Knowledge, Technology and Democracy

Work Plan for 2014-15

Key words:
Openness, Knowledege, Collaboration, Networked Activism, Commons based production
Group Coordinators:
Leslie Chan, Hani Morsi
Group Members:
Andrew Charman, Joanna Wheeler, Ronald Naluwairo, Laura Waisbich, Becky Hillyer

Context:

In the past few years, there has been an explosion of citizen contestation against  prevailing power structures, both political and economic.  Historically, there is nothing that is particularly novel about  citizens challenging authority and claiming rights, yet it is the new  modalities of these movements – largely driven by rapid advances in  information and communication technologies (ICTs) – that warrant a  closer examination of these instances of popular dissent.  
At  the same time, there is growing interest among the development  communities in understanding the impact of new modes of knowledge  production, either horizontal and citizen-driven or enabled by technologies, and how in particular “open”  approaches and networked-based peer-production might provide alternative  ways of framing development policy and practices.
The emergence of open technologies is not without resistance, however. Both autocratic and ‘democratic’ regimes are crafting new and restrictive regulatory frameworks whose impact on the new technological pathways  for citizens mobilisation and sharing knowledge could be far reaching.

Problems:

Several  attempts to understand these new modalities of action work within  conventional disciplinary and methodological boundaries, and frame questions limited in conceptual scope. This limits the potential of  producing new knowledge on the complex relationships between technological change, knowledge production and sociopolitical change. Examples include:

  • The  body of research focused on understanding citizen-led movements does  not adequately account for the technological/networked facilitators and  catalysts of such movements, including how pervasive network  technologies influences modes of mobilisation, communication of ideology  and contentious action.
  • Analyses of institutional framework and incentives of knowledge production  framed in market-based thinking often overlook the new kinds of  motivations and organizational innovations created by distributed  individuals working on common causes. This is creating a  dissonance between discourses on “openness” and the actual restricted (market-based) pathways of knowledge production and distribution.
With  that in mind, it becomes apparent that some conceptual reassessments,  as well as an exploration of methodological innovations, are necessary  to better understand the relationships between emerging technologies and  current trajectories of socio-political change.

Emerging Themes:

I. Actors, identities and strategies
  • Citizen-centred and citizen-driven research and knowledge generation in solving local problems; how knowledge for action is constituted  (commons-based peer production, co-production, creativity)
  • “Small Data” that shed light on  the relationship between mediated practices,   social identities and  repertoires of action and citizen-state   relationships.
II. Networked activism and networked actions
  • Technologically-catalysed activism and networked social movements
  • Barriers to democratic activism – role of technology in facilitating or prohibiting different forms of activism 
  • The role of technology in mediating forms of activism
III. Openness and knowledge production
  • The notion of “openness” in current discourses on knowledge production and sharing.
  • Innovations in social innovations and governance of commons based resources based on principles of “openness”
  • Knowledge is two-ways, not just access to institutional knowledge, but also making open knowledge from the community 
IV. Policy framing and big data
  • Impact of emerging policies and regulatory frameworks on sharing knowledge for citizens mobilisation and empowerement. (state surveilance and censorship, emerging policy trends on Internet governance)
  • Big  Data from various sectors (health, finance, education) and how they  provide new insights and patterns into a brough range of social issues  that would otherwise be invisible
  • Ethical  considerations relevant to the increasing interest in Big Data (e.g.  privacy, right to information, concerns around de-humanisation).

Questions:

  • What   forms of production and what pathways of knowledge circulation are  necessary for and created through democratic  activism? How do these  knowledge creation processes differ in varying  local contexts? 
  • How  do these pathways  challenge  conventional explanations on the flows of  knowledge about  democracy?  (a focus empirically on what creates these  pathways and how  they are shifted)
  • What are the key actors and institutions in these processes, and what interests do they promote?
  • How  do the current and emerging legal and policy frameworks impact  knowledge production and communication? And how can citizen participate  in the policy making process? 
  • How are open forms of technology challenging/reinforcing discourses around democracy, particularly within political contexts? 
  • Are   there differences in the manifestations of the above in different   geo-political contexts, particularly between the Global South and the  North? 

Outputs:

Towards  the Development of a “Scholarly API” (Application Programming Interface)  for Collaborative Research on Knowledge, Technology and Democracy
  1. This  is intended to be a web-based resource for documenting existing and  emergent case studies on research and practices that illustrate aspects  of “Scholarly API” and their implications for collarative research on  networked activism and citizenship
  2. A  concept paper on the idea of “Scholarly API” will be developed by the  core members of this group, and the paper will be open to other CORD  members for input. It willl also be circulated widely to other  interested communities as the paper takes shape.
  3. The  site will also link to existing tools and potential tools that would  enable the kind of collaborative engagements outlined above.
  4. An extensive literature review of research on the areas identified – Openness, Big Data, Networked Social Movements – in order to identify recent theoretical developments and the empirical data that are currently available
    • This should also include a review of the literature on classifications of types and forms of knowledge.
    • The literature review will serve as a foundation for creating a conceptual map of key areas of research and approaches of existing or proposed CORD projects 
    • A  Living Literature Landscape: a visual output that layers the  concentration of approaches/ideas, geographical location and work that  is being done on thematic issues (possibly using ManyEyes or other data  visualisation software); using OpenAccess buttons; using open API to  incorporate data from other relevant sources
    • [practically  this will involve creating a template with appropriate categories that  will be completed through crowdsourcing and then aggregated]
    • All group members to conduct one or two  maps with activists (on how they gain awareness or consciousness about  their  rights, and what they need to act on this awareness. This would  also  involve the mapping of more fully the actors involved in   knowledge  production on democracy). The purpose of doing this would be to pilot these methods and potentially narrow down our focus, if necessary. 

Expected Timeline:

  • Web site setup and concept paper: Draft completed by end of July
  • Living literature review: Ongoing and to be completed by the next CORD meeting