Abstract
This article focuses on the nature of scientific research in less developed areas in the context of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). We examine the notion that the internet will globalize the practice of science by creating connections between researchers from geographically dispersed areas. By altering the spatial and temporal mechanisms through which professional ties are developed and maintained, internet access and use in less developed areas may change the nature of knowledge production or simply reproduce traditional practices and relationships. The diffusion of the internet to Africa, Asia, and Latin America requires us to go beyond traditional views of development and technology transfer, to contemporary neo-institutional and reagency perspectives. The potential of the internet to globalize science, however, is largely dependent on the places and institutions in which it is used, as well as the identities of its users. Reviewing data collected in Africa and Asia since 1994, we summarize findings on access to and use of the internet and its impact on scientific productivity, collaboration, networking, and gender inequity.
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- 1.
The concept of reagency has been used on this project beginning in 2000 to describe the dual nature of connectivity, not only as a conventional development project (generating activities through innovations and funding from distant lands) but also as an interactive technology that changes the conditions for establishment and maintenance of social relations.
- 2.
These locations were selected by the Dutch organization that initially funded the project in 1993, the Advisory Council for Scientific Research in Development Problems.
- 3.
In 2005, we conducted another wave of the survey in Ghana, India, and Kenya, attempting to reach each member of the earlier survey for a true panel design. In addition, we conducted the study for the first time in South Africa, Chile, and the Philippines. However, these new locations have only been analyzed in a preliminary way.
- 4.
We measure orientation to career by asking respondents to report the number of years spent in developed areas for education or in general and the number of days spent away from their parent organization or the organization in which they are employed.
- 5.
Parayil (2005), for instance, demonstrates the way in which the information age has been marked by an increase rather than a decrease in inequality measured in terms of the income levels both within and between countries. Those countries and people able to produce and use knowledge, primarily scientific and technical knowledge, are in a dominant position compared to those unable to. He argues that this results from most people being left out of the information revolution, but concludes that this is caused by the political and economic context in which the internet is used not due to something inherent within the technology itself.
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Acknowledgments
This article presents results from a series of studies conducted between 1994 and 2002 in Kerala, Kenya, and Ghana funded by the Netherlands Development Assistance Research Council and the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0113545 (International Program; STS Program; Program on Information Technology Research).
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Miller, B.P. et al. (2009). Internet Reagency: The Implications of a Global Science for Collaboration, Productivity, and Gender Inequity in Less Developed Areas. In: Hunsinger, J., Klastrup, L., Allen, M. (eds) International Handbook of Internet Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9789-8_23
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