Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 13
Social Shaping of Technologies
for Community Development
Redeployment of Information
Communication Technologies among the
Kelabit in Bario of the Kelabit Highlands
Poline Bala
University Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia
abStract
Using electronic-Bario (e-Bario) project in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak in East Malaysia, this
chapter explores how the introduction of information communication technologies (ICT) as developmen-
tal tools have been mediated and reconfigured by webs of social relations and the intricate interplay of
social, political and cultural conditions specific to different social and technical settings. One crucial
factor conditioning the effects of the project has been the Kelabit's own desire for, and expectations
of, “development” and “progress.” This is a quest which ties in closely with two fundamental Kelabit
concepts: doo-ness and iyuk. As a result, the social and economic effects of ICT have unfolded through
countless open-ended strategic and everyday decisions made by the Kelabit themselves, who actively
consume, apply and make use of objects, ideas and services in the Highlands.
'The new electronic interdependence recreates the
world in the image of a global village'. -- Marshall
McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy in Daintith, John
(ed.) Quotations, Bloomsbury (1996, p.256:1).
developing countries into “modern” and knowledge-
based societies and to alleviate some of the social
and economic problems of developing world, par-
ticularly those in rural areas. Yet very little is known
about the veracity of these aspirations, much less
about the long-term social and economic effects of
these technologies upon development in rural areas
(Keniston, 2002).
Informed by a social shaping technology (SST)
framework, this chapter explores how the introduc-
introDuction
Over the last 15 years information and communica-
tion technologies (ICT) have been increasingly and
optimistically promoted as a means of transforming
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