequately educate end-users so that they have a sufficient capacity to navigate the digital. In the framework, this thesis proposes, digital literacy can be seen as an extension of a series of historical efforts that have secured a right to education. Much in the way functional literacy has been shown to empower the literate to navigate their lifeworld with greater success by reducing child marriage, increasing lifetime earnings, and empowering them to make informed political choices. Digital literacy can both empower people to leverage the increasing intrusion of the digital into their lives for their own benefit, as well as give them the tools to negotiate the level of intrusion they are comfortable with. Just as literacy increases the ability of citizens to engage in their own governance, digital literacy is necessary to legitimize governance of the digital lifeworld. 

Anchoring arguments about the need for digital literacy (as well as literacy efforts in the digital lifeworld) to prevailing rights of education allows demand that these literacies follow the parameters prevailing now i.e. they be inclusive of various abilities, that they are affordable for large swaths of people to engage with and be simple to access. Similarly prevailing and recognized rights in health, finance, transportation etc could be extended into the digital lifeworld. With new rights created only when the prevailing framework is found to be insufficient.  

Production

This thesis proposes to create a toolkit that development sector workers in Nepal can use to skill themselves on using a human rights based approach to analyse efforts at digital transformation. For this purpose I envision the following artifacts will be needed:

1. A physically manipulable card deck that drives the conversation about datafication and its consequences. Each card contains a QR code that allows the user to seek more information about the content of the card. 
2. A series of videos that provide “lectures” to complement activities.
3. A series of video embedded web pages that can be accessed on demand via the QR codes on each card. 
4. At least one “digital folktale” that can be used to stimulate curiosity about digital transformation.

References For Implementation

Trace My Shadow

The trace my shadow website has a nifty tool to see what kind of digital traces one leaves when one consumes different electronic devices and digital media. The tool is very cool, but it is a bit too focused on the technical aspects (e.g. what is MAC address) rather than encouraging people to think about the possibilities consequences of how these shadows impact sociopolitical issues such as access to services, resources, and the balance of power in a society. 

Common Sense Media Toolkits

Common Sense Media has an amazing set of digital tools and lesson plans that are directed at educators. The lesson plans and toolkits are focused on getting teachers to understand these better and to get their students thinking about them. Because they are directed at kids they are necessarily limited in scope. However, this tool will offer me an excellent guideline as to critical issues I need to think about. 

Internet Society Digital Footprint Course

Internet Society has a course on understanding digital footprints we leave. I have to take the course to learn a bit more about it. 

UK Government Digital Footprint Campaign

The UK Government campaign on understanding digital footprint is a useful example of what the elements of a public communication campaign might be. This is not directly useful to me, as my audience is more focused. However, this can be a useful resource material I share with my audience. Also it might help me understand the parameters I need to work with.

Academic References