Rural Islandness as a Lens for (Rural) HCI

This article contributes to research that aims to better understand and describe the rural context for rural computing. We argue that the particularities of rurality are heightened by the experience of ‘islandness’. We report on our experiences of engaging on one small island as islanders established community radio using a novel platform. Data comes from 12 semi-structured interviews with community members and ethnographic field notes assembled through eight researcher visits to the island. Transcripts and notes were analysed using thematic analysis. We discuss how rural islandness as a socio-cultural lens influenced technology appropriation and factors to support participation. We explore the elements of rural islandness that can be used as an analytic tool for rural HCI and HCI more broadly, through three main contributions of rural islandness that we believe have not yet been sufficiently explored in HCI. These are (1) separateness, (2) pushing things ahead, and (3) publics and rural pluralities.

Technology appropriation and Mapuche self-communication: An interpretation of indigenous e-communication in Chile

The use and appropriation of digital information and communication technologies by Mapuche communicators and activists has turned into a new process of political and identity innovation in the context of the Chilean–Mapuche intercultural and interethnic conflict. This study aims to understand the Mapuche intercultural dialogue. Based on a corpus of semi-structured interviews with Mapuche communicators, we interpret and analyze their discourses in relation to the dissemination and/or analysis of the indigenous digital informative media. The results are built upon the valorization and recognition of the mediations that the Mapuche agents develop around their own e-communication praxis. This interpretation derives from applying theoretical–conceptual categories which have enabled us to address technological, technopolitical, (inter)cultural, and communicative dimensions regarding the Mapuche e-communication work.

Apropiación de tecnologías en las redes comunitarias de internet latinoamericanas

En América Latina se han desarrollado redes comunitarias de internet en diversos territorios como respuesta a la desconexión, pero atendiendo a su vez las problemáticas que atañen a la diferencia y desigualdad de sus comunidades durante la última década. La diversidad de estas experiencias encuentra como punto en común la creación, propiedad y administración colectiva, comunitaria y sin fin de lucro de la infraestructura que despliegan. Este artículo indaga sobre los modos de apropiación que se producen en estas redes, desde la creación tecnológica y los aprendizajes, usos y prácticas adaptadas o creativas que no fueron pensados en el momento de su diseño. Para ello se analiza la creación de tecnología con el LibreRouter, que desarrolló AlterMundi de Argentina; la formación destinada a dar soporte a estas experiencias que brinda el Diplomado Techio Comunitario de Redes AC de México y los usos y prácticas relevados en dos redes comunitarias, Quintana Libre y Atalaya Sur en Córdoba y Buenos Aires, Argentina, respectivamente. De esta forma, se busca generar conocimiento para tomar en consideración no solo las respuestas que brindan las redes comunitarias de internet en materia de conectividad en América Latina, sino también para la apropiación de tecnologías de sus comunidades. Technology Appropriation in Latin American Internet Community Networks In Latin America, internet community networks have been developed in various territories in response to lack of connectivity but also to address those issues that have affected the difference and inequality of their communities over the past decade. The diversity of these experiences shares some common factors: collective, community-serving and non-profit creation, ownership and administration of the infrastructures deployed. This article inquires into how technology appropriation takes place in these networks, from technological creation to adapted or creative ways of learning, using and developing practices that were not initially intended at the time of their design. For this, three cases are analyzed: the creation of technology with LibreRouter developed by AlterMundi in Argentina; the training aimed at supporting these experiences offered by the Diploma course Techio Comunitario by Redes A.C. in Mexico; and the uses and practices surveyed in two community networks, Quintana Libre and Atalaya Sur in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, Argentina, respectively. In this way, this paper seeks to produce knowledge to examine not only the responses provided by Internet community networks in terms of connectivity in Latin America but also to look into the appropriation of technologies in their communities. Palabras clave: redes comunitarias de internet, apropiación de tecnologías, desigualdad, comunicación comunitaria, América Latina. Key words: internet community networks, technology appropriation, inequality, community communication, Latin America.

Everyday urbanisms and the importance of place: Exploring the elements of the emancipatory smart city

Two of the most striking features of smart city discourses are the centrality of technology as a driver of transformational change and the strange ‘placelessness’ of its visual narrative. Whether envisaged in Kenya or Singapore, the commercial smart city is represented as a ‘city in a box’, seemingly capable of solving complex social issues through algorithms and technical innovation. Recently a robust literature has emerged that is critical of the techno-determinism inherent in smart city discussions. This paper expands on this critique by arguing that by solely focusing on the material dimensions of technologically informed urban change, devoid of context, we miss an opportunity to uncover an important moment in contemporary urbanity. By foregrounding the human dimensions of technology appropriation and the interface with livelihoods in their particular spatial contexts, this paper consciously decentres the dominant smart city discourse by arguing for the foregrounding of local dynamics. This paper rejects the universalisms embedded in smart city promises and argues that by provincialising the idea of smart urbanism, opportunities are presented for understanding the true markers of contemporary urbanism. Critical debates on the smart city, and by extension the need to consider smart urbanism contextually and as an infrastructure, relationally, together with the conceptual insights provided by postcolonial science and technology studies, contribute to a proposed frame for researching the ongoing dynamic between contemporary urban life and technological innovation. Empirical vignettes from urban Africa are used to illustrate the multiple dimensions of the interface between livelihoods and technology appropriation.

La apropiación tecnológica en la investigación histórica y los Estudios Sociales de Ciencia y Tecnología (CTS)

El presente artículo expone una revisión teórica de la literatura existente sobre la apropiación tecnológica en los Estudios de Sistemas de Información (IS) y explora las posibilidades de su uso metodológico en la investigación histórica y en los estudios CTS. Para ello se presentan los resultados de una investigación sobre las concesiones para radiodifusión comunitaria en la Región Metropolitana de Santiago entre 1996 y el año 2000. Se expone la Teoría de Estructuración Adaptativa, el Modelo de Estructuración de Tecnologías, el Modelo de Apropiación de Tecnologías y el Modelo Racional de Apropiación Tecnológica. De este último se lleva a cabo una revisión conceptual para situarlo metodológicamente en el contexto de la investigación. Se recurre a la revisión de los decretos y resoluciones que otorgaron concesión de derechos de transmisión para estaciones radiodifusoras de mínima cobertura y mediante un análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo se establece el rol del sistema de radiodifusión nacional como un limitador, en lo jurídico y en lo técnico, de la apropiación tecnológica de la radiocomunicación comunitaria. Además, sitúa teórica y metodológicamente el estudio de la apropiación tecnológica, en términos históricos, como un campo de disputa y como un modelo libre a precisiones conceptuales locales que requiera cada investigación. Palabras clave: Apropiación tecnológica; Radios comunitarias; Radiodifusión; Investigación Histórica; Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología. Abstract: This article offers a theoretical review of technological appropriation in Information Systems Studies (IS) literature and explores the possibilities of this approach in STS and in historical research. In order to develop that, I expose the research results about community radios concessions in Metropolitan Region of Santiago between 1996 and 2000. The paper presents the Adaptative Structuration Theory, Structurational Model of Technology, Model of Technology Appropriation and Rational Model of Technology Appropriation. Moreover, I propose a conceptual revision of the latter that aims to methodologically situate it in this particular research. I investigate decrees and resolutions of community radios concessions using quantitative and qualitative methods in order to establish the role of radio broadcasting system as a legal and technical limiter in technological appropriation of community radiocommunications. Furthermore, I situate, theorical and methodologically, the approach of technological appropriation in STS and in historical research as a dispute field as well as opening it to local conceptual precisions that other researches may require. Key words: Technological appropriation; Community radios; Broadcasting; Historical research; Social Studies of Science and Technology.

Coffee Genogram: An Analysis of the Tradition of the Rural Family in Southwest Columbia

The analysis of the family context in rural communities can provide helpful insight to promote technology appropriation processes. For this study, the family context and its influence on the coffee tradition were investigated within the framework of a proposal to build knowledge and transfer technology. To address this aim, the construction of genograms was carried out, accompanied by semi-structured interviews with coffee women from a producer’s association in the department of Huila, Colombia. Key elements around their training process as coffee growers were analyzed based on the consolidation of a tradition derived from parents and grandparents, but with unknowns regarding their continuity in future generations. The findings showed a group of women, most of whom have lived and grown around coffee farming, where their role has changed from a position of support in the home to become leading actors in the coffee production processes. Opportunities and challenges were found in the face of the possibilities in the role of woman in the coffee growing development, but important questions arise regarding the role that the following generations may have in the future.

Conclusion

The conclusion returns to the book’s key concerns and themes: the particular, the contextual, and the messiness of household media ecologies, as demonstrated through the various stages of technology appropriation, maintenance, negotiation, non-use, and displacement that have unfolded and mutated in the early years of the twenty-first century. It considers the broad range of ways in which people embrace digital media in their daily domestic lives; reflects on the ongoing changes in domestic media and communication technologies, platforms, and infrastructures; and addresses the broader implications of digital media materialities for contemporary household relations, economics, and environments.

Etnoturismo: una aproximación a las oportunidades y amenazas que implica para las culturas indígenas

Este estudio, primera aproximación de su tipo realizada a partir del análisis bibliográfico de información científica especializada en la temática, examina potenciales oportunidades y amenazas que enfrenta el etnoturismo a nivel mundial, que deben ser consideradas cuyo se desee promover actividades de transferencia, apropiación de tecnología o innovación, porque se constituirán bien sea en vectores de cambio o en elementos a superar. Debates del tema serían importantes para que micro y pequeñas organizaciones étnicas sean competitivas logryo cambios del sistema con equidad y justicia social. This study, the first approach of its kind based on the bibliographic analysis of specialized scientific information on the subject, examines potential opportunities or threats facing ethnotourism worldwide, which should be considered when promoting transfer activities, technology appropriation or innovation, because they will be constituted either in vectors of change or in elements to overcome. Debates on the theme would be important for micro y small ethnic organizations to be competitive, achieving systemic changes with equity y social justice.