Social Shaping of Technologies for Community Development - Information Communication Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery - page 213

and economic effects of e-Bario 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. As shown
in this chapter, one crucial factor conditioning
the effects of the project was the Kelabit's own
desire for, and expectations of, “development”
and “progress.”
All this suggests that real-life situations can
change the purpose of technologies, and the ways
in which they are used may differ greatly from what
had been envisaged at the outset. Placed within lo-
cal social processes and circumstances, the visions
of outside policy-makers for introducing ICT as
tools for social and economic development may
differ markedly from the actual realities of their
use and effectiveness in different political and
economic settings. As drivers and developmental
tools for the creation of a knowledge-based soci-
ety in Malaysia, the technologies in Bario have
not necessarily heralded a new form of society.
Rather, they have been partly integrated with
or subordinated to existing practices, internal
values and socio-political arrangements in the
community. Their continued use and adaptation
has also provided for new forums of dialogue and
communication, allowing a sense of communal
identity to be rekindled. In turn, it is within these
social processes that the computers, Internet and
telephone have been given meaning, and their
application modified and developed within the
community's social context and in a wider politi-
cal and economic terrain.
This social shaping of use, and the simultane-
ous modification of social and political processes
facilitated by or inspired by engagements with
ICT suggests that it is in the local circumstances
that ICT is engaged with, interpreted, represented
and woven into the fabric of daily life of those
communities within the area. The technologies
should not, therefore, be viewed as separate and
independent entities, but rather as objects that

gain effect, meaning and relevance through the
ways in which they are adopted and become part
of the Kelabit social and political life.
As we can see the Kelabit negotiate what
value to attribute to the Internet, computers and
telephones, and how to apply these technologies
to their own political, social and economic cir-
cumstances. All this resonates closely with Nor-
man Long's transformative process of planned
development, which he describes as 'constantly
reshaped by its own internal organization, cultural
and political dynamics and by specific conditions
it encounters and itself creates, including the re-
sponses and strategies of local groups who may
struggle to define and defend their own social
spaces, cultural boundaries and positions within
the wider power field' (2001, p.72).
The presence and use of ICT in Bario facili-
tate, inspire and modify existing Kelabit social
practices, strategies and actions in their on-going
engagement with development. This is particularly
apparent in their engagement with commercial
logging as a new industry in the area. It is an
example of local empowerment, whereby the use
of ICT has facilitated greater agency for political
engagement in the face of this shifting notion of
development. The new technologies are seen to
increase the Kelabit's opportunities and abilities
to make choices and to translate them into desired
actions and outcomes. As a direct result, e-Bario
has been recreated as a new platform to manage
the interface of development in the Kelabit High-
lands. In short, the presence of the Internet and
computers as technologies of communication and
information shape, color and influence the Kelabit
response to their current circumstances.

referenceS

Anderson, B. R. (1991). Imagined communities:
Reflections on the origins and spread of national-
ism . London: Verso.