ICT4D and Empowerment: Uneven Development in Rural South India

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are being increasingly mobilised as allies for development (ICT4D). This chapter interrogates the role technology plays in development in rural regions through a micro-level study. Specifically, it interrogates an ICT4D project established by a prominent Indian NGO that aims to empower rural communities through public access to ICTs. Drawing upon field based research from the state of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Pondicherry, South India, this paper demonstrates that ICTs do offer limited opportunities in the form of generic information and enhanced skills, especially amongst children, young and educated people, to participate in the information revolution. Research also shows that it can provide employment opportunities on occasion, develop the social prestige of individuals and the villages and offer opportunities to specific groups within the village communities such as women, youth and others who are otherwise socially marginalised. That said, the research also illustrates that the due to the uneven distribution of gains of growth in India since neoliberalisation in the 1990s, ICTs have not been conducive to transformative empowerment. Drawing on literature on empowerment, I argue that while ICTs provide opportunities for empowerment, existing structural inequalities and systemic conditions hinder the possibilities for “transformative empowerment” and in some instances reinforce pre-existing inequalities and contributes to uneven development. Empowerment through ICTs can only be enabled if the ICT4D initiative addresses the key drivers of marginalisation in rural communities—structural and systemic conditions.