The local-global connection in the information society
This paper locates development and gender in the rapidly changing global context, which in some fundamental ways is linked to new technologies. It seeks to use this understanding to propose a feminist reconception of development and of the gender equality project that is appropriate to the changing social landscape. The paper argues that the ‘information society’ framework is both a diagnostic and explanatory lens, through which to explore global socio-economic processes, as well as a theory of social change that helps to analyse the emerging meanings of development and gender from a equity and social justice perspective. It connects the ICT for Development (ICTD) discourse, to neo-liberal notions of development, unpacking how market fundamentalism in development has informed and in turn been shaped by the ICTD narrative. Using the concept of ‘inclusive citizenship’, the paper provides a new framework that restores the political content of development and gender in the information society. It highlights the urgency for addressing the governance deficit at the global level, and submits that positive social change in the information society can happen only with progressive public policy. The paper was presented at at a seminar conducted by the London School of Economics in May 2007.
