Africa Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 15:15:39 -0000 Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I followed the discussion between Darrel Owen and Adam Lishan with interest. I think scepticism over the role of consultants when considering capacity building issues is healthy. There is a conflict of interests, in that consultants and academics and development professionals all wish to develop their own knowledge base, often at the expense of the learning opportunities of others. It is not enough to merely back-off from projects where local talent already is obviously active, it is important to examine the structures that create a plethora of consultants and a shortage of local experts. This is fundamentally a question about the structures of education and training that inevitably surround ICT issues. One response to this has come within anthropology in the form of participatory research, where local partners are encouraged to try and take charge, as much as is possible of the research process. One problem encountered in this was defining and communicating ideas such as "research" in a cross-cultural setting. Our ideas about education, training and research may well be culture specific, and the "modernisation" of the "information infrastructure" from the outside has uncomfortable implications for the social life of a country, since it impacts on the way that social norms are produced, and the next generation's education. In this context perhaps this urge for instant action is a little misplaced: I don't think that these topics can be decided lightly or that real structural change will happen in a hurry. So why not accept the need for ongoing discussion and start rather to examine whose ideas are setting the agenda. After all, our (western educated) definitions of information are actually rather shaky, and do little to describe the use, process or effect of what we are dealing with. Since what we are talking about on a broad scale is the fate of a whole generation of people, perhaps we should take some time to reflect on our assumptions. Daniel Taghioff ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
