Making Open Development Inclusive by Matthew L. Smith

Author:Matthew L. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: access; broadband; collaborative science; communications; connectivity; crowdsourcing; data; development; digital economy; ecology; economics; education; educational resources; entrepreneurship; equity; gender; geography; global; global development; global markets; government; health; inclusion; inequality; information; information science; innovation hubs; internet; knowledge; knowledge exchange; logistics; marginality; MOOCs; NGOs; OCSDNet; online platforms; open access; open data; open innovation; openness; open science; policy; politics; public resources; Reddit; resource distribution; social inclusion; technology; telecommunications; telecommunications reform; U.N.; UNDP; university; wi-fi;
Publisher: MIT Press

Networks, Data, Power, and Inclusion

The literature on inclusion differs across disciplines. Inclusion, in economic development, occurs when growth is accompanied with falling inequality and decreasing levels of poverty (Piketty 2014; Ravallion 2016). In sociology, inclusion is an amalgamation of processes intersecting at both the individual and societal spheres that result either in the welcoming, acceptance, and provision for, or the ostracism, rejection, and nonacknowledgment of a person or a group of people (Allman 2013). In development studies, inclusion takes place when all people contribute to creating opportunities, participate in decision-making, and share in the social and economic benefits of development processes (Hickey, Sen, and Bukenya 2015). Castells, possibly attempting a supradisciplinary definition of inclusion, defines the concept as the systematic ability of individuals or groups to access the means for meaningful survival (Stalder 1998).

In this chapter, we anchor our view of inclusion in political participation—that is, whether individuals or groups of people enjoy equitable opportunities in shaping how they are governed and achieve and benefit from desired governance outcomes (Habermas 1996; Yuval-Davis 2011). Our approach to inclusion is political because it is inseparable from power, as highlighted by Gurstein (2010, 2011) and others [see, e.g., Arnstein’s citizen control (1969), Pretty’s self-mobilization (1995), and Hurlbert and Gupta’s adaptive governance (2015)]. Access and broad forms of participation are important stepping stones to inclusiveness but do not necessarily confer agency on or empower those being included; access and participation may simply result in a “voice without agency … [and] presence without politics” (Singh and Gurumurthy 2013, 186) for previously excluded communities.

Inclusion is meaningful if material wealth and nonmaterial benefits (such as dignity and health) accrue to those habitually excluded. For those benefits to accrue, though, access to information networks and participation in the decisions taken by powerful nodes2 in those networks are necessary conditions, as networked information flows have become the primary setting for human agency (Castells 1996; Stalder 2005). As Castells (2017, 72) states,

There has been no economy and no society in the world in which wealth and power do not depend on information and knowledge. It has always been the absolutely critical matter for wealth generation and power generation. What has changed is … the information and communication technology revolution … with all its consequences: the ability to create organizational forms; the infrastructure and the rapidity of processing information, transforming it into knowledge; and using these transformations into knowledge to make actual changes in the production system.

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