Achieving ICT for Development Project Success by Altering Context, Not Technology

When explaining the failure of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects, researchers often turn to differences between how designers perceive and users experience the context of technology use. According to these explanations, ICT4D projects fail because designers take an uninformed stance toward context. The ICT4D literature offers four approaches for how […]

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Determining Requirements within an Indigenous Knowledge System of African Rural Communities

Eliciting and analyzing requirements within knowledge systems, which fundamentally differ so far from technology supported systems represent particular challenges. African rural communities’ life is deeply rooted in an African Indigenous knowledge system manifested in their practices such as Traditional Medicine. We describe our endeavors to elicit requirements to design a system to support the accumulation and sharing […]

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Strangers on the Land: Place and Indigenous Multimedia Knowledge Systems

Leggett and Dyson are non-indigenous Australians interested in the potential of designing new media applications that are sensitive to and productive for indigenous peoples. Their research has focussed on development of new media systems that reflect indigenous world-views, particularly with relation to established knowledge-sharing protocols. They demonstrate that there is […]

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Locally Situated Digital Representation of Indigenous Knowledge: Co-constructing a new digital reality in rural Africa

Digital re-presentation of indigenous knowledge remains an absurdity as long as we fail to deconstruct the prevalent design paradigm and techniques continuously re-framing technology within a western epistemology. This paper discusses key challenges in attempts of co-constructing a digital representation based on experiences from a longitudinal community-centred research project in […]

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Free Books! a list of free e-pubs in the Ethnos Project Resources Database

Happy New Year! Here, have some free books! This collection of 29 e-publications spans the years 2002-2014 and contains over 3,000 pages of top-notch scholarship, hard-earned field wisdom, best practices and more. Yes, the list is a bit eclectic (and some items are fraying around the digital edges), but it […]

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An Integrated Platform Supporting Intangible Cultural Heritage Learning and Transmission

The paper offers an experience-based viewpoint on two key phases of the development of an Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)-based system: the definition of requirements and identification of related criteria and methodology for its evaluation. In doing so, it refers to the unique context of the i-Treasures EU project, which […]

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Shiny Objects and Salvation: Navigating New Technologies for Intangible Cultural Heritage Preservation

Mark Oppenneer, Ethnos Project Director, presented this keynote address at El Primer Congresso Internacional Patrimonio Cultural y las Nuevas Tecnologias. The conference was held at El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in Mexico City, December 2014. See the video side-by-side with the presentation slides Learn more about the […]

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El Primer Congresso Internacional Patrimonio Cultural y las Nuevas Tecnologias

This conference was held on 3-6 December, 2014, in Mexico City at El Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has a mission to safeguard cultural heritage by looking to stay ahead in the application of new technologies for the conservation, research […]

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Inuit Identity and Technology: An exploration of the use of Facebook by Inuit youth

This thesis engages in a broad discussion of technology, communications, identity, and cultural change in the Canadian Arctic. Using an ethnographic methodological strategy, it looks at how a group of Inuit college students in Iqaluit use the online social network Facebook. It was found that Inuit youth are intensive users […]

Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages

The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages is an open access, online repository comprising digital versions of language materials produced in Literature Production Centres, language centres and other sources in Indigenous languages of the Northern Territory. The archive is continually expanding, and people are encouraged to engage with these materials. There […]

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Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages: a digital archive of endangered Indigenous literature

Note: I just added this to the Resources Database, but felt that it should also be featured here in the blog. About the Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages is an open access, online repository comprising digital versions of language materials produced in Literature Production […]

Connecting Communities & the Environment through Media: …Along Traditional Knowledge Revival Pathways

With the proliferation of global information and communications technologies (ICT), the concept of community no longer has geographical limitations. Yet, from ecological and social perspectives, connecting people and communities to their immediate environment is now more urgent than ever. In this paper we show how an Indigenous led initiative reaches […]

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Integrating cultural factors in user-interface design: the case of the Nasa Colombian native people

The research context of this thesis is the inter-cultural development of computer tools. The thesis considers as case study the Nasa people, a Colombian native society, which preserves different traditions and cultural particularities. The research questioning emerges from the sociocultural differences between a rural society, such as the Nasa, and […]

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Towards appropriate user interface design preserving rural African communication practices

This mini-thesis examines different socio-cultural norms and communication behaviours of indigenous communities. In spite of existing Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructural challenges, the software solutions that have been designed for rural communities have been a major concern. In this thesis, qualitative methodologies were used with deliberate sampling of two village […]

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So They Understand: Cultural Issues in Oral History

Illustrated with numerous stories collected from Alaska, the Yukon, and South Africa and further enlivened by the author’s accessible style and experiences as a longtime oral historian and archivist, So They Understand is a comprehensive study of the special challenges and concerns involved in documenting, representing, preserving, and interpreting oral […]

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Fade Out: documenting the death of Zaachila Zapotec

I recently received a message from Andrea Ariza, linguist and co-creator of a documentary project called Fade Out: documenting the death of a language. She writes, “With this film we want to document the situation of Zaachila Zapotec, an under-described and endangered language of Mexico, the causes and consequences of […]

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ICT4D 2016: New Priorities for ICT4D Policy, Practice and WSIS in a Post-2015 World

In 2016, the Millennium Development Goals will be replaced by the post-2015 development agenda (PTDA). The foundational content is in place for this new agenda, which will be the single most-important force shaping the future of international development and, hence, the single most-important force shaping the future of information-and-communication-technology-for-development (ICT4D). […]

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Jaqi Aru: promoting the use of Aymara on the Internet

Jaqi Aru An online community with the commitment to promote the native language of Aymara on the Internet. Through the use of translations and the creation of content using digital media, we want to contribute and enrich the content in our language in cyberspace. About In 2007, two of Jaqi […]

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Kalanga Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/25/14, there are 96 entries, 85 audio files, and 0 images. All content copyright © Kalanga community. (2014) Dictionary produced by Mthulisi Ncube and Pax Nkomo, sound recordings by Nathaniel Ncube, technical production by Gregory D. S. Anderson, Jeremy Fahringer and K. David Harrison. (2014). All rights reserved. […]

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Pohnpeian Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/25/14, there are 552 entries, 108 audio files, and 0 images. All content copyright © Pohnpeian community. (2013) Dictionary produced by Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison. (2013). All rights reserved. Do not distribute or reproduce without permission. how to cite: 2013. Anderson, Gregory D.S. and […]

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Pingelapese Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/24/14, there are 623 entries, 51 audio files, and 0 images. All content copyright © Pingelapese community. (2013) Dictionary produced by Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison. (2013). All rights reserved. Do not distribute or reproduce without permission. how to cite: 2013. Anderson, Gregory D.S. and […]

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Nukuoro Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/24/14, there are 739 entries, 274 audio files, and 0 images. All content copyright © Nukuoro community. (2013) Dictionary produced by Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison. (2013). All rights reserved. Do not distribute or reproduce without permission. how to cite: 2013. Anderson, Gregory D.S. and […]

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Namolukese Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/24/14, there are 575 entries, 194 audio files, and 0 images. All content copyright © Namolukese community. (2013) Dictionary produced by Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison. (2013). All rights reserved. Do not distribute or reproduce without permission. how to cite: 2013. Anderson, Gregory D.S. and […]

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Mokilese Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/24/14, there are 596 entries, 161 audio files, and 0 images. All content copyright © Mokilese community. (2013) Dictionary produced by Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison. (2013). All rights reserved. Do not distribute or reproduce without permission. how to cite: 2013. Anderson, Gregory D.S. and […]

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Kapingamarangi Online Talking Dictionary

As of 9/24/14, there are 1156 entries, 428 audio files, and 123 images. All content copyright © Kapingamarangi community. (2013) Dictionary produced by Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison. (2013). All rights reserved. Do not distribute or reproduce without permission. how to cite: 2013. Anderson, Gregory D.S. and […]

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