ICT4D Research: Reflections on History and Future Agenda

"[T]o what extent are ICTs contributing to development, particularly that of the relatively poor members of society? How can we extend the benefits of ICTs more widely in society and mitigate the negative effects of rich/poor divides, for example? How can we as researchers theorize what is happening in a compelling way?"

Information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) research has a history going back some 30 years. This paper first provides some brief reflections on the history of the field, broken down into three phases - from the mid-1980s to the present day. This is followed by a detailed discussion of future research agenda, including topic selection, the role of theory, methodological issues and multidisciplinarity, and research impact. The final section draws some conclusions on the ICT4D field and its significance in the future.

Author Geoff Walsham discusses each period with respect to characteristic features, publication outlets, and some research achievements. In brief:

• Early beginnings: mid-1980s to mid-1990s - ICT4D research was carried out largely within the information systems (IS) field. A key event in this early history was the conference in New Delhi, India in 1988 on the "social implications of IS in developing countries". (This conference series has continued up to the present day.) Four themes included: (i) "context is important"; (ii) "participative and cooperative design"; "the need for indigenous development"; and "IT [information technology] is only one element of change efforts".
• Expanding horizons: mid-1990s to mid-2000s - The widespread availability and decreasing cost of technologies both increased the scope and range of ICT4D research in the IS field and marked the start of an interdisciplinary focus on ICT4D. Both of these features were mirrored in the history of publication outlets during this time. For example, this decade saw the 2003 arrival of the open-access journal Information Technologies and International Development (ITID), which is not an IS journal as such but, rather, is explicitly interdisciplinary in focus. Some issues explored in this time period included local adaptation and cultivation of ICTs, standardisation versus localisation of technology, and in-depth studies of particular technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS). This period also threw up a number of critiques of ICT4D research that remain relevant today. For example, What is the "development" to which ICT4D wishes to contribute?
• Proliferation: mid-2000s to present - There is little doubt that the mobile phone revolution has been a major contributory factor to the involvement of many disciplines in ICT4D research. With respect to conferences, a new arrival in the last decade is the ICTD (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) Conference. Its mission is explicitly interdisciplinary, and it attracts a large multidisciplinary audience, including a range of academics, practitioners, and policymakers. (However, Walsham (2013) reviewed the activities in the 2010 and 2012 conferences and raised some challenges for the field in the future. For example, many of the formal conference papers did not theorise development in any specific way or indeed refer to the term directly.) Research has seen, among other things, the issue of theorising what is meant by development in ICT4D research. One illustration of substantial ICT4D research which is interdisciplinary in nature, and addressed the critique from earlier eras that gender had been largely ignored in ICT4D research, is the work on African women and ICTs carried out by the GRACE network. Strong evidence is provided that mobile phones, for example, can empower women in a number of ways, such as enabling economic activity on their part. However, old male-dominated hierarchies persist, and the use of mobiles does not necessarily enhance the status of women in their communities. The GRACE network of researchers was coordinated by a cultural anthropologist and an academic who is trained in sociology and gender studies. However the 30 other researchers come from a kaleidoscope of backgrounds.

Following this history, Walsham reflects on the fact that many published papers normally say little if anything about the socio-political background that led them to selecting a particular topic. He opens up this "black box of topic selection" in 4 ways: (i) He discusses different disciplinary approaches to topic choice, noting that selection is deeply influenced by disciplinary background and that researchers need to be more aware of this bias. (ii) He examines some interesting current topics, such as: what is meant by development and how ICTs can contribute to it, gender and ICTs, and new ICT-enabled models (which Richard Heeks has referred to as "Development 2.0") - the latter topic of which raises questions such as: What is the nature of the socio-political transformation? Who benefits and who loses? Who is pushing particular approaches and why? What are the agenda of interested parties, such as aid agencies and commercial organisations, and how do these affect the processes that take place? (iii) He asks whether the ICT4D community is tackling "major" societal issues and, if not, what future work could be carried out. (iv) He explores 2 new developments in IS research, namely "big data" and "social media", to assess their relevance to ICT4D research.

Which theories are to be selected for particular topics and what do these offer to ICT4D research? A full answer to this question is beyond the scope of this short article. So, Walsham illustrates the role and value of theory in ICT4D research using 3 examples: (i) actor-network theory (ANT), which examines the motivations and actions of actors (taken to include both human beings and nonhuman actors, such as technological artifacts) who form elements, linked by associations, of heterogeneous networks; (ii) institutional theory, which offers a wide range of concepts and approaches to analyse institutional persistence and institutional change; (iii) the sustainable livelihoods framework, which includes elements such as: vulnerability context, livelihood assets, transforming structures and processes, livelihood strategies, and livelihood outcome. In each case, Walsham briefly summarises the theory, gives an empirical example of its use, and discusses the value, limitations, and future prospects of the theory. The aim is to provide some illustrative examples of the role and value of theory in ICT4D research as a template for other researchers choosing theory for their own topic.

Walsham describes the multidisciplinary nature of ICT4D research as "good in principle, allowing a wide range of approaches to flourish and offering complementary insights into the various phenomena being researched." However, he raises 2 questions in the next section of the paper: "First, how should different disciplines collaborate on ICT4D research, bearing in mind that they often differ radically in terms of chosen topics, theories used, methodological approaches, and research dissemination practices? Second, how should individual researchers deal with the dilemma that the academic world is often structured in disciplinary silos and that promotion and other reward systems tend to be conducted within these silos?"

The purpose of the following section is to discuss the issue of research impact more directly and ask the question as to what could be done in the future to enhance the impact of the ICT4D research field. Among the approaches discussed here to increase impact include:

• Unify the ICT4D field around a particular definition or ideology of development in order to provide coherence and critical mass around this shared agenda. The idea would be to allow different ideologies of development but make them more explicit.
• Develop a shared conceptual framework for the ICT4D field.
• Engage with user and policymaking communities - e.g., through communities of practice based on particular themes and issues.
• See ICTs as part of a bigger picture of development. "It could be that the most effective way for ICT4D researchers to achieve impact is, somewhat ironically, to play down the importance of ICTs in themselves but emphasize their role in multifaceted development approaches."

Walsham ends the paper with a few personal remarks about the ICT4D research field and its importance, and a brief comment to IS researchers in particular. He notes that, in the context of a world "of striking inequity, despite major advances in many areas including that of technology", ICT4D researchers have a role to play - but not as "experts" bringing top-down solutions to "beneficiaries". Rather, he says, "we should see ourselves as co-contributors with everyone else, since all people throughout the world have views about 'development' in their particular context." Walsham also argues that IS researchers need to adopt a "transdisciplinary perspective, seeing their contribution as potentially important but respecting and engaging with the perspectives from other disciplinary fields."