Framing network studies - understanding the sociology of community networks

Abstract

A majority of Indian farmers are challenged by literacy, language and social barriers when accessing knowledge of scientists. This constrains their ability to use the expert knowledge for solving emerging problems. Thus there exists a wide gap in terms of theory, research and practice in the agriculture domain. But on the other hand contemporary digital technology provides a way to the farmers to explain their problems in an easy and convenient way to the scientists in their laboratory and get feedback. Cultivating digitally facilitated knowledge and skill networking is a highly potent strategy to achieve the goals of productive, profitable, stable and globally competitive agriculture. This paper aims at understanding some of the key sociological issues involved in facilitating digital technology in agriculture and rural development domain. Highlighting theoretical understandings of 'structuration' theory and 'social becoming' in conjunction with the empirical observations from the DEAL project we propose that digital technology has potential capabilities in transforming the agency and building praxis in agriculture domain. But this has to be approached with judicious socio-technical strategy.